Completely unrelated st*pid, useless cunning linguist pointer of the day (mainly ‘cause I am bored outta my mind lately):
The English word "robot" comes from the Czech word for "work/labour", "robota" (pronounced near-‘nuff as “ro-BO-ta”), which is a similar word in many other Slavic languages. It was introduced in a science fiction play by Czech writer Karel Čapek in 1920. He chose the word "robot" to describe the automatons being made in a factory.
The word for "work" in Roosky is "работа" pronounced "ra-BOTE-a". Now here is the really strange part, the word for "robot" in Roosky is "робот" and pronounced “RO-baht” and is taken from the Czech word. This may be one of the only instances where the Russians ever borrowed anything from the Czechs… well, that, and their freedom from 1945-1990.
Anyway, the word “robot” is pretty much used universally with cognates and variations of its original Czech word. Here are few (okay, many, many few) examples:
(European ~ less Slavic ~ languages)
Albanian ~ “robot” (pronounced “RO-bot”)
Basque ~ “robota” (pronounced “ro-bo-ta”)
Danish ~ “robot” (pronounced “ro-bot”)
Dutch ~ “robot” (pronounced “RO-bot”)
Esperanto ~ “roboto” (sorry, Google Translate seems to be prejudiced against the great country of Esperantia; they do not provide an aural pronunciation for this language)
Estonian ~ “robot” (pronounced “RO-bot”)
Finnish ~ “robotti” (pronounced “RO-bot-tee”)
French ~ “robot” (pronounced “RO-bo”)
Georgian ~ “რობოტი” (pronounced “robot-ee”)
German ~ “Roboter” (pronounced “RO-bot-a”)
Greek ~ “ρομπότ” (pronounced “ro-BOT”; I would just like to point out that there is no letter “B” in Greek, they put an “m” and a “p” together to get as close to the sound as possible… so, maybe they are really calling these automatons “rumpot”)
Hungarian ~ “robot” (pronounced “RO-bote”)
Italiano ~ “robot” (pronounced “RO-bo”)
Latvian ~ “robots” (pronounced “RO-bots”)
Lithuanian ~ “robotas” (pronounced “RO-bot-as”)
Norwegian ~ “robot” (pronounced “ro-BOT”)
Portuguese ~ “robô” (pronounced “ra-BO”)
Romani ~ “roboto” (pronounced “ro-bot-o”)
Romanian ~ “robot” (pronounced “RO-bote”)
Spanish ~ “robot” (pronounced “ro-BOT”)
Swedish ~ “robot” (pronounced “RO-bot”)
(Slavic languages theird*mnselves)
Belarusian ~ “робат” (pronounced “ro-BAHT”)
Bosnian ~ “robot” (pronounced “RO-bot”)
Bulgarian ~ “робот” (pronounced “ro-bote”)
Croatian ~ “robot” (pronounced “RO-bote”)
Macedonian ~ “робот” (pronounced “ro-bote”)
Serbian ~ “робот” (pronounced “RO-bot”)
Slovak ~ “robot” (pronounced “RO-bote”)
Slovenian ~ “robot” (pronounced “RO-bot”)
Ukrainian ~ “робот” (pronounced “Ee-dee na khuy, roosky korabl!” [as long as Bad Vlad insists on invading the good people of Ukraine, I will continue to use this silly joke])
(Middle Eastern languages)
Arabic ~ “روبوت” (pronounced “RO-boo”)
Armenian ~ “ռոբոտ” (pronounced “rro-bot”)
Hebrew ~ “רוֹבּוֹט” (pronounced “RO-bote”)
Persian ~ “ربات” (pronounced “ra-baht”)
urkish ~ “robot” (pronounced “RO-bote”)
(Asian languages, to also include most of the Pacific Rim island countries [I was getting tired of all these sub-categories])
Bengali ~ “রোবট” (pronounced “RO-bote”)
Filipino ~ “robot” (pronounced “RO-bot”)
Hindi ~ “रोबोट” (pronounced “RO-bote”)
Indonesian ~ “robot” (pronounced “RO-bot”)
Japanese ~ “ロボット” (pronounced “ro-bot-to”; “Damo arigato, Mr. DeYoung!”)
Javanese ~ “robot” (pronounced “ro-bote”)
Malay ~ “robot” (pronounced “RO-bot”)
Mongolian ~ “робот” (pronounced “ro-bote”; while this is primarily an Asian language, they use a Cyrillic alphabet like the Rooskis do)
Samoan ~ “roboti” (pronounced “ro-bot-ee”)
Tongan ~ “lōpoti” (pronounced “lo-POT-ee”)
(African continent languages)
Afrikaans ~ “robot” (pronounced “roy-bote”)
Amharic (Ethiopia) ~ “ሮቦት” (pronounce “RO-bote”)
Sudanese ~ “robot” (pronounced “RO-bot”)
Swahili ~ “roboti” (pronounced “ro-BOT-ee”)
Zulu ~ “irobhothi” (pronounced “ee-ro-BOT-ee”)
(So, there you have “robot” from A[frikaans]-to-Z[ulu].)
