Tickling in 26 languages

Over the years, I collected the equivalent words for "tickle" in several languages. There may be more important words to learn first, but certainly not for us… 🙂

European:

Czech: lechtat (-ish: lechtivy)
Dutch: kietelen
Finnish: kutitaa
French: chatouiller
German: kitzeln (-ish: kitzlig, noun: der Kitzel or das Kitzeln)
Greek: gargalisma
Hungarian: csiklandoz
Italian: solleticare (noun: il solletico)
Polish: laskotac
Portuguese: cocegar (noun: cocegas)
Romanian: gadilat
Russian: shtshekotat (-ish: shtshekotlivy)
Serbo-Croatian: golicati
Spanish: cosquillear, (-ish: cosquilloso/a, noun: la cosquilla)
Swedish: kittla
Turkish: gycyklanmak

Asian:

Arabian: daghdagh (gh is pronounced like the French 'r')
Bahasa Indonesia: menggelitik
Farsi (Persian): qelqelak
Hindi: gudagudana
Japanese: kusuguri (-ish: kusugutai)
Vietnamese: danh ta

Exotic:

Hawaiian: ho'omane'one'o (-ish: mane'o) (each vowel is pronounced separately)
Innuit (Eskimo): quieaqtuq
Maori: noenoe (each vowel is pronounced separately)
Swahili: kumtekenya

Wherever necessary, I used the English transcription. Many languages use our letters, but not all the correct accents are supported by vBulletin.

Additions and corrections welcome. I still need Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), Iwrit, and Korean, for example. Now, you're able to tickle most of the world (at least verbally)! 🙂

Quiero cosquillear sobre todo el cuerpo de una chica bonita!
(I want to tickle all over the body of a beautiful girl!)😀

Hal, I recently met a Slavatkian (spelling?) girl who, after gasping for air and holding out her hands to fight me off said that "Tickle" in her language was Shtiklet (with the 'e' said as a long 'e' sound)

It's nice to know that people from many countries can communicate without the language barrior. 🙂

Max

Hal,

Now, if you can only find out the translation of the word into Esperanto, we won't have to memorize all the others! 😎

I KNEW some one had this list! Thx Hal. Add these: In the Philippines there's about a thousand different dialects, one for each region...Out of these, I know Tickle in 3

Tagalog: kiliti (ticklish: kilitiin)

Visaya: gitik (ticklish is also gitik)

Chavacano: calam

As w/the Hawaiian, each vowel is pronounced separately...Thus when asking a Filipina if she's ticklish, say "Keeleetee-een ako ba?"

Rxx

Thanks a lot for your contributions to my collection, folks!

SuperTickler, I looked up the word in Esperanto: 'tikli'. I just can't find a flight there to find out if the Esperanto women are ticklish... 😀

tkrexx, great find! Many Filipinas seem to be ticklish! Max, thanks for the Slovakian word. With your help I was able to look it up in a Slovak-German dictionary (which is useless in the other direction), and I found it: 'shteklit'.

And somebody mailed me the Chinese characters for 'tickle'. I spent several hours buried in my 10 lbs/1200-pages dictionary to decipher them: 'sao(1)yang(3)'. The numbers in brackets indicate the tone which is essential for the meaning. And my eyes are aching now, as the book is in extremely small print; there are more than 20 single strokes in a space of 3x3 mm. Chinese dictionaries are a punishment for non-Chinese! I think I'd rather stick to Esperanto...

I still need Korean, Cantonese, and Iwrit, please!

<<I still need Korean, Cantonese, and Iwrit, please!>>

The characters for any chinese would be the same for Mandarin or Cantonese. I happened to have studied the Chinese language. I remember Tickling to be "Go-Jehr" in Mandarin. If you have a Mandarin dictionary you might want to check that one out.

