[Request] Strange request for those who speak foreign languages

[Dannysaysnoo]

I need someone two people who can speak a language other than English, or someone who can speak three languages. i'm writing a story and need to know 'good' and 'evil' in two different languages.

[Suwako]

dutch;

Goed (good)
Kwaad (evil)

[Dannysaysnoo]

Good, thanks, keep em coming. if this story ever goes as far as it might, it will be extremely useful for alot of languages.

Not that you probably want to know, but my story is about a Angel and a Devil, so i thought if their names were 'Good and 'Evil', it'd be a bit of a laugh. If i know it in a bunch of languages, they could have multiple aliases.

i know it could have been done by a translator, but i hate them, and they hate me, and what if it broke anf gave me a screaming obscenity?

[Suwako]

i know it could have been done by a translator, but i hate them, and they hate me, and what if it broke anf gave me a screaming obscenity?

Hmm, well your sort of right, anyway since it's hard to identify what the correct translation would be anyway, since good in English and many other languages means a lot of different things, So I guess this method would be superior  

[Dannysaysnoo]

you put it well, also, it gives me a chance to thank people when i DO write it.

i had an idea of alternating narratives between Goh-Edd and Key-Wad, what do you think?

[Suwako]

you put it well, also, it gives me a chance to thank people when i DO write it.

i had an idea of alternating narratives between Goh-Edd and Key-Wad, what do you think?

It's your story  So do what you would like to do

[Sid]

They're "gut" and "böse" in German. And no, you don't pronounce the "gut" as you would in English

[Faerie Alex]

Interesting. Certainly unique names.

In regards to the original question, I could contribute a bit of Latin:
good: bonus, bona, bonum (masculine/feminine/neuter forms)
can't remember evil...but i do remember-
bad: malus, mala, malum (m/f/n)
And if I remember correctly, those are the adjective forms, btw.

[Dannysaysnoo]

Thanks to everyone whos helped me, i think i might start writing soon, but don't expect a masterpiece!

[Netrogo]

I know french if that'll help. Also you might want to try http://babelfish.altavista.com/

[Dannysaysnoo]

Thanks net, ill be posting the first chapter in a week, if i can get motivated, anyone seen my Motivation Wand?

[Fuyudenki]

Adenphios and Phaedra mean "Dark" and "Light," respectively, but I forget which language they're from.

The words are for the names of the swords one of my characters uses, and were inspired by Kanshyoo and Bakuya, from Fate Stay-Knight.(those swords were named after a legend about a blacksmith and his wife.)

[edit]Sienna would have given you a "motivation wand" when you arrived.  She pulled it from a plothole.[/edit]

[Dannysaysnoo]

Raist, i've listed your in an independent language called 'raist-ese'.

If i use any of these in my story, credit will be given.

[Fuyudenki]

I think they're Gaelic, actually.  Look them up on www.behindthename.com

[edit]Nope, Phaedra is Greek.  Adenphios wasn't the name I found, it was "Melanthios," which is also Greek.  Apparently, I made Adenphios up, myself.  Similar to Arythina.  Neither Adenphios, nor Arythina, actually means anything, as of yet.[/edit]

[Tezkat]

Hmm... neat idea. I regularly draw on foreign languages for names in my own writing as well. I even went kinda overboard on one of my Tezkat backstories and spent weeks studying Classical Nahuatl for the sake of a few names.


If you need a little more variety...

French and Spanish

Good - Bien
Evil - Mal

In noun form, these would usually be prefixed with the appropriate article, by the way: Le Bien/Le Mal and El Bien/El Mal, respectively. Spanish in particular has a tradition of giving people nicknames like that.

Japanese and Chinese

Good - 善 (Pronounced "zen" in Japanese and "shàn" in Mandarin)
Evil - 悪 (Pronounced "aku" in Japanese and "è" in Mandarin)

I think those are the closest equivalents to Western concepts of Good and Evil in a form that could be used as a name. I suppose I could look up the Cantonese and Korean readings of the characters, but I'm lazy.

[Dannysaysnoo]

Tezkat, are those french and spanish ones the same?

