talya (she/her) but even more queer💄🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈:jewish_anarchism:<p>you know what word or phrase i find most missing in European languages? a way to congratulate someone for something new they have, for example a new haircut or tattoo, a new phone, new shoes etc.<br>in Hebrew we say תתחדש/י, literally "renew yourself". in Arabic there's مبروك, "you're blessed" that's similar in use, and i'm pretty sure Palestinian Arabic also has a few more options specific to the type of new thing (i'd say more but it's been years since my last Palestinian Arabic lesson and i don't want to say stuff that's not true).<br><br>i know "congrats" exists, but:<br>a. it's not unique to receiving something new, and as such it's got more of an achievement connotation.<br>but more importantly<br>b. people just don't use it like that. people don't often say "congrats on your new piercing" and they're even less likely to say that when you get a cool new pair of pants or something. meanwhile you walk into a room with a new hair colour and every single Hebrew speaker will say, without fail, "wow, new hair colour, תתחדשי". i can say from experience because this literally happened to me last week in my Czech class with the three Hebrew speakers (two of which don't even speak it as an L1!).<br>the lack of a direct equivalent in European languages leads to people not congratulating people for new stuff that they find cool. the interaction will be "you've dyed your hair? -yes!" and will literally end there (again, speaking from experience). the existence of this blessing encourages people to acknowledge that your new thing is cool.<br><br>Europeans - fix this. maybe even appropriate one of the Semitic words, idk. i just want that in your languages.<br><br><br><a href="https://dybbuk.club/tags/linguistics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>linguistics</span></a> <a href="https://dybbuk.club/tags/arabic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>arabic</span></a> <a href="https://dybbuk.club/tags/hebrew" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>hebrew</span></a> <a href="https://dybbuk.club/tags/languages" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>languages</span></a>.</p>