The Magdalene Review

Maybe you’ve found yourself in a moment of silence, pondering Mary Magdalene, when all of a sudden a thought occurs to you: “I wonder how to say ‘Saint Mary Magdalene’ in other languages?”

Well, you’re in luck.  I just happened to be asking myself that same question today (and several other days, in fact), so I decided to do something about it.   We are lucky enough to live in a global society that produces companies like Google, which produces products like Google Translate.  I plugged in the term “Saint Mary Magdalene” and what follows  is what popped out: a translation of her name into 37 different languages.  (Please note that I haven’t included any translations that appeared in non-Latin fonts — I’m working on getting screen caps of those and will post on another day.)

Africaans:    Heilige Maria Magdalena
Albanian:    Shën Maria Magdalena
Basque:        Santa Maria Magdalena
Catalan:    Maria Magdalena sant
Croatian:    Saint Mary Magdalene
Czech:        Saint Marie z Magdaly
Danish:        Saint Maria Magdalene
Dutch:        heilige Maria Magdalena
Estonian:    pühak Maarja Magdaleena
Filipino:    santo Mary magdalene
Finnish:    saint Maria Magdalena
French:        Saint Mary Magdalene (also:  Sainte Marie Madeleine, not provided by Google)
Galician:    Santa María Madalena
German:        Hl. Maria Magdalena
Haitian Creole:    Saint Mary Madlenn
Hungarian:    Szent Mária Magdolna
Icelandic:    Saint Mary Magdalena
Indonesian:    Santa Maria Magdalena
Irish:        Mary Magdalene naomh
Italian:    santa Maria Maddalena
Latvian:    Saint Mary Magdalene
Lithuanian:    Saint Mary Magdalene
Malay:        Santa Maria Magdalena
Maltese:    Magdalene Santa Marija
Norwegian:    Saint Mary Magdalene
Polish:        świętych Marii Magdaleny
Portuguese:    Santa Maria Madalena
Romanian:    Sfânta Maria Magdalena
Slovak:        Saint Márie z Magdaly
Slovenian:    Svetnica Marija Magdalena
Spanish:    María Magdalena Santo
Swahili:    Mtakatifu Maria Magdalene
Swedish:    Saint Mary Magdalene
Thai:        Saint Mary Magdalene
Turkish:    Saint Mary Magdalene
Vietnamese:    Saint Mary Magdalene
Welsh:        St Mary Magdalen

I do realize that Google Translate is not as talented as a native speaker of the above languages, so if any readers can offer corrections or better translations, please let me know!  I will be happy to update this post with more accurate information.