Max

Similar to my work! 🙂

I don't know if you remember, but in old Tickle Town Page was my Tickle Dictionary - word tickle in over 50 languages ... I'll repost as soon as I find the file.

ansuz, you mean to say I have travelled all over the world and spent countless hours in libraries when I could just have logged into the internet to find twice as many expressions for 'tickle'? My life was completely wasted! 😀

in Hebrew it's digdoog (emphasis on the second syllable)

Hebrew, Russian

Hebrew : digdoog.

The punctiation is on the last syllable but don't make it too long or it will sound wierd.

No easy word for ticklish.

You have got russian "to tickle". Which is spelled schekotat rather than shtshekotat.

Pronounce sch as sh+ch or german Sch.

Tickle/tickling is infact Schekotka or some form like it.

Israeli Friend
Are you the one I talked to on the previous forum about making a site?
Where are you from?
Haifa myself.

Shalom al Israel.
Digdoog naim 🙂

No, you couldn't

You copuldn't, because Oblesklk site is down for more than a year. My TK dictionary was in the last update alongside with two Steffi Graf could-be-tickle pics. Took me two years to complete this so I perfectly understand your feelings. Basically it was done by checking and cross checking dictionaries. For start I knew The word in Polish, English, Russian and German. Soon I checked Spanish and French ones. That was enough. If there was no Polish - Something dictionary I used one of the other languages. The only difficulty was when there was no transcription from a strange alphabet into Latin or Russian. In more exotic languages I am not sure if the form presented means "to tickle" or "tickling" or whatever and I could be mistaken by some idioms like "ticklish situation" or something, so please feel free to correct me.Here you are:
Tickle dictionary

Notes of pronaunciation: t' - like t in tears, but a bit shorter softening. C' - like in Italian "ciao". L' - like English w. I also transcripted Russian alphabet into Latin one.

1. Afrikaans - kiele
2. Albanian - gudulisur, kilikosur
3. Belarussian - kazytat'
4. Bengalese - katukutu dewa
5. Bulgarian - gdelichkam, skokot
6. Buli - lugsi
7. Catalonian - pesigollejar
8. Chineese - sao
9. Czech - lechtati
10. Danish - kildre
11. Dutch - kittelen
12. English - tickle
13. Esperanto - kittli
14. Estonian - kodi
15. Ewenk - nimurjwkandiemni
16. Finnish - kutitaa
17. Flamand - ketelen
18. French - chatouille
19. German - kitzeln
20. Greek - gargaliso
21. Hungarian - csiklandoz
22. Icelandish - kitla
23. Italian - solleticare
24. Japaneese - kusuguru
25. Korean - kangirida
26. Latin - titillare
27. Latvian - kutet
28. Lithuanian - kutenti
29. Macedionian - skokotanije
30. Madagascarian - manitikitika
31. Malay - geli
32. Moldavian - gidili
33. Mongolian - gidgik l'aj
34. Norwegian - kile
35. Penjab - kutkutari
36. Polish - l'askotac'
37. Portugeese - fazer cocegas
38. Pushtu - technawel'
39. Romanian - gidlatura
40. Russian - shchekotat'
41. Serbo-Croatian - golicati
42. Slovakian - s'teklit'
43. Slovenian - s'c'egetati
44. Spanish - cosquillas
45. Suahili - tekenya
46. Swedish - kittla
47. Tadjik - kitik
48. Tatar - kitik lai
49. Tibetanian - kit si
50. Turkish - gidiklamak
51. Turkmenian - gijik lamak
52. Ukrainian - l'oskotati
53. Uzbek - kitiklamok
54. Vietnameese - cu
55. Yidish - kitslen

Just because I'm an utter Geek and Fanboy, I supply these two:

Klingon: qotlh (Prounounced something like "kho-tle", but with more back-of-the-throat phlegmmy sounds.) Interestingly, it is similar to the Klingon word for "disable," which is Qotlh (Pronounced as above, but with the Q representing a throat-rasping loogie-hacking sound)

Tenctonese: dugga (Revealed in the novelisation of the Alien Nation TV Movie Dark Horizon but not in the actual film.)

Klingons are ticklish??? Who'da thunk...