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Does Swedish make any distinction between fraternal twins [such as this example] and identical twins?
836
Identical twins = enäggstvillingar (lit. "one egg twins"), fraternal twins = tvåäggstvillingar (lit. "two egg twins")
Fascinating, that terminology is so much more poetic than it is in English. Thank you!
pretty similar to German. Zwillinge - twins; eineiige Zwillinge - identical twins; zweieiige Zwillinge - fraternal twins
At least in Mexico, identical twins are called "gemelos", but fraternal ones are called "cuates". In standard Spanish, fraternal twins are called "mellizos", but in Mexico this word would be maybe synonyms with "gemelos". "Cuate" also means friend, and is of Nahuatl origin (from "koatl", snake or twin). It is interesting also that the most famous twins of the ancient Mexican mythology were Quetzalcoatl and Xolotl. Quetzalcoatl would be the precious twin (ketsalli + koatl), while Xolotl was the monstruous one, giving name to lots of things linked to ugliness or asymetrical pairs, like axolotl (water monster, Ambystoma mexicanum), texolotl (stone twin, pestle of the molkaxitl or stone mortar), wexolotl (old monster, turkey), xoloitskwintli (monster dog, the Mexican Hairless dog), and so on. Triplets here are called "triates", a mix of the latinate root "tri" with "cuates".
Gemelos in standard Spanish means identical twins. In Latin, the zodiac sign for twins is gemini, and gemelos has the same latin root. Mellizos means fraternal twins. Trillizos means triplets. Of course, tri comes from Latin tres, three.
Tack! I plan to go to Sweden this August with my sister and I was beginning to wonder what we were getting into!! We will also be going to Denmark, so she is learning Danish and I am learning (hopefully) Swedish. That way we won't get confused between the two.
- 836
No, this is considered a mistake. You'll easily find native speakers who write it that way though, this is something that is difficult for native speakers.
- 836
tvillingar is just twins but enäggstvillingar are identical and tvåäggstvillingar are fraternal.
Is this always pronounced tvilling or do some people say twilling. I could swear I've heard both.
