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Comment by nine_k | Hacker News Reader

If the goal is something that reads weird for most Europeans, then try picking names from Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, or Welsh.

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My missus is Hungarian, I'm sure it's a lovely language but it just sounds like Klingon to me.

Which makes it hilarious when she's annoyed at the boy.

The fact that Sz in Hungarian reads as s and other way around, S becomes sh - is mind-boggling especially for Poles, where Sz is pronounced as sh. and S remains s.

In Spanish "z" always sounds [s] (except in Spain where it sounds [θ]), but "s" can often sound [z].

Wait for the Italian where "cc" makes a "ch" sound and "ch" is "k"

* When followed by e or i.

Oh mio Dio :x

Funnily enough, there are quite a few IKEA products with Finnish names. (Most are place names from northern Sweden, where there's a significant Finnish minority.)

The Tornedalen people are kinda their own group with their own language (Meänkieli). To an outsider it might sound like Finnish, but it's not much closer to Finnish than Yiddish is to German.

Not so sure. As a native Finnish speaker, I'd say most of us would understand Meänkieli just fine, especially anyone raised on the coastal areas where colloquial Swedish loans are more common in general.

Meänkieli split from what became the Torne Valley dialects of Finnish in 1809, when an international border suddenly appeared in the middle of the region. To a Finnish speaker it sounds like a bit old-fashioned dialect, but it's mostly intelligible. It's definitely closer to standard Finnish than Karelian, which takes a lot of effort to understand.

Basque would be truly weird since it is one of a few known language isolates

Now I want a HÉTFŐ desk, and a SZÉKESFEHÉRVÁR... something.

You really wanna get weird, there's those continents of Asia, Africa, and South America, full of different sounds to use for names. Ikea is Swedish, so they get to propagate Swedish culture to the rest of the world.

With a side of tasty meatballs.

I've had tasty meatballs. It was the lingonberry sauce that I was introduced from Ikea.

Has anyone else noticed that Ikea meatballs aren’t as tasty as they used to be? And then there’s that whole issue of there being, like, 4 different types, and none of them seem to be what they sound like.

I can just imagine Chinese IKEA, their entire product list would be Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì, shǐ shì shí shī shìshì Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shíshì Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shíshì Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī Shí shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī shī, shí shí shí shī shī Shì shì shì shì.

My favourite poem!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_...

Imagine an alternative reality where a KALLAX is a ԿԱԼԼԱՔՍ and the stores have pushy salesmen with impressive amounts of visible chest hair.

the joke is a bit too hairy to my taste, and yet I can't help but imagine how good would be the restaurant in that reality!

I heard the raktajino is really good! Qapla'!

Their ads could star the Kardashians.

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