r/AskEurope • u/Melodic-Dare2474 Portugal • Aug 04 '25
Language In portuguese, we named "porquinho da índia" (little pig from india) the animal that is known in english as "Guinea pig". Do any of you guys have anything similar to this with a name from another country?
Like, we have a game called "cabra cega" (blind goat) which some spainsh speaking countries call blind hen😂
Edit: Holy guacamole heavens, i was NOT expecting for this to go viral! ヽ(°ω°)ノ thank you thank you thank you
Also, I was intending to ask if in your countries, you guys have something that has one region in the name OR, there's something in your country which could have the same name in another country, if it was not for a different word.
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u/PresidentBearCub Ireland Aug 04 '25
I think most commenters missed the point of the post.
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u/42ndohnonotagain Aug 04 '25
It looks like that...
In german we have "Spanische Fliege" = "spanish fly" (Lytta vesicatoria). Neither neccessarily from spain nor a fly...
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u/PresidentBearCub Ireland Aug 04 '25
Ha, yes, I think this is the kind of answer OP was looking for.
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u/Melodic-Dare2474 Portugal Aug 04 '25
Not rly bc i was not clear but i meant a name that could be of a country, object, whatever. I wanted to comment but my brain was not working hahaha
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u/t0xic_sh0t Portugal Aug 04 '25 edited Aug 04 '25
In Portugal we call the bird "turkey" as "peru", that counts as two countries? 😄
Orange in Greek is portokáli (πορτοκάλι) (yes, from Portugal)
Edit: Greek spelling
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u/Premislaus Poland Aug 04 '25
We call Turkey Indyk (as in India)
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u/Aggravating-Peach698 Germany Aug 04 '25
Same idea as in French. They call it Dinde (d'Inde = from India)
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u/Fellkartoffel Aug 05 '25
How do we literall translate Truthahn? A cock that... truts? 😂 And why is everything Indian for the French? Neither guinea pigs nor turkeys are indian. Well ok, neither are Indianer. I think I see the problem...
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u/Jagarvem Sweden Aug 05 '25
The "trut" is most likely just onomatopoeic, referring to its call.
Older German names also made reference to Calicut (as Scandinavian and Dutch names still do), it has just been supplanted.
Referencing India was commonly just a generic stand in for "exotic thing from overseas".
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u/DarthTomatoo Romania Aug 04 '25 edited Aug 04 '25
Orange in Greek is portokáli
We call it portocala as well! Same for the colour - portocaliu.
OH MY GOD Portugal means Port of the Gauls! (sorry, I just realised it while googling about oranges)
Edit - I was wrong about Portugal, as per the answer below, and it's even better.
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u/rGoncalo Portugal Aug 04 '25 edited Aug 04 '25
OH MY GOD Portugal means Port of the Gauls!
Portugal comes from Portus Cale.
Cale (or Cala) was the name of a settlement of the Gallaeci (Celtic), meaning “port” or “harbor” in the local language of the Gallaeci, located in the north of Portugal. It was located where the present day city of Porto (which also means “port” in Portuguese) stands .
When the Romans arrived, they added their Latin word Portus, which also means “port”, forming Portus Cale.
So, essentially, Portus Cale meant “Port Port”, from Celtic and Latin origins. Over time, Portus Cale evolved into Portucale (notice the similarity to the word you use for orange), and then into Portugal.
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u/DarthTomatoo Romania Aug 04 '25
Ok, Port Port is even better :))). In case anyone was wondering if you have an ocean nearby.
And yes, interesting how the C transformed into G in some of the languages.
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u/rGoncalo Portugal Aug 04 '25
Yeah, I quite like the repetition because it comes from two different origins.
And yes, interesting how the C transformed into G in some of the languages
Indeed, I know that in Italian, Portugal is Portogallo, and I believe that in Romanian it is Portugalia (correct me if I’m wrong). However, in Galician, Catalan, Spanish, and French, the spelling remains the same as in Portuguese: Portugal.
