Mobile phone terms across the world

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The following is a list of Mobile phone terms across the world.

Mobile phones are known as:

• candy bar in the United States, housing shape that has no hinges and resembles an oblong candy bar. Sometimes referred as simply "bar."
• cell phones or cell in Canada, India, New Zealand, Philippines, South Africa, United States.
• muthophone (phone in the palm) in Bangladesh. This term is used because mobile phone can be held and used in palm. This term is popular among teenagers and in the literary world of Dhaka.
• celular or cel in Albania.
• celulares (singular form celular) in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Puerto Rico and other Spanish-speaking countries as the Spanish word for Cellular. It is also used in Portuguese-speaking Brazil.
• cep telefonu (pocket phone) in Turkey
• chirp in the United States, a term made popular by teenagers, as in to "chirp someone". This is regarding the sound of the Nextel walkie-talkie feature. Used 'interchangeably' with 'Beep-Beep'
• clamshell in the United States, a phone that opens up to reveal the keypad, microphone, and earpiece; these are typically more compact than other designs. Often called "flip phones" (although 'flip phone' is a trademark of Motorola). Clamshell phones became very popular in the United States after the introduction of Motorola's StarTAC in 1996.
• dzhiesem (джиесем) (from GSM) in Bulgaria, refers only to GSM mobile phones
• Di động (mobile phone) , điện thoại cầm tay (handy phone) or môbai in Vietnam.
• Farsími (Official for all mobile phone systems), Gemsi (means young sheep, referring to GSM), GSM-sími (For phones using the GSM System), or NMT-sími (For phones using the Nordic Mobile Telephone-system) in Iceland
• fònaichean làimhe (meaning hand phone; singular form fòn làimhe) or fònaichean phoca (meaning pocket phone; singular form fòn phoca) in Scottish Gaelic
• ffôn symudol in Welsh
• telefonito (meaning little phone) in Argentina.
• movicom (because of the first company to have a cell phone network) in Uruguay.
• fón póca, teileafón póca ('pocket telephone') or guthán soghluaiste ('mobile telephone') in Irish
• GSMs in Belgium.
• hand phones or handphones (핸드폰) in many Asian countries such as Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea, encompassing cell phones or any wireless phones connected to telecommunication providers. In South Korea, it is also called hyudae jeonhwa (휴대 전화; 携帶電話) or hyudaepon (휴대폰).
• handyphone in the Philippines by Globe Telecom (used by the main mobile branch of Globe, Globe Handyphone)
• Handy (plural form Handys), pronounced /hɛndi/, a pseudo-anglicism that is used in Austria, Germany and Switzerland for a mobile phone (rare alternative spelling: Händi). In German, the word "Handy" has the meaning of "Hand-Telefon" or "handgehaltenes Mobiltelefon" (translated to English: "handheld mobile telephone"). The term possibly derived from the 1940s product name Handie-Talkie for a handheld military radio. (The backpack version was introduced as Walkie-Talkie.)
• telefon-hamráh or hamráh (تلفن همراه, literally companion phone) in Iran
• jawwal (mobile) in Saudi Arabia
• Keitai (携帯, portable, short for keitai denwa, 携帯電話, portable telephone) in Japan; semantic development is very close to words like mobile
• khelyawi (cellular) in Lebanon
• kinitó (κινητό), short for kinitó tiléfono (κινητό τηλέφωνο), which means mobile phone in Greece and Cyprus
• komórki (singular form komórka) or telefon komórkowy, meaning cells/cellular phone in Poland
• mahmool (محمول) or Jawwal (جوَّال') or Khelyawi (خليوي) or Mobile (موبايل) in Arabic
• matkapuhelimet (literally travel-phones, singular form matkapuhelin) or kännykät (singular form kännykkä, very close in meaning to the German Handy) in Finland; actually trademarked by Nokia in 1987 but fallen into generic use and would probably not be upheld any more if contested in a court of law
