In general, I speak to my parents in Chinglish. I'll speak in Chinese if I'm feeling patient or in English if I'm feeling passionate or emotional. My mom responds to me in Mandarin and my dad responds in English (go figure). So when I was talking to my parents about my wisdom teeth, my mom said the phrase in Mandarin. When I asked what the literal translation was, she said simply, "wisdom teeth."
Why are wisdom teeth called wisdom teeth? Well, these third molars typically grow in between 17 and 25. This is supposedly the age where we graduate from childhood to adulthood and gain more wisdom. This phrase comes from Greek and first appeared in 1668. Hippocrates called them "sophronisteres," from "sophron" which translates to prudent. Hop on over to Rome, where they called them "dentes sapientiae" which means teeth of wisdom. Whether or not we become wiser between the ages of 17 to 25 is still a question mark to me.
Similar translations of "wisdom teeth" are used in many other languages such as Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and French. It's interesting that humans were so inclined to give these teeth a name instead of just calling them our third molars.
In Korean, though, wisdom teeth is actually 사랑니, or love teeth. The assumption is that this is the age when people experience the pain of a first love. What a poignant observation and timely lesson.
As a sidebar, there do seem to be many similarities between the extraction of wisdom teeth and the loss of a first love, or any love for that matter. That, of course, is a story for another time.
Labels: etymology