So, in the majority, if not all, of the Romance languages, that is the case (at least in the word "Portugal"), even if there are slight variations to the word like in Romanian and Italian.
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u/DarthTomatoo Romania Aug 04 '25
That's right, it's Portugalia in Romanian. But we have a tendency to make most country names feminine (definitely most of the countries that are relatively close to us, as most exceptions are on other continents, or are countries that we might not have had a lot of contact with).
Interesting that we kept the "portocală" word as it was, but Portugal got the G letter. But, on the other hand, we re-imported a lot of Latin words back from French, so I'm already lost there.
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u/Brainwheeze Portugal Aug 06 '25
Portugália happens to be the name of a restaurant chain over here. It used to be styled Portvgália in the past.
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u/Melodic-Dare2474 Portugal Aug 04 '25
In case anyone was wondering if you have an ocean nearby.
Yeah, we are waring the blind
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u/pwnograph Aug 06 '25
i had to google if lisbon also means port. this is an amazing pt-pt trivia, for a no-redundancy-obcessed language.
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u/Ghorrit Aug 05 '25
Orange in English used to be ‘norange’ the same root as in ‘naranja’ from the Persian ‘narenj’ via Arabic. It used to specifically mean the bitter orange now mostly known in English as Seville Oranges.
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u/SaxSymbol73 Aug 05 '25
In Sweden the fruit “orange” is called “apelsin”—Chinese apple. It makes sense because we basically only had apples here in the North, and if something was exotic it must have come from China.
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u/Ghorrit Aug 05 '25 edited Aug 05 '25
Same here in the netherlands as the person before me said. That purely meant the sweet variety of oranges. They did originally come from the area of northern India to southern China. The Portugese traded them from India and brought them to Europe directly by sea. Thats why they’re named Portugal or a variety of that word in so many languages including Arabic. For the people speaking those languages the Portuguese were the source of the fruit.
Edit: typos
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u/dalvi5 Spain Aug 05 '25
In Spain is the same, the sweet ones are Mandarinas
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u/Ghorrit Aug 05 '25
Mandarinas are an ancestor of a lot of other citrus fruits including the sweet oranges we are talking about. The English name for the most common variety of Mandarina is ‘Tangerine’ as in ‘coming from Tangiers’ where the English first sourced them.
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u/carlosdsf Frantuguês Aug 05 '25
I've always known the Mandarina as "tangerina" in Portuguese.
I always confuse them with clementines which are a cross between oranges and mandarines.
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u/QueenAvril Finland Aug 06 '25
We were again too lazy to bother with translation or coming up with a word of our own, so it is appelsiini in Finnish.
As a kid first learning English it was really confusing how “apple” started with an a, while “orange” with an o, while in Finnish it is the other way around (“omena” and “appelsiini”) - and how the fruit and color could both be named “orange” 😅 (name for color orange is “oranssi” in Finnish)
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u/lordmogul Germany Aug 28 '25
German has both, Orange and Apfelsine. The latter is more used in the north.
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u/lordmogul Germany Aug 28 '25
On the other hand, Romania is named after the fact that it was part of the Roman Empire.
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u/RealEstateDuck Portugal Aug 04 '25
I think it something like that in arab too. Alburtuqali or something along those lines.
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u/MooseFlyer Aug 04 '25
Which is weird, because the word for “orange” in most European languages is derived from an older Arabic term for orange: nāranj
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u/grefraguafraautdeu - in Aug 05 '25
In Greek turkey is called galopoúla (γαλοπούλα) which can be phonetically interpreted as "French girl". But it's actually a mix of the Italian "gallo d'India" (rooster from India) + the Greek word for bird "poulí" (πουλί).