• Meu Teu (มือถือ) in Thailand
• mobieltjes in the Netherlands
• mobifon (мобифон), a contraction of mobilen telefon (мобилен телефон) in Bulgaria, which came into usage with the introduction of 1G mobile phones. As GSM mobile phones became more widely used, some started calling them dzhiesem as to distinguish them from 1G phones. The remaining 1G phones are still referred to as mobifon, while GSM phones are referred to by most as dzhiesem, although it is looked down upon by some.
• mobil in Denmark, Hungary, Norway, Slovakia and Sweden
• mobilais telefons or mobilais in Latvia
• mobile, short for "mobile phone" (in the sense of "cellular phone"), a term in everyday usage in some English-speaking countries such as the UK and Australia. Also commonly used by industry insiders in the United States, although with a different pronunciation.
• mobiles in Australia, India, Ireland, New Zealand, UK, Germany
• Мобілка or Mobilka as a slang term in Ukraine
• mobilní telefony (singular form mobilní telefon), or simply mobily (mobil) in Czech Republic
• mobilny telefon (= mobile phone), or mobilnik, mobila for short. Older names are sotovy telefon (= cell phone) and trubka (= handset) in Russia
• mòbils in Andorra
• mobiltelefon in Denmark, Germany (Mobiltelefon, formerly Mobiltelephon, is the official German term), Hungary, Norway, Sweden (sometimes nalle in Sweden, meaning teddy bear translated to English, originally referring to the term yuppie-nalle since until the late 1980s only rich yuppies could afford them and they showed them off in a way that looked as they were carrying a yuppie teddy bear, nowadays only nalle is used representing that people always carry them around and feel insecure if they misplace them, like a child missing their teddy bear)
• mobilus telefonas or mobilus in Lithuania
• mobitel in Slovenia. They are named after company called Mobitel which was the first national cell phone network operator. The name is made from the words for Mobile and Telephone.
• /pelefon/ (פלאפון; literally wonder-phone), as derived from the first such operator, or /najad/ (נייד; mobile) in Israel
• móviles (móvil) in Spanish and mòbils (mòbil) in Catalan in Spain
• Natel ("Nationales Autotelefon") in Switzerland
• Ponsel (telepon selular, cellular phones), or HP (shortened from Hand Phone, but pronounced ha-pe, not like HP in English) in Indonesian
• poŝtelefonoj ("pocket phones", pronounced poshtelefonoy) by users of Esperanto
• portable (literally portable) in France
• sau kei (Simplified Chinese:手机 Traditional Chinese:手機), Cantonese transliteration for "手机" or "手機", a similar term to that of handphone or mobile phone but is translated to mean hand's device or hand's device telephone, used in Canonese speaking areas Hong Kong and Guangdong Province of China.
• shou ji (Simplified Chinese:手机 Traditional Chinese:手機), the Chinese pinyin spelling translation for "手机" or "手機", a similar term to that of handphone or mobile phone but is translated to mean hand's device or hand's device telephone, used in Mandrin speaking areas Mainland China and Taiwan.
• slider, a form where the two halves slide together. This design allows the main display to be shown while the keypad is hidden. [where is it used?]
• sotka (short form of cellular phone in Russian language) in Uzbekistan
• Telefonino (meaning small phone), or Cellulare (short form for Telefono cellulare) in Italy
• Telefon Bimbit (Mobile Phone) in Bahasa Malaysia*
• telefon selolari (cellular phone) in formal Hebrew. Most of the Israelis say pelephone (פלאפון) like the name of the first mobile company.
• telefon mobil (pl. telefoane mobile), but the short form is more common: mobil (mobile) in Romania
• telemóvel ("telefone móvel", "mobile telephone") in Portugal
• telefoonka gacanta (literally "hand's phone") in Somalia
• xing dong dian hua (行動電話) in Taiwan, literal Chinese translation of "mobile phone".