WotD: ransom

[muckefuck]

1. das Lösegeld
2. het losgeld
3. el rescate
4. el rescat
5. la rançon
6. y pridwerth
7. an fhuascailt
8. 몸값
9. 贖金 shújīn

Comments

[pne.livejournal.com]

Has the formal you become part of people's natural language? ISTR reading that it was, at least in origin, "translationese" (like kare in Japanese) and rather artificial.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I don't know much about its origins beyond the fact that it's a contraction of 你們 nǐmen, clearly paralleled by 俺 ǎn from 我們 wǒmen and 怹 tān from 他們 tāmen (neither of which have an equivalent in most European languages). 俺 is only used as a dialectal form of 我, but 怹 is still a polite pronoun, albeit even more limited in use than 您.