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Do any languages have words for left & right that start with the same letter?

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Acamon@lemmy.world
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And if so, how do they label headphones, contact lenses etc?

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allywilson@sopuli.xyz
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Chinese I think?

  • Left - Zuǒbiān
  • Right - zhèngquè de

Not sure if that counts, considering it’s using the Latin alphabet and the language is tonal, etc.

EDIT: and Ilocano:

  • Left - kannigid
  • Right - kusto

EDIT2: and Indonesian:

  • Left - kiri
  • Right - Kanan

EDIT3: and Irish:

  • Left - chlé
  • Right - ceart

Going to stop now. I’m literally just choosing languages in google translate.

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Nefrayu@lemmy.world
48 points

Ah the dangers of Google translate and synonyms. You got the wrong definition for right when translating to Irish, the one you have means correct, deis is the word for right (direction). Clé is left, the h appears in certain contexts for grammatical reasons.

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FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
8 points

you know… I’m kinda surprise Google Translate hasn’t caused WW3 yet.

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chatokun@lemmy.dbzer0.com
3 points

Sorta the concept behind Twisted Translations, previously known as Google Translate Sings. Though they are intentionally getting a bad result by feeding the Translations through several languages before coming back to English.

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Twentytwodividedby7@lemmy.world
2 points

Seems like if OP would have translated “turn” and then left or right, it would’ve gotten closer

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Thavron@lemmy.ca
4 points

Amazingly, the Dutch version of SharePoint has made this mistake. There is an option, I believe when making columns on a page or something, for “Links” (left) and “Goed” (right/correct).

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ZapSNH@lemmy.world
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There’s also Filipino:

  • left - kaliwa
  • right - kanan

also we use L and R for things because we speak English too.

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ylph@lemmy.world
17 points

Chinese is also not right - 正确的 (zhèngquè de) means “proper”

Left and Right as the sides are 左 (zuǒ) and 右 (yòu) - you can also add 邊 (biān) to each which means “side” to be more explicit, but they are also used separately in many contexts where the left/right meaning is needed.

The Chinese characters for 左 and 右 actually originated as pictograms of the left and right hand in the early forms of Chinese writing, but later forms both contain general “hand” component (𠂇) with components 工 and 口 added for differentiation

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