If You Need A Friend... Trivia Quiz

Answer: Japanese

Tomodachi is the Japanese word for friend. It is very general in that is does not distinguish between a more casual relationship and a close friend (much like the English word 'friend'!). A close friend is a "shin-yu" (and slight variations of this presentation of the Kanji into the English alphabet).

Answer: Maori

"Hoa" is a very generic Maori word which encompasses a wide variety of different types of friend from casual to spouse. Hoa is frequently qualified by a second word providing that additional information. e.g. "hoa wahine" for girlfriend, "hoa pai" for good/best friend. There are also tribal and regional differences in usage. My thanks to Kiwi team-mate psnz for advice on this i.i.!

Answer: Swahili

If the word 'Rafiki' sounds familiar to you, you either speak Swahili - a major African language especially in Kenya and Tanzania - or you've watched the 'Lion King'! Although sometimes confused as a baboon, Rafiki (the Swahili word for friend) is actually a mandrill, the colorfully-faced largest monkey on earth. Being called a rafiki is undoubtedly a good experience, but not so much if anyone refers to you as pumba (the warthog in the same movie) which again comes from Swahili and means 'dull-witted'!

Answer: Ukrainian

The Ukrainian word for friend in the Latin (or English) alphabet is 'Druh'. It is pronounced as either 'droo' rhyming with the English 'threw' or as 'droog' but with very little of the final hard 'g' sound. This word and its pronunciation are very similar to the Russian (pronounced as 'drook'). Those of you who have watched, or perhaps read, "A Clockwork Orange" may recall Alex's violent gang, the 'Droogs'. Both words and very similar variations in several other languages in this region (e.g. Bulgarian, Macedonian, Belarusian) arise from a common origin in proto-Slavic, proto-Balto-Slavic and proto-Indo-European languages. I started looking into the differences but that quickly became a very large rabbit-hole!

Answer: Norwegian

The Norwegian word for friend, venn, can be used for either gender, whereas venninne refers specifically to a female friend. Like many of the words in this quiz, the etymology of venn is complex and comes from the Old Norse 'vinr' ("friend"), with links to proto- and pre-Germanic as well as proto-Indo-European. Venn is similar to the Danish word 'ven' and the Swedish 'vän'; perhaps unsurprising given the commonality of language origins.

Answer: Croatian

Prijatelj means 'male friend' in Croatian as well as Serbian and Slovenian. The word came from proto-Slavic, and from the proto-Indo-European word for 'dear'. A female friend is a prijateljica.

Answer: Latin

Amicus is the male, singular, nominative word for friend. The nominative case is the subject of the sentence. There are different forms of the base word depending on case, gender and singular/plurality. For example amica and amicum are the feminine and neuter singular, nominative words, respectively.

The English words amicable and amity are derived from amicus, whereas amiable has a different origin.

Answer: German

'Freundin' is the German word for a female friend. This may be used in both platonic and amorous contexts. 'Freund' is the equivalent male version. A common way to distinguish the nature of the relationship is 'a girlfriend' (eine Freundin) is platonic whereas 'my girlfriend' (meine Frendin) reflects a romantic involvement. That 'm' in the first word is very important!

Answer: Afrikaans

Like many languages (but not English), the Afrikaans word for friend depends on the gender of that friend. 'Vriend' is a male friend while 'vriendin' is a female friend. Vriend is also the Dutch word for friend; this is unsurprising given that Afrikaans is derived largely from a mixture of Zulu and Dutch, the latter coming from Dutch colonization of South Africa during the 17th and 18th centuries.

Answer: Estonian

Estonian is quite different from most languages in that region of Europe and has some similarity with Finnish and Hungarian. Sõber is likely derived from the proto-Finnic 'sëpra', which means friend. According to writer and blogger, Justin Petrone, an Estonian sõber implies a little more than the English word friend, in that the sõber might expect more from the relationship in terms of help and responsibility. An interesting perspective of perhaps dubious veracity!