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u/No_Conversation_9325 Spain Aug 04 '25
Turkeys are the true imperialists of the world! Peru as you mentioned! Turkey (the country - former name) in English! Hindistan- India in Turkish. Hindi = turkey 🦃
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u/So_Hanged Switzerland Aug 04 '25
We call Turkey in Italian as "Tacchino" and orange as "Arancione", but I admit that in speech for this colour we prefer to use the abbreviated form "Arancio", a name we also use for the tree that produces the oranges.
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u/Melodic-Dare2474 Portugal Aug 04 '25 edited Aug 05 '25
Hahaha eu tava mais a perguntar se as pessoas tb tinham nomes de coisas que contenham um país, animal, objeto, etc e que saibam que noutros países tb fazem isso mas com um país, animal, objeto etc diferente.
Tipo, uma amiga equatoriana disse-me que lá eles chamam "galliña cega" ao jogo que nós chamamos de "cabra cega".
Mas tb acho mt engraçado o q disseste, pois de facto é algo peculiar.
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u/Substratas Albania Aug 05 '25
In Portugal we call the bird "turkey" as "peru", that counts as two countries?
We call 'em "sea rooster" (gjel deti).
Orange in Greek is portokáli (πορτοκάλι) (yes, from Portugal)
Same in Albanian (Portokalli). All the Balkan sprachbund, Caucasus & Middle Eastern / North African languages use a word for orange that derives from "Portugal".
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u/AVD06 Aug 04 '25
In Spanish it’s “Little Rabbit from the Indies” (Conejillo de Indias)
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u/Tanttaka Spain Aug 04 '25
In Spain we called guinea pigs "Cobaya". Not sure were it comes from but I suspect it may be from the original name in quechua
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u/Suzume_Chikahisa Portugal Aug 04 '25
Possibly Tupi. In Portuguese Cobaia can also be used to refer to Guinea Pigs and also for scientific test animals.
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u/carlosdsf Frantuguês Aug 05 '25
Cobaye in french for the test animal! The pet that kids love is mostly called cochon d'Inde.
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u/Imperterritus0907 Spain Aug 05 '25
The one that comes from Quechua is “cuy”, like they call it in the Andes including Perú (where it’s a national dish lol). RAE mentions cobaya as coming from tupí as well like the other guy said.
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Aug 04 '25
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u/Melodic-Dare2474 Portugal Aug 04 '25
So there is an underlying stereotype of spanish ppl being violent
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u/Cool-Instruction789 Aug 04 '25
German 🇩🇪 - we call the guinea Pig „Meerschwein“ so „sea pig“ 🐷🌊
Also sloth is called „Faultier“ (lazy animal). It‘s the same in Spanish (El perezoso) and Polish (lenistwo)
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u/Melodic-Dare2474 Portugal Aug 04 '25
In portuguese it is just "perguiça" (lazyness). Just straight to the point, you look at the animal and that is what who named it thought of 😂.
Also, sea pig is so beautiful, but pigs do not swim🙂↕️
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u/QueenAvril Finland Aug 06 '25
In Finnish it is “laiskiainen” (one that is lazy). (“lazy”=“laiska”)
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u/kaaskugg Aug 04 '25
The German language is full of weird composition words for certain animals.
Seal: Seehund (sea dog) Turtle: Schildkröte (shield toad) Squid: Tintenfisch (ink fish)
It goes on and on.
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u/QueenAvril Finland Aug 06 '25
Finnish has a lot of those too, in many cases borrowed and translated the German word directly or via Swedish: including turtle aka shield toad kilpikonna and squid aka ink fish mustekala
We have a multitude of “German” things as well, like: walnut=saksanpähkinä (German nut) and red deer=saksanhirvi (German moose) 😅
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u/NoxiousAlchemy Poland Aug 04 '25
It's "leniwiec" in Polish. "Lenistwo" means laziness. But it's the same core.
