Or...A rabbit by any other name is still a rabbit.



Welcome to the new and improved webpage giving you the word for "rabbit" in different languages. We've had many submissions and updates to the original page, and through the guidance of a local linguist we've regrouped the way that the languages are displayed. We hope that you enjoy the new layout that better shows the similarities between languages in various families.



A note on organization



Languages have now been listed alphabetically according to language family. A language family is a group of languages which derive from a common mother language. For instance, many of the languages of Europe, West Asia, and the Subcontinent (such as German, Russian, Latin, Sanskrit,Persian, Armenian, Greek, etc.) belong to the Indo-European family of languages. Due to the many similarities in pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary between these languages, linguists believe that there was at one time a single language, called Proto-Indo-European, from which these ultimately derived.



Languages can be further subdivided into branches. For instance, English, German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian are much more similar to each other than Russian, Polish, Czech, Serbian, and Ukranian. The first set of languages belongs to what is called the Germanic branch, while the second set belongs to the Slavic branch. Yet they are all Indo-European languages. (Compare the words for rabbit in the Germanic and Slavic languages given below.)



Some language families, such as Indo-European, have been exhaustively studied over the past century and are well-established by linguists, while others, such as Amerind and Altaic, are far more controversial. This web site is not attempting to make definitive statements on the classification of languages! More controversial language families have been adopted here merely as a convenience. Remember, it's all for fun!



A note on submissions



If you speak a particular variety of a language (e.g., Swiss German and Bavarian are varieties of German), please be sure to include this information in your e-mail. This is a great help when sorting out multiple submissions for one language. Please send your words for rabbit For languages written in a non-Roman script, feel free to include a gif or jpg of the word written in the native script.



Menu Afro-Asiatic (languages spoken in Northern Africa and the Middle East) Cushitic Somali bakayle Arabic arneb araanib arnab arnab bari (wild rabbit) arnob (bunny - baby rabbit) Hebrew arnevet (hare) arnavon/arnavoni (little sweet bunny) shafan Maltese fenek (rabbit) fenek abjad (white rabbit) fenek iswed (black rabbit) zermug (baby rabbit Menu Altaic (languages spoken in Turkey, Central Asia, Siberia and East Asia) East Asian Japanese usagi Korean toki San Toki ('Mountain Rabbit') is a popular children's song:

'Mountain Rabbit, Rabbit/ where are you going?/As you hop hop hop,/ where are you going? Menu Turkic Kazakh kenek Turkish oda tava_ani Menu Amerind (includes most of the indigenous languages of North and South America) Algonquian Ojibwe waabooz Iroquoian Cherokee tsi s du Penutian Chinook quetshadee Siouan Dakota mastinca Aztecan Nahuatl ometochtli Menu Austroasiatic Vietnamese tho Menu Austronesian (languages spoken in Taiwan, Oceania, Madagascar and Hawai'i) Malayo-Polynesian Bahasa Malaysia arnab Hawaiian lapaki Indonesian kelinci Maori raapeti Malagasy bitro Malay kelintji arnab Tagalog kuneho Menu Dravidian (languages spoken mostly in southern India and Sri Lanka) Tamil muyal Menu Eskimo-Aleut (languages spoken in northern Alaska, Canada and Greenland) Eskimo ukalerk Eskimo (Inupiaq) ukulaitchiaq olark Menu Kadai (languages spoken in Southeast Asia) Thai gra-dty Menu Indo-European (languages historically spoken in Europe, West Asia and the Subcontinent) Albanian Albanian lepur (hare) lepurush (bunny) Armenian Armenian (Western) nabastak Armenian (Classical) napastak Baltic Latvian trusis zakis (hare) Lithuanian kralikas zuikutis (small bunny rabbit) Celtic Irish coinân giorria (hare) Cornish conyn conynas (plural) Manx coneeyn conning (bunny) Gaelic coineanach coineagan coineanach an taighe (house rabbit) Welsh cwningen Germanic Afrikanns haas (hare) konyn Bavarian kinihÔs Danish kanin Dutch haas (hare) konijn (bunny) konijntje (bunny) nijntje (used as an affectionate term.) Also a famous cartoon rabbit in Holland. English (Archaic) coney Flanders keun Flemish konijn keun Frisian (Wester Lauwer) knyn hazze (hare) German Kaninchen (rabbit) Hase (hare) Icelandic kanina Norwegian (BokmÔl) kanin Swedish kanin Swiss German Hassli (small hare) Chungel Swiss German (Basel region) ChÉngel Yiddish krolik Hellenic Greek (Modern) kouneli Greek (Classical) lagos Indic Bengali chorgosh Gujarati saslu Hindi khargosh Classical Sanskrit shashaka Vedic Sanskrit shasha Sinhalese haava haapetiya (baby rabbit) Urdu kargosh Iranian Kurdish karwesh (literally, 'donkey ears') Persian (Farsi) khargoosh (literally, 'donkey ears') Italic Aragonese coniello Catalan conill French lapin lapereau (young rabbit) lapin de clapier (tame rabbit) Italian coniglio coniglietto (bunny) Latin cuniculus Was also used for soldiers who dug tunnels cuniculosus (full of rabbits) lepus (hare) Portuguese* coelho coelha (female rabbit) coelhinho (little rabbit) lebre (female hare) lebrÉo (male hare) *Note: several of our documents are available in Portugese. Romanian iepure iepura (bunny) iepurime (warren of rabbits) iepuroaica (female rabbit) iepuroi (male rabbit) Spanish conejo conejito (little rabbit) Slavic Bulgarian zayek (rabbit, hare) Czech kralik kralicek (little rabbit) also used for 'young king' Croatian kunic zets Macedonian zajak zajache zajko Montenegrian zec Polish królik króliczek (bunny) Russian krolik zayets zaychek (endearing form for bunny) Serbian kunit Slovak králik Slovene kunec zajec (hare) *Note: the word zajec or diminuitive zajcek is more generally used for both species. It can also be a person's first name. Ukranian kril' kri-lyk (domesticated) kri-lyky (domesticated, plural) zaichyk (endearment) za-yats' Menu Niger-Kordofanian (languages spoken in West and Central Africa) Bantu Lozi shakame Swahili sungura Swati umgwaja Xhosa umvundia Zulu unogwaja Menu Nilo-Saharan (languages spoken in the Sahara and Central Africa) Lwo apwoyo Menu Sino-Tibetan (languages spoken in Mainland China, Taiwan and Southeast Asia) Burmic Burmese youn Sinitic Cantonese pak toi (white rabbit) yah toi (wild rabbit) toi bao bao (baby rabbit) Chinese (Mandarin) tu zi (rabbit) baitu (white rabbit) xiao baitu (little white rabbit) Taiwanese to-ah Tibeto-Karen Tibetan reepong Menu Uralic (languages spoken in northern Scandanavia, Finland, Estonia, Hungary and Siberia) Finno-Ugric Estonian kodu-janes (tame hare) Finnish jänis kani pupu means bunny Hungarian házinyúl Menu Language Isolates (Language isolates are languages which have no clear connections with any other language. They are found throughout the world.) Basque konejoak Menu Artificial Languages Esperanto kuniklo