It ’s splendidly possible in English to form a perfectly well-formed sentence by repeating the wordbuffalo(and every so often the place nameBuffalo ) a total ofeight time : Buffalo Bison bison Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffaloessentially means “ buffalo from Buffalo , New York , who intimidate other buffalo from Buffalo , New York , are themselves intimidate by buffalo from Buffalo , New York . ” But repetitive or so - call antanaclastic sentences andtongue twisterslike these are by no mean unique to English — here are a few in otherlanguagesthat you might require to try out .
1. “Le ver vert va vers le verre vert.” // French
This sentence works less well in mark thanBuffalo buffalo , of class , but it ’s all but impenetrable when read loud . In French , le ver vert va vers le verre vertmeans “ the green worm goes towards the green shabu , ” but the wordsver(worm),vert(green),vers(towards ) , andverre(glass ) are all homophone enunciate “ vair , ” with a vowel similar to theEin “ stakes ” or “ favourite . ” In fact , work out the French heraldic countersign for squirrel fur , vair , in there somewhere and you ’d have five completely unlike interpretation of the same speech sound to sell with .
2. “Cum eo eo eo eo quod eum amo.” // Latin
Eocan be interpreted as a verb ( “ I go ” ) , an adverb ( " there , " " for that reason " ) , and an ablative pronoun ( “ with him ” or “ by him ” ) in Latin , each with anarrayof dissimilar shades of substance . Put four of them in a row in the contextcum eo eo eo eo quod eum amo , and you ’ll have a sentencemeaning“I am croak there with him because I do it him . ”
3. “Malo malo malo malo.” // Latin
An even more confusing Latin sentence ismalo malo malo malo . On its own , malocan be a verb ( mean “ I choose , ” or “ I would rather ” ) ; an ablative kind of the Latin Bible for an apple Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree , malus(meaning “ in an apple tree ” ) ; and two entirely different forms ( essentially meaning “ a bad man , ” and “ in trouble ” or “ in hard knocks ” ) of the adjectivemalus , mean evil or wicked . Although the lengths of the vowels differ slightly when read aloud , put all that together andmalo malo malo malocould beinterpreted as“I would rather be in an Malus pumila tree than a wicked man in adversity . ” ( have that the nounmaluscan also be used to mean “ the mast of a ship , ” however , this condemnation could just as easily be interpreted as , “ I would rather be a disgustful man in an apple tree than a ship ’s mast . ” )
4. “Far får får får?” // Danish
Far(pronounced “ fah ” ) is the Danish word forfather , whilefår(pronounced like “ for ” ) can be used both as a noun meaning " sheep " and as a form of the Danish verbfå , stand for " to have . “Far får får får?ultimately intend “ founding father , do sheep have sheep?”—to which the response could come , får får ikke får , får får lam , meaning “ sheep do not have sheep , sheep have lambs . ”
5. “Eeee ee ee.” // Manx
Manx is the Celtic - blood language of the Isle of Man , which has skinny ties to Irish . In Manx , eeisbotha pronoun ( “ she ” or “ it ” ) and a verb ( “ to corrode ” ) , a future tense var. of which iseeee(“will corrode ” ) . Eight letter Es in a rowing ultimately can be divided up to mean “ she will eat it . ”
6. “Como como? Como como como como!” // Spanish
Comocan be a preposition ( “ like , ” “ such as ” ) , an adverb ( “ as , ” “ how ” ) , a conjunction ( “ as ” ) , and a verb ( a shape ofcomer , “ to eat ” ) in Spanish , which makes it possible to string together dialogues like this : Como como ? Como como como como!Which means “ How do I use up ? I eat like I eat ! ”
7. “Á á á á á á á.” // Icelandic
Áis the Icelandic word forriver ; a form of the Icelandic Book forewe , ær ; a preposition essentially mean “ on ” or “ in ; ” and a differential coefficient of the Icelandic verbeiga , meaning “ to have , ” or “ to possess . ” Should a soul name River be standing beside a river and simultaneously own a sheep standing in or at the same river , then that situation could theoretically be described using the sentenceÁ á á á á á áin Icelandic .
8. “Mai mai mai mai mai.” // Thai
Thai is a tonic speech that uses five different pure tone or patterns of pronunciation ( rising , falling , high , downcast , and mid or matted ) to differentiate between the meaning of otherwise seemingly very syllables and words : glai , for example , can mean both “ near ” and “ far ” in Thai , just depending on what smell formula it ’s given . Likewise , the Thai equivalentof the sentence “ new wood does n’t burn , does it ? ” ismai mai mai mai mai — which might seem identical written down , but each syllable would be give a different tone when read loud .
9. “The Lion-eating poet in the stone den.” // Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin Chinese is another tonal language , the nuances of which were taken to an utmost horizontal surface by Yuen Ren Chao , a Chinese - born American polyglot and author renowned for compose a bizarre verse form entitled " The Lion - Eating Poet in the Stone Den . " Whenwrittenin its original classic Chinese script , the poem come out as a string of different character . But when transliterated into the Roman alphabet , every one of those characters is nothing more than the syllableshi :
The only difference between each syllable is its intonation , which can be either monotonic ( shī ) , uprise ( shí ) , falling ( shì ) or devolve and rising ( shǐ ) ; you may discover the entire poem being read aloudhere , along with its English translation .
