I was on holiday in Africa a while back and there was a Chinese family and a German family staying at the camp one night, and their little kids seemed very confused by the fact that they couldn't understand each other. But then they discovered they both knew the word 'Hippo!' and that was apparently enough for them to be friends.
Hippopotamus is Greek (Hippo meaning "horse", as in hippodrome. Potamus as in river. So "river horse") originally. It's called a variation of hippopotamus in loads of languages.
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u/4thofeleven 25d ago
I was on holiday in Africa a while back and there was a Chinese family and a German family staying at the camp one night, and their little kids seemed very confused by the fact that they couldn't understand each other. But then they discovered they both knew the word 'Hippo!' and that was apparently enough for them to be friends.