The German phrases (Ameisenlaufen, pelzige Haut) seem odd. As a native German I've never heard of them and there's a grammatical error in the second one (it's cited as "pelziges Haut", the grammatical gender of the adjective and noun don't match up: Haut is feminine but pelziges indicates neuter). He doesn't seem to be a native speaker so I'd take that claim with a grain of salt.

When it comes to Switzerland, I only ever witnessed the phrase using "einschlafen" (fall asleep) as well. I never heard of the other two.

Also: I think I would still get the "ants" idiom (just based on the feeling itself), but the furry skin part really puzzles me.

Ameisenlaufen is used in Austria quite a bit. Never heard pelzige Haut.

"einschlafen" or the dialect forms are common too.

The pins and needles part is closest to what it't called in Serbo-Croatian, guess it's the modernized version of what is found in nature. In SH(BS/HR/SR) you'd say "trne mi ruka" which would translate to "my hand is thorning" as in using thorn as a verb.

In Slovenian we say that our hand is ant-y, "mravljinčasta roka" or that we have ants "mravljince mam".

Is this true? I have never heard of any limb falling asleep. They may sleep, but the falling into sounds strange to my ears.

My native Danish is possibly fooling my perception. My leg can sleep ('sove'), but no way it could falde i søvn (the exact same construct as fall asleep).

The sleep part refers to the sensation of numbness. The tingling wake-up part seems to be associated with ants in large parts of the world. But not here. That would simply be tingling or prickling or some such thing.

I am confused by your doubt. If English is not your native tongue, what instinct leads you to believe the statement is peculiar? Is it because English can mislead a non-native speaker?

The answer is yes: having lived in 9 of the 50 US States in every cardinal (and sub) direction - as well as a stint in London - I’ve never encountered any confusion about this phrase. Limbs fall asleep. Or, a limb is asleep. But, if you’re sitting on your leg, and you know this to cut circulation, it would be unsurprising for you to say “it’s falling asleep” with the “degree” being the amount of paresthesia you expect to encounter when moving the limb.

As I said, I am quite possibly being led astray by my native language. Danish/Norwegian is so very, very close to English in so many areas of vocab, grammar, and idiom, it's sometimes hard to keep the instinctives of one from bleeding into the other.

I did search my memory before commenting, and came up blank: I have never heard about limbs falling asleep. Hence my initial question, which you hereby seem to have answered.

"Fall" has a few definitions but one of them is "pass into a specified state". So "fell asleep" means changing from being awake to sleeping.

Apologies if you know this - I wasn't sure from your post.

Yes, I know, and no, you're right, I didn't make that clear at all.

My point was that exactly: The transitioning part sounds completely wrong to me. Where I come from, my leg can be sleeping or not, but it can't perform the state change from one to the other.

It's a funny phrase, because you'd most often say "My arm fell asleep." You might say "My arm is asleep." but never have I heard anyone say "My arm is sleeping."

I didn't know "fall sleep" worked in English too. The phrase used in Persian [0] would translate to the same thing.

[0] خواب رفتن, transliteration: "khab raftan"

As a native Portuguese speaker from Brazil (Sao Paulo), the use of “formigamento” sounds too formal to me.

I have always used “dormiu”, which translates to “fell asleep” (past tense). However, using it in the present (either simple or continuous) would sound odd to my ears.

That being said, Brazil has over 200 million speakers distributed across 3.2 million square miles, and the city of São Paulo accounts for only 5% of our total population (roughly).

In Sinhalese (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinhalese_language), there is a specific word for numbness and local anesthesia: "හිරිවැටීම". Literally translated as "falling into numbness".

I am typing in Roman but for Urdu we have a word for it suun but also use sleep like in english

The formal medical term is related to the "running ants" expression: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formication

In Chinese they go “ma2” (麻）which means “numb” or “tingly”. Interestingly the character is also used for their spicy hot pot (麻辣火鍋) which uses a spice called Sichuan peppercorn (花椒) which makes your mouth go numb like novocaine.

In Greek it's "μούδιασε" (moó-thee-a-se) which is a completely standalone word, having the meaning of falling asleep, but not literally meaning that.

In Russian they don't fall asleep by themselves, it is you who make them so. 'Я отлежал руку' - I made my arm fall asleep by lying on it.

"рука затекла"

Right, it seems to be more commonly used.

My arm has gone numb.

In Urdu they sleep as well. "Mera paoun so gaya hai". "My foot is sleeping" i.e. my foot has that intense tingling feeling.

In Japanese, they go numb (痺れる). The kanji 痺 means numb, palsy, or paralyzed.

Polish has ants or stiff hand or pins and needles sort of (ciarki).

that's interesting I talked to a New Zealander once and he didn't know what I mean until he finally said: "oh you mean pins and needles"

exactly the same expression in Hindi as well.