[Tezkat]

The words are spelled the same in both languages, yes. As you can see from the Latin roots, they're going to be very similar in all Romance languages. (I believe it's "bene" and "male" in Italian, for instance.)

[Dannysaysnoo]

Thanks for the clearing up, ill add you to the credits if i use them, but their primary names will probably be Dutch, for the fact that aiyno was the first reply.

[techmaster-glitch]

I have a friend from Russia. I think 'horoshyo' (I almost certainly spelled it wrong), or something like that, means 'good' in Russian.

[Dannysaysnoo]

I have a friend from Russia. I think 'horoshyo' (I almost certainly spelled it wrong), or something like that, means 'good' in Russian.

Do you think you could ask him for me?

[Tezkat]

Thanks for the clearing up, ill add you to the credits if i use them, but their primary names will probably be Dutch, for the fact that aiyno was the first reply.

You're quite welcome. Anything to share my obsession with languages...

I'm kinda partial to the Dutch versions, myself. I guess they sound more exotic to me because that's a language I haven't really studied yet. ("Aku" is way overused thanks to all the videogame villains. )

[techmaster-glitch]

No problem. You'll have to wait until tomorrow, though.

[Dannysaysnoo]

Thanks for the clearing up, ill add you to the credits if i use them, but their primary names will probably be Dutch, for the fact that aiyno was the first reply.

You're quite welcome. Anything to share my obsession with languages...

I'm kinda partial to the Dutch versions, myself. I guess they sound more exotic to me because that's a language I haven't really studied yet. ("Aku" is way overused thanks to all the videogame villains. )

never really heard of 'Aku', but sunds not that bad for a villain 

No problem. You'll have to wait until tomorrow, though.

No problem, i can wait all day! and maybe night.

[Faerie Alex]

never really heard of 'Aku', but sunds not that bad for a villain 

It's all been dooooone befooooore...
("It's All Been Done" -Barenaked Ladies)

Just lettin' ya' know.

[Fuyudenki]

yeah... so I went back, and actually checked the names I mentioned, and modified my post.

But then, I remembered, nobody reads old posts.

Adenphios is not a word, it's a name I made up myself.  Melanthios is the name I was thinking of.

Melanthios and Phaedra are both greek.  Melanthios is male, and means "black," Phaedra is female, and means "light."  Adenphios does not mean anything.

Just wanted to make sure that got cleared up.

[Suwako]

Thanks for the clearing up, ill add you to the credits if i use them, but their primary names will probably be Dutch, for the fact that aiyno was the first reply.

I'm kinda partial to the Dutch versions, myself. I guess they sound more exotic to me because that's a language I haven't really studied yet.

Goed is almost pronounced to same as Good in English, except the D is pronounced as a T and probably has more stress on it 


Kwaad on the other hand 

[Tezkat]

Heh... yeah, I guess a lot of the Germanic languages are gonna be similar as well. Some of these things do sound a bit less exotic when you say them out loud...

Since I mentioned studying the language earlier... the Nahuatl Cualli ("good") is actually used as a given name today. Amocualli (literally "not good") is the word used for evil in religious texts for dialects of Nahuatl closest to the classical version I studied. However, it's my understanding the Aztecs didn't quite have the polarized philosophical concept of good and evil until the Spanish imported Christianity. Their preconquest notion of evil may have been better reflected by a word like Tlazolli (literally "filth", but it had strong connotations of immorality and impurity--being out of balance with what is good and pure). I can't claim to be a fluent speaker of Nahuatl by any stretch of the imagination, though.

[King Of Hearts]

In Filipino...

Kabutihan - Goodness

Kasamaan - Evilness

the root words would be Buti and Sama.

[Dannysaysnoo]

Once again, thanks to everyone who has bothered to help a moron such as i, i am truly grateful!

[techmaster-glitch]

Ah. Finally got to my Russian buddy, and he wrote down the words for me. First he wrote them down in some strange and most definately non-English cursive text, which I can only assume is Russian writing, then wrote the words in English.

They are,
Good= Horosho
Evil= Ploha