Lost in Translation Maps: What Europe Calls Dandelions, Rain and French Toast

Ten maps of what Europe calls things, translated word for word, from dandelions and heavy rain to black eyes, French toast and the Danish pastry, which Denmark names after Vienna.

What Europe calls a dandelion, translated

Map of Europe showing what each language calls a dandelion, translated: lion's tooth, wet the bed, little monk, butter flower

The English name comes from the French dent de lion, a lion’s tooth, and the German Löwenzahn means the same. The French themselves now say pissenlit, from pisse en lit, after the plant’s diuretic effect, and in Polish it’s a little monk.

Sources: Wiktionary, dandelion, Löwenzahn, pissenlit, mniszek.

What it rains in each country instead of cats and dogs

Nobody knows where raining cats and dogs comes from. In France it rains ropes, in Spain jugs, in the Netherlands pipe stems and in Norway angry hags.

Sources: Wikipedia, Raining cats and dogs, Wiktionary, pleuvoir des cordes, llover a cántaros, rain cats and dogs.

What each country says instead of 'when pigs fly'

Russians wait for a crayfish to whistle on a mountain, Danes for a week with two Thursdays in it, and Albanians for the 36th of August.

This map has its own post: What each country says instead of 'when pigs fly'.

Source: Wikipedia, List of idioms of improbability.

What you sleep like in each country

Map of Europe showing what people sleep like in each country: a log, a marmot, a dormouse, a stone, with China sleeping like a dead pig

The English sleep like a log, and so do the Swedes, Finns and Spanish. Germans and Italians sleep like a marmot, and in Mandarin you sleep like a dead pig.

Source: Wiktionary, sleep like a log (translations).

What countries call leaving a party without saying goodbye

Map of Europe showing who each country blames for leaving a party without saying goodbye: the English, the French or the Irish

English speakers call it French leave, first recorded in 1751, and the French call it filer à l’anglaise, leaving English style. Italians and Poles blame the English too, while Americans call it an Irish goodbye.

Source: Wikipedia, French leave.

It's all Greek to me: who each language says it can't understand

Map of Europe showing which language each country says it can't understand: Chinese, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Spanish villages

The English version is Shakespeare’s, from Julius Caesar. Germans say it’s Bohemian villages to them, Czechs say Spanish villages, Danes say pure Volapük, a language invented in 1879, and in Mandarin it’s Martian.

Sources: Wiktionary, it’s all Greek to me, Wikipedia, Volapük.

What colour a black eye is in each country

Map of Europe showing what each country calls a black eye: black, blue, purple, black butter eye or a horseshoe

The French have had a black butter eye since at least 1585, Icelanders get an embers eye, and Spanish and Portuguese speakers get a purple one.

This map has its own post: What colour a black eye is in each country.

Sources: Expressio, un oeil au beurre noir, Wiktionary, black eye.

What Germany's neighbours call Germany

Map of Europe showing what each country calls Germany: Deutschland, Allemagne, Germania, Niemcy, Saksa and others

Germany calls itself Deutschland, from an old word meaning of the people. France and Spain named it after the Alemanni tribe, Finland after the Saxons, and the Polish Niemcy comes from a word for speechless.

Source: Wikipedia, Names of Germany.

What Danish pastries are called in Denmark

Map of Europe showing what Danish pastries are called: Vienna bread in Denmark and the Nordics, Copenhagener in Austria

In Denmark, Norway and Sweden it’s wienerbrød, Vienna bread. The usual story is that Danish bakeries hired Austrian bakers during a strike in 1850. In Austria it’s a Kopenhagener.

Source: Wikipedia, Danish pastry.