In German it’s Mäusespeck = Mouse Bacon
In English we call it “Marshmallow”.
What a mysterious and beautiful language.
I mean, “marshmallow” has a more interesting derivation than most of the other words I’ve seen so far.
Althaea officinalis, the marsh mallow or marshmallow, is a species of flowering plant indigenous to Europe, Western Asia and North Africa, which is used in herbalism and as an ornamental plant. A confection made from the root since ancient Egyptian times evolved into today’s marshmallow treat.
I find this really interesting especially considered I never gave much thought to how they were produced. I guess I assumed they were just sugar and some other common ingredients.
I don’t think modern marshmellows contain any marsh mellow. They are usually just water, sugar and gelatine. They are easy to make at home, fun project if you have kids
TIL.
In Icelandic it’s sykurpúði = sugar cushion 😄
This one I can really get behind
I love this so much!
In Danish it’s skumfidus which means foam thingie.
Literally “foam thingie”? I love that!
I’m German and that is bullshit. Never heard of mäusespeck, everyone just calls them marshmallows and they are labeled as marshmallows in the store
It was absolutely called Mäusespeck when I was a kid, but that’s 35+ years ago.
Where do you live? Mäusespeck is even in the wikipedia article:
Im deutschsprachigen Raum ist die Süßware häufig unter der Produktbezeichnung Mausespeck oder Mäusespeck erhältlich.
I lived in BaWü and Hessen for over 30 years. Never heard of it.
BaWü here, definitely a thing. Not too common though.
BaWü here, definitely not aware of it.
Sincerely, south of Stuttgart.Might be too me being an extremely experienced teenager. Like, decades of experience.
Sincerely, a bit too the north of you.
Nett hier.
So you have never been grocery shopping 30 years ago? I’m sure in the 90s it was the common name on the Products. Now it’s gone.
Classic Germans discussing about their own language
I’m German too and we totally used Mäusespeck in the 80s/90s. I guess you’re just younger, today people know what marshmallows are (and speak better English in general).
Ghostbusters killed it with the Marshmallow Man.
Der Mäusespeckmann <3
Not too unexpected for a pre 1990s thing IMO.
Mäusespeck exists, but it’s something slightly different. It’s the sugared rhombus of the fluffy stuff, and packed in those triangle clear bags.
Reading about it, it seems they are in fact all the same. Even the white haribo mice. TIL.
In Finnish it’s ‘vaahtokarkki’ which translates to foamcandy.
“Vahukomm” in Estonian with the same literal translation.
What do you call cotton candy?
Hattara. Just a made-up word.
All words are made-up words.
Hattara is even more mader-upper!
I dunno man, that word has some fun archaic meanings based on something being “tatters”. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hattara I particularly like “A female forest troll or race of trolls associated with screaming.”
You’re more right than you realize, and not so archaic really. The texture of clouds, or even clouds themselves, mostly smaller, frizzy kind of clouds are called “pilvenhattara” where pilven is a possesive form of ‘pilvi’ - ‘cloud’ and hattara is kind of an abstract descriptive word, at least today. The translation of ‘rag, tatter’ is a bit more complex and at least a little unrelated. There might be some historic connection, since ‘hattara’ is kind of a descriptive word that describes (at least for quite a long time) a kind of specific type of clouds appearance, more so a small cloud that kind of just falls apart. It’s more like a frayed rag and the ‘hattara’ specifically pertains to the raggedness/frayed part - like the actual physical/visual quality of it being kind of frailed or jagged, like a cloud and so it does relate to clouds.
Hattara as a mythological thing is a different thing itself and again, might have some historic connection - my best guess would be that the kind of creature it means is something that is kind of ‘frayed’ like a vision or a fog ora cloud or something and is only seen for a moment. I’m unfamiliar with that one, though I’ve read a ton about folk beliefs and mythlogy here.
I watch a lot of hockey, so I hear a lot of Finnish names. I find it fun that you can so easily guess that a name or word is Finnish, and hattara is no exception.
It actually sounds similar to “Hatakka”, the last name of a Finnish player.
All words are made up, friend ☺️
We call it 棉花糖 in Chinese, which translates to cotton candy… Which gets confusing if we’re also talking about cotton candy (the fluffy kind).