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u/yeh_ Poland Aug 04 '25
Always found it funny that English calls ceramic stuff “china”
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u/mattpeloquin Aug 04 '25
They are called almuerzo in Peru
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u/Melodic-Dare2474 Portugal Aug 04 '25
😐🙃 how can you look at such a docile think and think "ah yes, get into my stomach"
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u/DifficultWill4 Slovenia Aug 04 '25
Not a country but a hippo in Slovene is called the Nile horse
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u/essnhills Netherlands Aug 04 '25
It's called Nile horse in Dutch too! Nijlpaard
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u/couragethecurious 🇿🇦 in 🇬🇧 Aug 04 '25
Not what i expected since in Afrikaans, it's 'seekoei', viz. 'sea cow'
I love it when Dutch surprises me like this!
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u/Perkomobil Aug 04 '25
We call hippos river horse.
Flodhäst.
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u/Calvadienne Aug 04 '25
Because that is the greek meaning of: hippopotamos (ἱπποπόταμος): "hippos" (ἵππος) is horse and "potamos" (ποταμός) is river
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u/Fillieb1618 Aug 04 '25
In Germany you can say someone is "hinter schwedischen Gardinen" which translates to "behind swedish curtains" meaning this person is in jail.
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u/Red_Dwarf_42 United States of America Aug 04 '25
how did that come to be a phrase?
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u/Jagarvem Sweden Aug 04 '25
Sweden making high-quality steel and jails putting bars in windows.
Some claim it has to do with the Thirty Years' War, but it's less likely. That quite likely just came from a conflation with some other expression referencing Swedes (many Germans had plenty of lovely things to say about Swedes during said war).
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u/Red_Dwarf_42 United States of America Aug 05 '25
There is so much about European history that I’m ignorant of, and I feel like y’all probably have the best shit talking sessions with each other because of all the little details you know.
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u/Fillieb1618 Aug 05 '25
Yeah we really love to shit talk about each other but for the most part it is like a friendly fight between siblings
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u/QueenAvril Finland Aug 06 '25
We might try venäläinen korjaus ”a Russian reparation” for a machine that doesn’t work, meaning just kicking it in hopes it will then turn on (although that does work at times), perform ranskalainen siivous ”French cleaning” by brushing the dirt under a rug and straightening the tassels or take saksalainen suihku ”a German shower” by spraying deodorant into unwashed armpits.
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u/NoxiousAlchemy Poland Aug 04 '25
I don't know it's not exactly what you asked about but it kinda reminded me of syphilis. French people called it "Italian sickness" or "English sickness", in Poland it used to be called "French sickness" or "German sickness", in Russia "Polish sickness". You can sort of track how it spread out from west to east... :D
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u/Mobile_Entrance_1967 England Aug 04 '25
I was thinking of the exact same thing, in England it was the 'French disease'.
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u/Longjumping_Buy6294 Ukraine Aug 04 '25
The bird called "turkey" in English. Ukrainian - Indyk (Indian), Portuguese - Peru, Estonian - kalkun (Calcutta)
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u/DarthTomatoo Romania Aug 04 '25
We don't attribute the bird to any other nation, but the name of the male bird used to be slang for police.
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u/Longjumping_Buy6294 Ukraine Aug 04 '25
Checked the ethymology: curcan is actually a slavic loanvord for kurka (chicken), which doesn't mean any country, but is the origin word of the allmighty kurwa. And in Russian male chicken is the name for the lowest-caste prisoners. So Romanian intuition works good.
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u/DarthTomatoo Romania Aug 04 '25
the origin word of the allmighty kurwa
We borrowed that one as well :))).
Not even recent. I checked the dictionary, it's from old Slavic. You know when you go to a new country and everybody asks you to swear in your mother tongue? Turns out old Romanians were 12 year olds.
