Tip: See my list of the Most Common Mistakes in English. It will teach you how to avoid mis­takes with com­mas, pre­pos­i­tions, ir­reg­u­lar verbs, and much more.

The following map shows how to say (or rather write) the equivalent of “Merry Christmas” in European languages (not all minority languages are included this time because the map would be too cluttered otherwise). The colouring corresponds to etymological relations between the translations of the word Christmas (i.e. not to language families and not to relations between other parts of the phrase).

This leads to a few unexpected results. Even though Romanian and Hungarian are completely unrelated languages, the words karácsony and Crăciun come from a common root (either Proto-Slavic *korčiti or Latin creātiōnem).

The Irish, Welsh and Scottish Gaelic words are all borrowed from Romance languages and are related to French Noël. The same holds true for the Turkish expression, which is directly borrowed from French.

Something quite unusual happens in Czech and Slovak. The words Vánoce and Vianoce are derived from German Weihnachten by retaining the “Weih” part (which comes from an old Germanic expression meaning “holy”) and replacing nachten (“nights”) by the Czech/Slovak translation, “noce”. However, the word “noce” itself comes from the same Proto-Indo-European root as German “Nachten” (and English “nights”), so the Czech/Slovak and German expressions are essentially etymologically equivalent.

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Here are the same phrases as above as a text so that you can copy-paste them:

Albanian: Gëzuar Krishtlindjet

Basque: Eguberri on

Belarusian: з Калядамі or з Божым Нараджэннем

Breton: Nedeleg laouen

Bulgarian: Весела Коледа or Честито Рождество Христово

Catalan: Bon Nadal

Croatian: Sretan Božić

Czech: Veselé Vánoce

Danish God jul or Glædelig jul

Dutch: Vrolijk Kerstfeest

English: Merry Christmas or Happy Christmas

Estonian: Häid jõule

Finnish: Hyvää joulua

French: Joyeux Noël

Galician: Bo Nadal

German: Fröhliche Weihnachten or Frohe Weihnachten

Greek: Καλά Χριστούγεννα

Hungarian: Boldog karácsonyt

Icelandic: Gleðileg jól

Irish: Nollaig Shona + Dhuit (singular) or Daoibh (plural)

Italian: Buon Natale

Latvian: Priecīgus Ziemassvētkus

Lithuanian: Linksmų Kalėdų

Luxembourgish: Schéine Chrëschtdag

Macedonian: Среќен Божиќ or Христос се роди

Maltese: il-Milied it-Tajjeb

Norwegian: God jul

Northern Sami: Buorit juovllat

Romanian: Crăciun fericit

Occitan: Bon Nadal

Polish: Wesołych Świąt (Bożego Narodzenia)

Portuguese: Feliz Natal

Russian: с Рождеством (Христовым)

Scottish Gaelic: Nollaig Chridheil

Serbian: Srećan Božić or Hristos se rodi

Sardinian: Bona Pasca de Nadale

Slovak: Veselé Vianoce

Slovene: Vesel božič

Spanish: Feliz Navidad

Swedish: God jul

Turkish: Mutlu Noeller

Ukrainian: з Різдвом (Христовим)

Welsh: Nadolig Llawen

