WotD: Bless you!

[muckefuck]

1. Gesundheit!
2. gezondheid!
3. ¡Jesús!
4. Salut!, Jesús!
5. à vos/tes souhaits!
6. rhad arnat ti/arnoch chi, bendith y Tad
7. Dia leat!, Dia linn!
8. [no equivalent]
9. (一)百歲 (yī)bǎisuì

Notes: 1. Also used by speakers of American English, even those with no German heritage nor knowledge of German.
3. Humourous variation for a sequence of three sneezes: ¡Jesús, María y José! For only two sneezes, one can further say ¡Jesús, María, José se quedó en la carpintería! ("Jesus, Mary, and Joseph stayed in the carpenter's shop.")
9. lit. "(one) hundred years!" Said only when a child sneezes; adult sneezes are politely ignored.

Comments

[bwillsouth.livejournal.com]

One thing that entertains me about the use of Gesundheit in the States is that the pronunciation in AmEng is almost dead-on. Not that it's a very difficult word for English phonology anyway, but they even get the [U] in gesund instead of [@]! If only those stops would be released it'd be nearly identical.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I usually hear /gə'zʊn.tait/ instead of /gə'zʊnt.hait/, but you're right that overall it is freakily close to the Standard German pronunciation.

[bwillsouth.livejournal.com]

You're right that it's usually /zUn.tait/, but that's really the only major anglicization and historically probably largely a result of the stop not being released like it is in German. That kind of curtails the poor /h/'s chances of getting articulated.

I wager there are other, reasonably well-preserved relics like this as well, even other German ones, in American English.

[fainic-thu-fein.livejournal.com]

Dia linn! a d'fhoghlaim mé féin freisin ach is minice i bhfad a chloistear dia leat!. Sin beag beann ar chanúint, de réir mo thaithíse.

[donncha22.livejournal.com]

Is fearr liom "Dia linn!" Bíodh an bheannacht uileghabhálach a deirim. :-) Nuair a bheannaíonn duine amháin do dhaoine eile in Hawai'i, "Aloha kâkou" a deirtear, rud a chiallaíonn "aloha dúinn uilig", ní "aloha daoibh".

Maidir le "bless you", "Kihe a mauli ola!" a deir siad, nó "Ola!" (= beatha) leis féin.

[gorkabear.livejournal.com]

Algo muy divertido es como mi madre dice "¡jesús!"... "Je..........sús", imitando el estornudo.

[lustronheloise.livejournal.com]

Hm. I learned Salud! Dinero! Amor!

[donncha22.livejournal.com]

On a quelque chose comme ça en français: "À tes souhaits" au premier éternuement, puis "à tes amours" la seconde fois, et enfin "qu'elles durent toujours" s'il y en a un troisième.

[pne.livejournal.com]

I sometimes say "PX!" /pe:?Iks/, which I claim is Bavarian for "Pleib xund/g'sund".

[peredur-glyn.livejournal.com]

I've not heard (6), though it sounds plausible. What you almost always hear, however, is just "Bendith!" ('a blessing').

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

According to the GyA, "Bendith y mamau!" is an archaic Southern variant. That's how you get someone to stop sneezing? By siccing the Tylwyth Teg on him?

[peredur-glyn.livejournal.com]

That's the Southies for you.

[germaniac-z.livejournal.com]

Do you know if there is a word said in any culture when someone coughs?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I don't recall ever coming across such a thing. When I was a child, I asked my father, "If you say 'God bless you' when someone sneezes, what do you say when someone coughs." And he said, "I dunno, 'God damn you'?" Always a joker, my dad!

[germaniac-z.livejournal.com]

Well. I just say Gesundheit and try and deal with the strange looks people give me, though contextually it's a perfect fit!
God damn you would be really funny. But either sneeze or cough, the best solution is to whip out your gas mask and say, "IN DECKUNG!!!"

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

I often wondered why we said "Gesundheit" in my family since we didn't have German ancestry. Then I found that we *did* have German ancestry.

But that probably doesn't account for it.

I explained "Gesundheit" to a Mexican immigrant fluent in English (but lacking some of our idioms).