The Many Kinds of Laughter
July 29, 2014
Is there anything better than laughter?
(Ice cream? Diamonds? Whatever, it was meant to be a rhetorical question.)
I recently learned that Marathi, an Indian language with over 40 million speakers, has at least eight different words to describe laughter:
Khudukhudu: The soft giggles of young children
Phidiphid: Raucous, almost obscene laughter
Hyahya: Polite laughter
Phisphis: Mocking laughter
Khadakhada: The loud laughter of children
Khaskhas: Mild chuckles
Khokho: Guffawing that is loud and rowdy
Khikhi: Laughing like a horse
EIGHT DIFFERENT WORDS. I love that.
Especially that last one.
(Photo of the lady with the world’s most amazing sunglasses via The Sartorialist.)
Warning: count(): Parameter must be an array or an object that implements Countable in /nfs/c12/h06/mnt/215923/domains/helloimflawed.com/html/wp-includes/class-wp-comment-query.php on line 405
2 Comments
I love how each word sounds like the kind of laughter that it’s referring to!