The goidelic languages are among the last surviving remnants of a celtic linguistic horizon which once spanned europe; at their height (c.400BCE to c.50BCE) the celtic culture and language ranged from Spain in the west to the shores of the black sea, with isolated enclaves as far afield as central anatolia. Though the celts were essentially a ( Read more... )

This really should have been the first entry:

The polite and proper word for the male reproductive organ, "penis," entered the english lexicon in the late 17th century (according to the OED) and displaced the native english word "yard" (which is a little over-optimistic by any standard). It is latin, although the original meaning was "tail," and ( Read more... )

The always-awesome Language Log gives us kyrpä as an offensive name for the penis in Finland. As the article explains, Finnish is a rare example of a language without many sex-based cuss words. In fact the lone example phrase cited, "kyrpä otsassa" (a person who has a "penis on his forehead"), refers simply to someone who is disgruntled. Bit of a ( Read more... )

Japanese is one of only two languages in the Japonic language family (the other being Ryukyuan). As yet, no one has found a plausible link between this language family and any other.

The word chimpo (alternatively chimpoko, chinko or, inverted, pokochin) seems to be the most socially correct way to refer to the penis (aside from the overly- ( Read more... )

The modern hebrew word for penis is "zayin," literally the letter in the hebrew alphabet corresponding to the "z" in English. Etymologically it seems to be related to a hebrew word for a weapon, a use still evident in the popular insult "Zayin b'ayin" (literally "a penis in your eye").

Ancient hebrew used the word "basar" which translates as "

Hawaiian is a polynesian language descended from Marquesic. One hawaiian word for the penis is "ule," which also means "to hang" or "to swing."