Can you also do this with languages that use the Latin Alphabet?

Submitted ⁨⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨LtDan@lemmy.zip⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

I know that Japanese allows this: there are words within their language where the placement of 2 kanji can be “flipped” within the same word while retaining a related definition, i.e. 栄光 (glory) & 光栄 (honor), more examples range from:

数人 (several people) & 人数 (no. of persons)
礼儀 (manners) & 儀礼 (ettiquette)
陸上 (landing) & 上陸 (ground)
進行 (advance) & 行進 (parade)
議会 (assembly) & 会議 (meeting)

You get the picture, but can you do the same thing with the English language for example? As well as other European languages in general?

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irate944@piefed.social ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Kind of, I could think of a few examples in english:

outlook : look out

Overlook : look over

Overtake : Takeover

Upkeep : Keep up

There might be others that I can’t remember right now. I don’t know if for you most of these are cheating since they become two words instead of just being one.

In Portuguese, I really can’t remember any examples

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- untorquer@quokk.au ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  All your examples are changing gramatically between noun and verb.
  
  Germanic languages tend to use the second word in a compound as the noun and the first as a modifier.
  
  Blue ocean is an ocean that is colored blue where ocean blue is a shade of blue.
  
  Conversely snowshoe is a shoe meant for use on snow. Shoesnow is nonesense rather than snow stuck to your shoe.
  
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  - igmelonh@feddit.online ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    fwiw “takeover” is a noun; “take over” would be the verb.
    
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- First_Thunder@lemmy.zip ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Obrigatório:
  
  Um português? Na minha app de memes, comunas e Linux?
  
  Translation for those who aren’t Portuguese speakers:
  
  Hi? I think you likely shouldn’t trust me. Install Linux Mint today
  
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  - Skullgrid@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    
    Um português? Na minha app de memes, comunas e Linux?
    
    Translation for those who aren’t Portuguese speakers:
    
    Hi? I think you likely shouldn’t trust me. Install Linux Mint today
    
    …
    
    I don’t think that’s what it says, but I don’t speak portuguese…
    
    A portuguese person? In my app for memes, communities and linux?
    
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  - irate944@piefed.social ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    CARALHO!!!!
    
    Translation: Install Nyarch Linux
    
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- ViatorOmnium@piefed.social ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  We have a few cases like “estar bem” (being well) and “bem-estar” (wellbeing) but they are much rarer.
  
  A superifically similar phenomena is when we move adjectives to be before the word (like “antigo regime” vs “regime antigo") to tweak the meaning.
  
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  - First_Thunder@lemmy.zip ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    You also have “homem rico” vs “rico homem” (rich man vs good man)
    
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jbrains@sh.itjust.works ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
French has verlan, a slang in which words are reversed in a similar way, so that we say then differently, but they mean the same thing. “louche” means “suspicious”, but is often said as “chelou”.

It’s not the same effect, but a similar structural pattern.

It’s not even always swapping syllables. Some people say “meuf” as slang for “femme”, even though the word has only one syllable.

I’m not a French speaker from birth, so I don’t know how common this slang is. I know we find it near Paris.

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litchralee@sh.itjust.works ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
In English, the example I would prefer is “attorney general”, which as-written refers to the chief lawyer that advises a state (sometimes exceedingly badly). But if reversed, “general attorney” could plausibly refer to a lawyer that can take on any type of legal work, not self-limited to ones within a particular specialty (eg divorce law, personal injury, copyright, etc).

This is in the realm of postnominal adjectives, although not all reversals will yield recognizable phrases, and some will be nonsensical, like “the incarnate devil”.

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altphoto@lemmy.today ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Aztecs… Tlalnepantla- Pantlatlalne…na man…Netzahuatcoyotl - Huatcoyotlnetza - Huatnetzacoyotl? …nah that’s not gonna work! Itzle-Zleit nah.

How about Spanish? Oyo-Oyo! Yes! Oyo means hole. How about Pepe-Pepe yeah but epep no. Oro-oro that’s gold. Can’t think of any where the letters are not symmetric.

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Flax_vert@feddit.uk ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
So Kanji is generally Chinese characters. Usually the traditional variant.

However, for Kingdom in Japanese it is 王国, but in Traditional Chinese it’s 王國… However, in Simplified Chinese it is 王国… So does Kanji line up with Simplified Chinese at times and Traditional during others?

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- mapleseedfall@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Theres no rule in kanji. you’d just have to know. Its what makes it so challenging.
  
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Wrufieotnak@feddit.org ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Kind of in German? Because the last “word”-part in the word determines what it really is and the separate parts of the word stay with the same meaning most of the time, so the end result is often connected to the meanings of the word parts it is made up of.

As example:

Fahr = driving-related Fahrt = the drive Plan = map, plan Bus = … bus

Fahrplan = timetable for trains, busses etc Planfahrt = drive that is according to some plan (instead of outside of the planned timetable) Busfahrplan = timetable for busses

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ProfessorScience@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I can’t think of things in English that are very similar. There might be some compound words that happen to be usable both ways (eg overtake, takeover), but if say those are mostly coincidental.

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tburkhol@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I’m going to go with: foot/toof or feet/teef. Good anadromes that also stand at opposite ends of the body. Except for the scientific units (eg, ohm/mho), they seem to generally be unrelated words more by chance than intent.

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ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Czech has interní (internal) and niterní (core, inner). It’s a coincidence, the etymologies are completely different.

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RobotToaster@mander.xyz ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I think it sometimes works for technical terms.

The one that comes to mind is microphotography (taking very small photographs) and photomicrography (taking photos of very small things)

Similarly, historical cartography is maps of history, while cartographic history is the history of maps.

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howrar@lemmy.ca ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
There’s “honey bee” if you want to specify that you’re talking about the type of bees that produce honey, and there’s “bee honey” for the honey they produce, as opposed to the kind made by wasps.

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