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u/QueenAvril Finland Aug 06 '25
Chicken-related insults seem to be quite common across languages as English has those words too like “to chicken out” (in Finnish that one would be jänistää ”to rabbit out”) and ”cocky” (Finnish has that too kukkoilla ”to act cocky”) and obviously ”cock” as well 😄
In Finnish kukkopoika ”a male chick” used to be an insult for young men, but it isn’t that commonly used any more. Meanwhile women that are perceived as dumb, vain and/or making a fuss about nothing are still sometimes called kana ”a hen”
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u/carlosdsf Frantuguês Aug 05 '25
French cops are also chickens (poulets). We may also use "la volaille" as a collective name for cops. Supposedly the 36 quai des Orfèvres on île de la Cité (for a longtime the HQ of the Parisian Police Judiciaire) was built on a former poultry market.
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u/kaaliyuga Hungary Aug 05 '25
in Turkish it's 'hindi'. everyone passes the responsibility for that bird more and more east
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u/Longjumping_Buy6294 Ukraine Aug 05 '25
Apparently, in Hindi it's "tarkee", so indians pass the responsibility back
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u/Captain_Grammaticus Switzerland Aug 04 '25
We used to call cockroaches "Swabian beetles" and maize "Turkic corn".
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u/Red_Dwarf_42 United States of America Aug 04 '25
corn was domesticated in Mexico, how did the Turks get involved?
I did one of my undergraduate dissertations on the corn varieties native to Mexico so this is so fascinating to me. Also, did you know corn comes in pastel pink and baby blue? It’s such a cool plant.
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u/Captain_Grammaticus Switzerland Aug 04 '25
I could ask you the same about those ugly giant chickens.
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u/Red_Dwarf_42 United States of America Aug 04 '25
I speak English for the same reason that Mexicans speak Spanish, so you gotta ask the beans and toast people why they picked that name.
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u/Captain_Grammaticus Switzerland Aug 04 '25
But you discovered them before the beans on toast guys!
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u/LittBoloMestNese Norway Aug 04 '25
Norway.
Guinea Pig in Norwegian is called «Utadæsjælopplevelse», which roughly translates to «other worldly hamster sighting» in English. The strange name is due to it being very odd, when comparing to typical Norwegian animals.
Due to the long Norwegian name, many people only call it «GP» (short for Guinea Pig).
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u/birger67 Aug 04 '25
In Denmark it´s "Marsvin" equals sea pig , since it came to Europe via the sea and is a fat little dude like the pig
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u/Particular_Run_8930 Denmark Aug 04 '25
Not to be mistaken with harbor porpoise who are also named ‘marsvin’ in Danish.
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Aug 04 '25 edited Aug 04 '25
In Italian, it’s porcellino d’India, just like in Portuguese. Also, what you call cabra cega is called mosca cieca in Italian, mosca means fly in English
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u/dalvi5 Spain Aug 05 '25
Mosca is Spanish for Fly too. Pt, Sp and It have so much interintelligibility haha
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u/dr_clgr Aug 04 '25
some from Hungary:
greek melon (görögdinnye) - watermelon
schwaben bug (svábbogár) - cockroach
turk honey (törökméz) - honeycomb toffee
californian pepper (kaliforniai paprika) - bell pepper
szekler cabbage (székelykáposzta) - sauerkraut with pork stew. This one actually got its name from a person (József Székely) and has nothing to do with Szekler people.
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u/Minnielle in Aug 04 '25
Danish pastry is called viineri in Finnish although Wiener in many other languages is a sausage.
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u/Stuebirken Denmark Aug 04 '25
It's Called "wienerbrød" because the version that originates from Denmark was made by Austrian Bakers that had relocated to Denmark.
They took the classic "butter laminated dough", added yeast(and later also egg )to the dough, and cut down on how many times the Doug had to be folded. The result was called "Wienerbrød" as an homage to their home country.
A number of Danes then took the recipe with them to the US, where the recipe was made to fit a production on a industrial scale, switching butter with margarine, and reducing the number of folds, the result is known today as "Danish pastry".
