WotD: banter

[muckefuck]

1. das (Wort)Geplänkel, die Spöttelei
2. het geplaag, de badinage
3. la guasa, la broma
4. la broma
5. la badinage
6. an ráisteachas
7. y cellwair, y cymŵedd
8. przekomarzanie
9. 농담 (弄談)
10. 戲謔 xìxuè
11. 冗談 ( じょうだん)

Notes: An especially tricky one given what a culturally-bound concept this is. People from the same society can't agree on where the line is between good-natured jesting and outright mockery, and its position varies based on time, place, degree of intimacy, and so forth. Terms tend to shade into those which mean simply "speaking informally" without the connotations of messing about and those which mean "joking" without the implication of a good-natured exchange.

The German terms illustrate the tension nicely. In a military context, Geplänkel means "skirmish". Spötteln is in origin a diminutive of spotten "mock" and only a single consonant distinguishes Spöttelei from Spötterei "mockery". Not surprising that Dutch simply lifts the French word. For Spanish, Wiktionary gives as equivalents charla and plática but in my experience these correspond to "chat", with no raillery implied.

Comments

[stiobhan.livejournal.com]

The Japanese 冗談, to my nonnnative ear, seems very one-way -- simply "joke" or "teasing."
A better fit might be からかい合い, deverbal from からかい合う (からかう "tease" + 合う "do mutually").
It's not hard to imagine contexts where simply やり取り or even せめぎ合い would work.