Photo credit: Orem on Wikimedia Commons
Kurwa is a Polish word that needs no introduction. Meaning whore or bitch, it gets thrown around a lot in memes, online, and on multiplayer games. So, you may be surprised to know that there are a lot of other languages that have an almost identical word. Indeed, most Slavic languages have a word like it.
The List
- 🇦🇱 Albanian: kurvë
- 🇧🇾 Belarusian: курва
- 🇧🇬 Bulgarian: курва
- 🇨🇿 Czech: kurva
- 🇭🇺 Hungarian: kurva
- 🇱🇻 Latvian: kurva
- 🇱🇹 Lithuanian: kurva
- 🇲🇰 Macedonian: курва
- 🇵🇱 Polish: kurwa
- 🚐 Romani: kùrva
- 🇷🇴 Romanian: curvă
- 🇷🇺 Russian: курва
- 🇷🇸🇧🇦🇲🇪🇭🇷 Serbo-Croatian: курва/kurva
- 🇸🇰 Slovak: kurva
- 🇸🇮 Slovene: kurba, kurva
- 🇺🇦 Ukrainian: курва
- 🕍 Yiddish: קורווע (kurve)
Note: This list is not exhaustive, but provides most of the common languages.
The Reason
Most of these languages inherited it from an older Slavic language, ultimately stemming from Proto-Slavic *kury. For example, Polish is direct from from Proto-Slavic *kury, and Romanian got it from Church Slavonic коуръва (kurŭva), also coming from Proto-Slavic. Some languages also borrowed it, such as Yiddish borrowing it from Polish, and Romani borrowing it from Serbo-Croatian. This shared word provides an insight into how the Slavic languages have evolved from a common ancestor language and how they have influenced the languages of surrounding peoples. And also that even over 1,000 years ago the ancestors of the Slavs were calling people a whore using similar vocabulary.
Useful Links
Proto-Slavic *kury on Wiktionary
See here for more descendents