Speak my Language!

... sang The Cure. And I am going to take you to the Babylonian abyss that translation can create.

I bought toothpaste the other day. Whitening stuff, as I had a voucher (and am vain). And it had one of those leaflets that explain things. As I like them, I thought I'd give it a go. Here's what it said:

Years ago, during an expedition in the Arctic, a number of American scientists discovered that the secret behind the extraordinary whiteness of the teeth of the local population lay in rubbing them with lichens.

OK, fine, who cares anyway?
But then my gaze fell on the German part of the leaflet, which said the following:

... amerikanische Wissenschaftler bei einer Expedition in der Antarktis...

Now, you don't have to speak German to see that Antarktis is a lot more like Antarctic, isn't it? And besides, which local population in Antarctica could brush their teeth with lichen? Penguins don't have teeth.

Right, I thought, this toothpaste is from Italy, let's check the Italian version:

... una spedizione in Artide ...

Looks like Arctic to me. Or, more Arctic than Antarctic, at least.

The French?

... d'une expedition en Arctique ...

Spanish?

... al Artico ...

But the Slovenians prefer penguins again:

... na Antarktiki ...

The Greek?

... Αρκτική ...

Now, that looks Arctic to me.
It seems that only for German and Slovenian audiences the American scientists have gone south - in Polish (Arktykę), Turkish (Arktik), Russian (Арктику), Croatian (arktičke), and Dutch (noordpoolgebied) they go north. I admit I can't figure it out for Hungarian and Arabic, but I think the picture is clear.

I like Geography. *g*