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Comment by harel | Hacker News Reader

There is one word which I think is the same in all languages: Tariff.

And it makes sense - it's the "how much?" that would be (and is) asked at any port and travelling hub.

That's an interesting one. I haven't used that word in a while but it is used across many languages. I guess maybe it's because it's most often used in the context of global trade, travel and politics which is inherently multi-lingual. It's something which affects almost everyone (hence everyone knows the word) but only a few people have control over it and use it frequently (hence there was not much incentive for people to change it as it propagated outside of its domain).

German doesn't use that.

The word 'Tarif' exists in German but it's used in different contexts, eg for collective bargaining agreements between labour unions and employers.

Polish has cło (modern, borrowed from German) or myto (archaic, Slavic root, implies it's different in every city).

There's taryfa but it's mostly used as a slang word for taxi or any kind of constant payment for a service with slightly mocking tone.

There's also taryfikator which is the word for the list of fines for speeding tickets depending on the speed :)

taryfa is used in many contexts as published listing of fees, also in taryfa celna.

Same in Slovak except mýto is not archaic in context of highway toll.

One counterexample: the Mandarin word for tariff is 關稅 (guānshuì).

Even Greek has a quite different word for it.

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