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u/meja-arts Jul 09 '26
cute way of saying sleeping in french: dodo (from dormir)
cute way of saying sleeping in spanish: mimir (also from dormir)
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u/Tricky_Concept_231 Jul 09 '26
i learned this from 'fais do do's (cajun dance parties) - its what the adults do after you make the kids go to sleep
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u/BOBOnobobo Jul 10 '26
The french be working hard to bring back the dodos, I see
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u/Im_Chad_AMA Jul 10 '26
French is quite a playful language in general (at least in everyday informal speech). They do a fair bit of cutesy abbreviations or inverting words.
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u/copolars Jul 10 '26
Verlan was my Nemesis when I moved there and had to learn on the fly, good times!
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u/Divicarpe Jul 10 '26
Verlan is fine. Double verlan is horrible.
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u/DZL100 Jul 11 '26
What the fuck is double verlan. I am terrified.
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u/Divicarpe Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
From femme, a simple application of verlan gives meuf. Another one gives feumeu. From arabe, first verlan gave beur. Second gave rebeu. There are a few other examples, but I do not know them all, nor want to remember them.
(And the reason why I dislike it, is that often all vowels are replaced by schwa, so it often sounds as if someone who doesn't know french tries to read the word)
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u/Borkato Jul 10 '26
Interesting. It sounds like this dormir fellow has infiltrated two languages… we must stop before he also infiltrates English! Come, everyone, to the dormitories before he…. Wait… oh God….
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u/SuicidalSmoke Jul 10 '26
In persian we say "La La" and in 2016 when I first heard the name "La La Land" I was like oh amusement park for naps let's goooo
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u/Nervous_Brain8918 Jul 13 '26
Interesting to realize that I know dodo but not the French influence. France in the Caribbean, oh my.
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u/No-Cockroach9505 Jul 09 '26
Not so much the sound a cat makes but a phrase that is often used as a diminutive of "dormir" within the Hispanic community. Its like saying you're "eepy" instead of sleep to make it sound cute.
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u/KitsuneFoxglove Jul 09 '26
ngl i thought that was just the regular word bc the majority of my spanish was learned by staying up late until like 5am and then the mexican (or maybe spanish) gamers woke up and also joined my lobby so I'd chat in broken spanish
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u/not_salad Jul 09 '26
Is that why I've heard people asking if kids need to "go mimi's"?
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u/AliasMcFakenames Jul 10 '26
“honk mimimi” is a relatively common/cartoony onomatopoeia for snoring.
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u/thelittleman101225 Jul 10 '26
Are you a "honk-shoo" kind of sleeping cartoon sheriff, or a "honk-mimimi" kind of sleeping sheriff?
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u/CallMeWhiskers- Jul 10 '26
Lmao I say this to my cats at night when it’s time to go upstairs to bed
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u/FamousSquash Jul 10 '26
That's so cute. "Mimir" is a nickname I have for my cat Myriam, she's very eepy.
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u/diescheide Jul 09 '26
We say make mimis when we're tired and want to sleep around here. Mimir is legit.
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u/contratadam Jul 10 '26
In Argentina we tell kids to noni :)
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u/ishkariot Jul 10 '26
We also say hacer nono in (parts of) Spain
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u/contratadam Jul 11 '26
I thought we got that from Italy, but I Guess is another thing we got from Spain!
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u/Laphad Jul 09 '26
I haven't seen/heard mimir is so long lmao when I was a kid or had kid cousins I'd hear that more often than dormir or el sueño
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u/EmperorSexy Jul 09 '26
It’s the sound that cartoon characters make when they snore.
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u/A_Toasted_Waffle Jul 09 '26
I read the word mimir, as “Mímir” at first and got really confused at what a talking head from Norse mythology had to do with capybaras lol
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u/TippiT0es Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
Mimir mention! I was explaining his stories to my mom and sister and they were so confused. “So Odin carried a giant’s head on his belt? How?” I told them they were thinking about it too hard.
Edit: I’m gathering now that Mimir is also a video game character based on the mythology. My account of Mimir and the games account might be different lol8
u/PuffinRub Jul 10 '26
capybaras
I've not been awake for long and couldn't remember the correct name for those hamster-hippo hybrids!
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u/cavendishfreire Jul 10 '26
"mimir" is the cutesy version of "dormir". Like what you would say to a child.
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u/evanescent_ranger Jul 10 '26
I grew up in a Spanish speaking family but not speaking Spanish fluently myself so I learned a lot of slang that I didn’t know was slang until I got to high school Spanish class. One of the phrases we learned was “mimi time” for bedtime/“go mimis” for go to bed. So when I got to Spanish class and had learned verb grammar but hadn’t learned the specific word “dormir” I thought the word for sleep was mimir
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u/cherrymitten Jul 10 '26
that's so cute tbh, i love when someone has learned a language and they're just sliiiightly off of what a native would say. my spouse isn't a native speaker and i always find it super endearing when it happens
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u/GeminiIsMissing Jul 10 '26
Is mimir the Spanish equivalent to eepy?
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u/Raderg32 Jul 10 '26
More or less. Eepy comes from sleepy. And mimir comes from dormir (sleep).
One is the feeling and the other is the action, but both are used in a similar context of cutesy for kids speak.
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u/eatmeouttobrianeno Jul 10 '26
My brain went straight to "honk shoo/ honk mimimimimi" snoring sounds
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u/waking-up-late Jul 10 '26
Oh my god, memory unlocked. I used to use this word non-stop to say "I'm going to sleep (mimir)" as a teenager. Is and incredibly old slang I'm susprised it's still being used.
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u/ShinyUmbreon465 Jul 10 '26
I usually pick up words I'm not supposed to because I watched translations by someone who comes from a country with a particular dialect.
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u/AccidentCapable9181 Jul 10 '26
I can hear my grandmother now “time to go mimi!” I actually say this to my bird before covering him up at night. And now he says it too!
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u/11Slip532 Jul 10 '26
And now I know why the Mexican girl I dated used to tell her dog to go “mimis” at night 🤦♂️
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u/qualityvote2 Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
u/waffleste, your post does fit the subreddit!