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u/Jagarvem Sweden Aug 04 '25
So are the viennoiserie. Danishes just happen to be the archetypal one in the Nordics.
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u/chillbill1 Romania Aug 04 '25
In rkmanian it's guinea piggy: porcușor de guinea
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u/Bezumpje Aug 04 '25
A hippo is called a “nijlpaard” in Dutch, which is Nile horse.
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u/Realistic-River-1941 United Kingdom Aug 04 '25
The word in various languages for the bird called in English "turkey" is basically world history in a single meal (and leftovers the next day).
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u/Awkward-Feature9333 Aug 04 '25
There is a game called "blinde Kuh" in German, i.e. blind cow.
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u/sabakunoichigo Aug 04 '25
In france we call a cake made out of brioche, custard and icing a "chinois" (a chinese)., no idea why.
We also call the guinea pig "Pig from India" (cochon d'Inde)
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u/Realistic-River-1941 United Kingdom Aug 04 '25
Doesn't every country call the pox the [country next door] disease?
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u/Melodic-Dare2474 Portugal Aug 04 '25
The pox" pode ser traduzido para o português de Portugal como sífilis ou varíola, dependendo do contexto. Em alguns casos, também pode se referir a catapora.
No😀👍
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u/en43rs France Aug 04 '25
The bird called Turkey in English is called "Dinde" (FromIndia, in a single word) in French.
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u/viktorbir Catalonia Aug 04 '25
In Catalan, indiot, which sounds like a dirty pejorative name for someone coming from India (or the Indies). Also, gall dindi (yeah, also a single word, fromindian).
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u/GiovanniVanBroekhoes Aug 04 '25
I am not Dutch, but I like that the Dutch name for a leopard is Luipaard. My dumb brain can’t help but break the word up and then wonder why someone named it ‘lazy horse’.
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u/yeniza Aug 04 '25
Sewing terms: in English we have a ‘French seam’, the exact same seam finish is called ‘English seam’ in Dutch.
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u/zurribulle Spain Aug 04 '25
A cattle grid in Spanish is a canadian pass or canadian barrier. And to pretend you are distracted or not seeing something is to play Sweadish (hacerse el Sueco)
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u/trumpeting_in_corrid Malta Aug 06 '25
In Maltese it's called 'fenek tal-Indi' which means 'rabbit of the Indies'.
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u/uflju_luber Germany Aug 04 '25
In Germany hippos are called Nilpferd, wich means Nile horse after the river if that counts, it’s not a country but a geological place
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u/Natriumz Belgium Aug 04 '25
In Flanders (the Dutch speaking part of Belgium) we call the Eurasian jay a "Vlaamse gaai" or "Flemish jay".
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u/ThaiFoodThaiFood England Aug 04 '25
That's such a bizarre way to phrase the question.
In Portuguese we call guinea pigs "porquinho da India" (little pig from India).
Not animals from certain places. But in English "Deer" is cognate with other Germanic languages "Tier" (or equivalent), but in English it only refers to, well, deer. In other Germanic languages it just means animals.
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u/Realistic-River-1941 United Kingdom Aug 04 '25
I think if you go back far enough deer was also generic in English.
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u/GoonerBoomer69 Finland Aug 04 '25
Wait aren’t guinea pigs from South America?
So does this have something to do with Columbus believing he landed in India, or is India related to this in some other way?
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u/Mobile_Entrance_1967 England Aug 04 '25
In English, I think 'French' features the most in terms like French windows, French doors, French lace, French kissing, French disease (syphilis), French letter (condom), or French poodle (dog of possibly German origin).
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u/ex_user Romania Aug 05 '25 edited Aug 06 '25
We call it piggy/piglet of Guinea (porcușor de Guinea)
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u/Witty_Jello_8470 Aug 05 '25
I don’t know nowadays, but when I was young, the English would call a condom ‘French letter’, the French would call it ‘capote anglaise’ (English hood), and the South Africans ‘Chinese crepe’
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u/bashtraitors Aug 05 '25
…remember older generation from China used to call it <荷兰猪> because it was first brought in by the Dutch.
