Happy New Year!

[underused]

Hello, all.

This is just a quick note to wish everyone a happy new year. With one thing and another, I've been a bit absent the last month, but I wanted to say how much I enjoy posting here and reading your thoughts about the words and ideas we share.

THANK YOU.

Here's to more interesting, wordy business in 2018!

Comments

[merikuru]

Words! All the words!

Perhaps we should compile a list of ways to say Happy New Year in different languages!

[underused]

I'm in!

In German, my family would say "Frohes neues Jahr." Literally "happy new year." (There are other versions of this regionally, but this is a pretty standard one.)

There was also "Silvesterabend." (The Silvester in question is St. Sylvester and "abend" is evening.) That's how my mom would refer to NYE, but I never understood why until I got older. (In retrospect, it was kind of weird I never asked.) As a kid, all I could picture was...

[merikuru]

Ha! :D

Offhand I know Japanese, あけましておめでとう (akemashite omedetou - from akeru, "to begin", and omedetou being a general term of congratulations) and Chinese, 恭喜發財 (gōng xǐ fā cái - literally two terms meaning "congratulations" and "become rich", so it basically implies a wish of prosperity for the new year.) I also used to know Indonesian, but that one's slipped my mind in the preceding years.

[underused]

I like the imperative tone of "BECOME RICH." If you insist!

I want to say there's a Scottish new year wish-- "lang may yer lum reek" --which has something to do with a wishing you always have a fire in your hearth. I think. My partner's dad was a Scot, so we have a lot of coffee mugs and tee shirts with weird expressions on them. It can be hard to remember what is for which. ☺

[merikuru]

I wouldn't protest it either!

That sounds familiar, yes. The Scots language is so interesting! One moment you're traipsing merrily along familiar language and then all of a sudden it's like you've fallen down the rabbit hole into some other world completely. I love it.