11 Untranslatable Words From Other Cultures

11 Untranslatable Words From Other Cultures | Ella Frances ...
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October 10, 2013
11 Untranslatable Words From Other Cultures

Posted: 08/26/2013 1:52 pm
10,366 Share 683 Tweet Get Arts Newsletters: Enter email Subscribe 331 Email This post originally appeared over on the Maptia Blog. The team at Maptia are creating a beautiful platform for telling stories 253 Comment about places (launching soon!) and you can check out their 'See The World' manifesto here. The relationship between words and their meaning is a fascinating one, and linguists have spent countless years deconstructing it, taking it apart letter by letter, and trying to gure out why there are so many feelings and ideas that we cannot even put words to, and that our languages cannot identify. The idea that words cannot always say everything has been written about extensively -- as Friedrich Nietzsche said, "Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon the absolute truth." No doubt the best book we've read that covers the subject is Through The Language Glass by Guy Deutscher, which goes a long way to explaining and understanding these loopholes -- the gaps which mean there are leftover words without translations, and concepts that cannot be properly explained across cultures. Somehow narrowing it down to just a handful, we've illustrated 11 of these wonderful, untranslatable, if slightly elusive, words. We will denitely be trying to incorporate a few of them into our everyday conversations, and hope that you enjoy recognizing a feeling or two of your own among them. 1 | German: Waldeinsamkeit A feeling of solitude, being alone in the woods and a connectedness to nature. Ralph Waldo Emerson even wrote a whole poem about it. 2 | Italian: Culaccino The mark left on a table by a cold glass. Who knew condensation could sound so poetic? 3 | Inuit: Iktsuarpok The feeling of anticipation that leads you to go outside and check if anyone is coming, and probably also indicates an element of impatience. 4 | Japanese: Komorebi This is the word the Japanese have for when sunlight lters through the trees -- the interplay between the light and the leaves. 5 | Russian: Pochemuchka Someone who asks a lot of questions. In fact, probably too many questions. We all know a few of these. 6 | Spanish: Sobremesa Spaniards tend to be a sociable bunch, and this word describes the period of time after a meal when you have food-induced conversations with the people you have shared the meal with. 7 | Indonesian: Jayus Their slang for someone who tells a joke so badly, that is so unfunny you cannot help but laugh out loud. 8 | Hawaiian: Pana Po!o You know when you forget where you've put the keys, and you scratch your head because it somehow seems to help your remember?
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This is the word for it. 9 | French: Dpaysement The feeling that comes from not being in one's home country -- of being a foreigner, or an immigrant, of being somewhat displaced from your origin. 10 | Urdu: Goya Urdu is the national language of Pakistan, but is also an ofcial language in 5 of the Indian states. This particular Urdu word conveys a contemplative 'as-if' that nonetheless feels like reality, and describes the suspension of disbelief that can occur, often through good storytelling. 11 | Swedish: Mngata The word for the glimmering, roadlike reection that the moon creates on water. untranslatable words mngata. Follow Ella Frances Sanders on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ellafsanders
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Edoardo Benna
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"Dpaysement" is not just a french word, for example you can easily translate it in italian as "spaesamento". Also, never heard of "culaccino", and I'm Italian.
REPLY FAVE SHARE MORE 10 OCT 2:55 PM
Stephen Sekel
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Words are untranslatable only if one holds the simplistic view that a word in one language must be translated by a single word in another (as they put it in French, "une traduction mot--mot"). Professional translators have been engaged from time immemorial in the quest for "functional equivalents" of problematic words or expressions in other languages, and have usually managed to come up with something comprehensible, if not always fully idiomatic. Still, this article serves to highlight the difculties that the professional translator faces on a daily basis.
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Jmonteiro
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There's one foreign word that you can't even describe with words, only if you're Portuguese and feel it, and it's "Saudade".
Jon Davis1
SUPER USER 289 Fans In Knowledge, Power: In Power, Knowledge
They may not translate...but we are a bit of a polyglot society of various cultures so we can use them ourselves. Anyone asks, just say where it's from, most people will see it as "ah, of such and such ancestry" and not think anything about it. (The people who do have an issue are either curious about the etymology of words, or just looking for a ght)
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Colmenares Mauricio
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Who Dat? Only in New Orleans

Peter Tajthy
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What about mummelgreis (German)? Is there an "easy" translation of it into other languages (does not exist in Hungarian). It literally means an old guy without teeth... (and thus can only murmur). Weltschmerz does exist in Hungarian ("vilgfjdalom"). Most probably an early adaptation of the German original.
Maidin
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12 Schadenfreude
Ana Carolina Buim

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and "saudade"?
REPLY FAVE SHARE MORE 28 SEP 10:00 AM
Rita Stevens
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sorry,never heared "Waldeinsamkeit" ...

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AyseGuler
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Number 9 has a Turkish translation. It's "Sla" in Turkish.

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11 Untranslatable Words From Other Cultures - Ella Frances Sanders

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11 Untranslatable Words From Other Cultures | Ella Frances ...

October 10, 2013