Mojns!
English translation: Hello! (dialectal), also "Oh, my!"
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| 12:29 Nov 18, 2007 |
| Latvian to English translations [PRO] General / Conversation / Greetings / Letters | |||||||
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|  Selected response from: dianastr Latvia | ||||||
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| 5 +1 | Hello! |
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| 5 | Hi! Chiao! |
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| 2 +1 | oh my! |
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| Discussion entries: 6 | |
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Answers
25 mins confidence: 
peer agreement (net): +1
peer agreement (net): +1oh my! Explanation: I just read the Wikipedia article and it looks like a case of popular etymology to me. As far as I know, "[nu] mojns!" has always been used in the sense of English "oh my!" and not as a greeting. The only etymology dictionary of Latvian by K. Karulis doesn't list the word. It seems very unlikely to me that it could be a late loan word. -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 39 mins (2007-11-18 13:09:07 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- Like I said, not that I know. Nobody does know every words though. Might be a regional thing etc. |
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19 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): +1
peer agreement (net): +1Hello! Explanation: It is a very slangish word for "hello". It wouldn't usually be used in fiction, media or any other official or semi-official writings. -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 33 mins (2007-11-18 13:02:44 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- An sms or an e-mail to close friends, who have good sense of humour, would be OK. Definetely not your teachers or shop-keepers, unless they are close friends or perhaps relatives of yours. It is used more frequently by younger people rather than by older. But overall, I wouldn't encourage using it at all in writing. In speech it would be OK - but again - with very well-known people. Instead of "mojns", I would suggest "sveiki" (if several people are greeted or if you wish to refer to someone more politely than not), "sveiks" (when addressing a male), or "sveika" (when addressing a female). -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 hr (2007-11-18 13:33:07 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- According to the wikipedia article (and it in part corresponds with my ideas about the subject matter), has derived from the Northern part of Germany, Southern Denmark and Eastern part of the Netherlands. It also says that it has derived from the Frisian dialect as follows: mooi (beautiful) and moin (day) --> the greeting used to be "moin, moin", which over the time has lost one of the stems, thus becoming simply "moin". I don't believe, however am not certain and cannot justify my opinion about the guess of the term having derived from Finnish or Swedish languages. -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 hr (2007-11-18 13:36:50 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- Evija, still - it might not be frequently used in some parts of Latvia or by certain people, but it is rather widely used in Kurzeme (I am absolutely certain about it) and not only there. And of course - it is not a literary term. But it is definitely used as a greeting. -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 2 hrs (2007-11-18 14:31:20 GMT) -------------------------------------------------- In my opinion, the "oh my" meaning of the word is derived from the same word - I have a vague idea of how it has derived: a close equivalent of "oh, my" and "oh, dear" in Latvian is "ak, manu dieniņ", "oh, my day" (in word by word translation), and, as we can see, the same stem - "day" - appears in this expression. It is, however, only a guess. |
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2 days 11 hrs confidence:
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