The Word "Tornado"


A long time customer and friend of ours called one day, and told me he had a trivia question. He and a friend were debating whether or not the word "tornado" was used all over the world, or whether there were different words for it in each language.
"What," he asked, "is the word for tornado in Japanese?"
Well, I had no idea, but Tom knew it instantly. "tatsumaki" he said. But it is "tornado" in Portuguese, just like in English. Guess you can tell what he has been up to recently! But we both thought that it was a great question, and would like more to add to this list. So if you are visiting this site from a country whose native language is something other than English, or if it is English -speaking but has another name for a tornado, waterspout, or dust devil, we would like to post it here!
We know that we have had people from over 90 different countries visit this site, and we would be pleased to hear from you about this.

So please add to our list:

Email us the word for tornado, waterspout, and dust devil, and include the country, what the language is called, and let us know what your name is.

We'll start this off with the answer to the original question!

the word for tornadowaterspoutdust devilcountry of originlanguagecontributor
tatsu maki JapanJapaneseTom G.
tornado redemoinhoBrazilPortugueseDomenico M.
anemostrüvilos GreeceGreekPetros V.
trombewasserhosesandteufelGermanyGermanMichael S.
wervelstormwaterhooszandstormHollandDutchDick M.
tromba d'ariatromba marinamulinelloItalyItalianMassimo B.
tornado or cock-eyed bobwaterspoutwilly willy or cockeyed bobAustraliaEnglishJohn and Ira
iomghaoth, or, gaoth-sgrios Scottish GaelicAndey M.
lung geng fong ChinaChineseTorin Chang
torbellino, remolino and tornado Puerto Rico SpanishRubén Ortiz-Sánchez
tornadoskypumpe střvhvirvelDenmarkDanishMark Binder and Mette Jensen
camanfacuaifeach uisce
or maidhm bhaisti
Irish GaelicSharon Green



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