Where are you from? I associate that word with cotton Candy but cannot for the life of me think of what a marshmallow is
HK. Yeah, if you asked me out of the blue what 棉花糖 is I would’ve said cotton candy first but I also had a vague memory of calling marshmallow that too. I had to confirm it with Wikipedia lol.
Hello fellow Hongkonger
Same in Taiwan!
Do you have a different name for the fluffy cotton candy?
No it’s the same. Then again I can’t recall seeing any marshmallow on the shelves when I visit home. I don’t think it’s a common snack in Taiwan but I could be wrong!
It’s not common but you can absolutely find some at the candy section in a supermarket.
In Dutch it’s also marshmallows, but also commonly spek (bacon), spekjes (bacon pieces) or spekkies (in this case it’s clear you’re not talking about bacon).
Now you have me curious since this is the second language, why bacon?
The original candy looked like this: https://cdn.webshopapp.com/shops/282420/files/297921342/890x820x1/confiserie-a-lancienne-spekjes-roze-wit-doos-2-kg.jpg
Which with some imagination can be similar to bits of bacon. Marshmallows are somewhat similar candy so the name is used for that too at times.
Just a guess… They are both made from bits of a pig.
In our local dialect it’s “nunnebiln” ~ nonnenbillen, which I’d translate to nuns buttocks.
We also have nuns farts, but that’s another sweet for another day 😆
Julle Nederlanders is maar 'n vreemde volk :p
I’m pretty sure alot of languages just imported marshmallow.
I come from the german speaking part of Switzerland and I don’t think I ever heard someone actually use the word “Mäusespeck” although it certainly would he understood I think. Everybody around me calls them marshmallows.
I live in NRW and have never heard anyone call them Mäusespeck either
I guess you are born in this century. In the 80 it was what was written on the products in the supermarket.
For me “Mäusespeck” are smaller marshmallows that usually come in white and pink and in different shapes. Sometimes the shape of a mouse. Marshmallows are the larger white and cylindrical or cube ones that you put on a stick to roast on a campfire before eating.
You have mouse shaped marshmallows?
Unfair.
Never heard of that in German. It’s just marshmallows with a generic German accent instead. But it’s cool to learn something new. Which region says that, OP?
All the regions, just lost in time. It was sold by Haribo under that name in the 80s, it’s why you can still get “süße Mäuse” or “weiße Mäuse” from Haribo and why it’s generally often presented in mouse-form.
Marshmallow only became more popular when younger generations spoke English more often.
Omg, really ? That makes sense ! I just accepted the mouse thing as a willy wonka side effect. Didn’t realize this could be a part of the history
Schaumzucker (German), literally “foam sugar”
Couldn’t that also describe cotton candy? Or would that be more like felt sugar?
Cotton candy is Zuckerwatte, lit. sugar wool
Skumfidus 🇩🇰
“Foam trick” i guess, is the literal translation.
Fidus is a weird word.
Fidus also means dims/dingenot which seems like the more correct use of the word in this context. The translation for that would be thingamajig.
Guimauve
Ou mâche-mâlo en bon Québécois.
Quel génie !
French gang
That’s what is on the French packaging in Canada. In France I’ve seen Chamallows.
Same cognate the Spanish but opposite. Hibiscus-mallow
We didn’t bother translating, so it’s marshmallow. Sometimes written phonetically, maršmelou.
Is this Czech?
Yep.
Is this Yep?
No, this is Patrick!
Czech!
It Chechs out then
Here in Mexico (Spanish) is known as Bombón. A quick Google search says that apparently comes from the repetition of the french word ‘bon’
It is worth to mention that, despite most of the countries in Latin America speak Spanish, things have different names in different countries, even if it’s the same language.
According to Wikipedia, marshmallows are also known as
nube, esponjita, malvavisco, fringuel, jamón o suncho
“bonbon” in French means candy
Nein, davon weiß ich absolut nichts. Das ist regional allerhöchstens oder ein Synonym für Marshmallow.
Google translate “No, I know absolutely nothing about that. That’s regional at most or a synonym for marshmallow.”
You should name it sugar pillow or better we should all name it sugar pillow in our language.
Zuckerkissen
Nobody wants to kiss that dude.
Kenn ich auch nicht
Ich kenne das auch so wie OP.
Doch
Oohhh