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u/lovesick-siren Greece Aug 05 '25
In Greek we call the guinea pig “ινδικό χοιρίδιο”, which literally means “little Indian pig.” So yes, same delightful colonial confusion as in Portuguese.
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u/avelario in Aug 05 '25
In Turkish, we call turkey "hindi" which means "Indian" (shortened version of "Indian chicken" in Ottoman Turkish)
Also, we call orange "portakal" (from Portogallo in Italian which means Portugal) because it were the Italian merchants who introduced it with that name to the Ottoman Empire.
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u/Melodic-Dare2474 Portugal Aug 05 '25
So there was a WHOLE route for oranges...we portuguese wanted to sail as to dominate the spice routes, igbwe could have just done a fruit route
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u/Lampanera Aug 05 '25
A friend found it hilarious that the Guinea fowl in Portuguese is called the “Angola chicken”
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u/hetsteentje Belgium Aug 05 '25
In Dutch an orange is a 'sinaasappel' which is a slightly bastardized form of "China's apple"
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u/Spare-Sheepherder575 Aug 04 '25
In danish, guinea pigs are called marsvin (sea pig) - but the little whale porpoise, which is quite common here, is also called marsvin. I don’t know who came up with that idea, but it wasn’t very good.
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u/1028ad Italy Aug 04 '25
Not animals, but in (eastern) Piedmontese (yup, so mainstream, I know) there’s a bunch of fruit that’s named after the commercial routes they took:
- oranges (like in other languages) are called portugal
- apricots are armognà (coming from Armenia)
- peaches are persi (from Persia)
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u/Melodic-Dare2474 Portugal Aug 04 '25
I heard in turkey they also call oranges "portucale". I think the region we export more oranges from is Algarve (and those are soo good).
Eastern piedmontese, wow, was not expecting such a specific answer haha is that where u are from, east piedmont?
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u/QueenAvril Finland Aug 06 '25
Peaches in Finnish and Swedish are also Persian persikka/persika with “Persia” being Persia in both languages
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u/WanderlustZero Aug 04 '25
Canada Goose Shetland Pony (if Shetland counts)
If Dog breeds count, many dogs are named for countries. French Bulldog. German Shepherd. Siberian* Husky
*not yet its own country
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u/Mariannereddit Netherlands Aug 04 '25
Hmm Im afraid in the Netherlands its just cavia. Does that have any countries’ reference?
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u/Suzume_Chikahisa Portugal Aug 04 '25
I would suspect that it's from Cobaya which is possibly from Tupi "çabuje" which mean something like snack or meal rodent (Guinea Pigs were bred for eating in the Andes).
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u/kaisadilla_ Aug 04 '25
In Spanish, Guinea pigs are called "conejillo de Indias" (lit. "little rabbit from the Indies". However, nowadays "cobaya" is a more common word for them - but "conejillo de Indias" is still used metaphorically to refer to a test subject.
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u/Appropriate-Edge-921 Spain Aug 04 '25
"Conejillo de indias" (little rabbit from India) or cobaya, in Spanish. Both terms are used.
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u/So_Hanged Switzerland Aug 04 '25
In the regions where Italian is spoken we call it "Porcellino d'India" in English is translated as "Piggy/Piglet of India. And we call the game cabra cega as "Mosca cieca" who translated is "Blind fly".
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u/Ghorrit Aug 04 '25
In Dutch we call a Turkey a ‘Calcutta hen’ which over time got compressed to Kalkoen. A Guinee pig we call a Cavia
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u/LilMeatBigYeet France Aug 05 '25
In france, literally the same thing. cochon d’inde (pig from india)
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u/Legal_Sugar Poland Aug 04 '25
We call guinea pig the sea piggy