December 2010
I think the last post is a cue for my so-long 2010 post.
May 2010 fuck off and be forgotten and 2011 be full of hyggelig and happiness - we all know we could use some.
20 Untranslatable Words from Around the World →
matadornetwork.com
1. ToskaRussian – Vladmir Nabokov describes it best: “No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.”
2. MamihlapinatapeiYagan (indigenous language of Tierra del Fuego) – “the wordless, yet meaningful look shared by two people who both desire to initiate something but are both reluctant to start” (Altalang.com)
3. JayusIndonesian – “A joke so poorly told and so unfunny that one cannot help but laugh” (Altalang.com)
4. IktsuarpokInuit – “To go outside to check if anyone is coming.” (Altalang.com)
5. LitostCzech – Milan Kundera, author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, remarked that “As for the meaning of this word, I have looked in vain in other languages for an equivalent, though I find it difficult to imagine how anyone can understand the human soul without it.” The closest definition is a state of agony and torment created by the sudden sight of one’s own misery.
6. KyoikumamaJapanese – “A mother who relentlessly pushes her children toward academic achievement” (Altalang.com)
7. TartleScottish – The act of hestitating while introducing someone because you’ve forgotten their name. (Altalang.com)
8. IlungaTshiluba (Southwest Congo) – A word famous for its untranslatability, most professional translators pinpoint it as the stature of a person “who is ready to forgive and forget any first abuse, tolerate it the second time, but never forgive nor tolerate on the third offense.” (Altalang.com)
9. ProzvonitCzech – This word means to call a mobile phone and let it ring once so that the other person will call back, saving the first caller money. In Spanish, the phrase for this is “Dar un toque,” or, “To give a touch.” (Altalang.com)
10. CafunéBrazilian Portuguese – “The act of tenderly running one’s fingers through someone’s hair.” (Altalang.com)
11. SchadenfreudeGerman – Quite famous for its meaning that somehow other languages neglected to recognize, this refers to the feeling of pleasure derived by seeing another’s misfortune. I guess “America’s Funniest Moments of Schadenfreude” just didn’t have the same ring to it.
12. TorschlusspanikGerman – Translated literally, this word means “gate-closing panic,” but its contextual meaning refers to “the fear of diminishing opportunities as one ages.” (Altalang.com)
13. Wabi-SabiJapanese – Much has been written on this Japanese concept, but in a sentence, one might be able to understand it as “a way of living that focuses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay.” (Altalang.com)
14. DépaysementFrench – The feeling that comes from not being in one’s home country.
15. TingoPascuense (Easter Island) – Hopefully this isn’t a word you’d need often: “the act of taking objects one desires from the house of a friend by gradually borrowing all of them.” (Altalang.com)
16. HyggeligDanish – Its “literal” translation into English gives connotations of a warm, friendly, cozy demeanor, but it’s unlikely that these words truly capture the essence of a hyggelig; it’s likely something that must be experienced to be known. I think of good friends, cold beer, and a warm fire. (Altalang.com)
17. L’appel du videFrench – “The call of the void” is this French expression’s literal translation, but more significantly it’s used to describe the instinctive urge to jump from high places.
18. Ya’aburneeArabic – Both morbid and beautiful at once, this incantatory word means “You bury me,” a declaration of one’s hope that they’ll die before another person because of how difficult it would be to live without them.
19. DuendeSpanish – While originally used to describe a mythical, spritelike entity that possesses humans and creates the feeling of awe of one’s surroundings in nature, its meaning has transitioned into referring to “the mysterious power that a work of art has to deeply move a person.” There’s actually a nightclub in the town of La Linea de la Concepcion, where I teach, named after this word. (Altalang.com)
20. SaudadePortuguese – One of the most beautiful of all words, translatable or not, this word “refers to the feeling of longing for something or someone that you love and which is lost.” Fado music, a type of mournful singing, relates to saudade. (Altalang.com)
Toska and litost are appropriate lately, wish I could relate to hyggelig a lot more. Will be using duende a lot more often.
My last two followers are “adelaidie” and “adellade” - is this some sort of sick joke?
The latter follows four blogs - Nathania’s, Austin’s, mine and the Tumblr staff blog. ?
“Everything is amazing right now, and nobody’s happy. Like, in my lifetime, the changes in the world have been incredible. When I was a kid, we had a rotary phone. We had a phone you had to stand next to, and you had to dial it. You don’t realize how primitive – you’re making sparks *pffdtdt* in a phone - and you actually would hate people with zeros in their numbers because it was more, like “ugh, this guy’s got two zeros. Screw that guy.” And then if they called and you weren’t home, the phone would just ring lonely by itself. And then, if you wanted money, you would had to go in the bank for – when it was open for like three hours – you had to stand in line, you had to write yourself a check like an idiot, and then, when you ran out of money, you just go “well, I can’t do anymore things now”. That wasn’t it, and even if you had a credit card, they – they guy’d go “ugh,” and he’d bring bring out this whole *shunk shunk* and he’d write – and he’d have to call the president to see if you had any money. Well, yeah, ‘cause now we live in an – in an amazing, amazing world, and it’s wasted on the, on the crappiest generation of just spoiled idiots that don’t care – because this is what people are like now: they got their phone, and they’re like: “…uugh! It won’t…” Give it a second! Give it – it’s going to space! Can you give it a second to get back from space? Is the speed of light! I was on a, I was on an airplane, and there was Internet – high-speed Internet on the airplane – that’s the newest thing that I know exists. And I’m sitting on the plane, and they go, “open up your laptop. You can go on the Internet.” It’s fast, and I’m watching YouTube clips – I’m in an airplane. And then it breaks down. And they apologize, “The Internet’s not working.” The guy next to me goes “psssh, this is bullshit.” Like, how quickly the world owes him something he knew existed only ten seconds ago. Flying is the worst one because people people come back from flights, and they tell you their story. And it’s like a horror story. It’s – they act like their flight was like a cattle car in Germany in the ’40s: that’s how bad they make it sound. They’re like “it was the worst day of my life… first of all, we didn’t board for twenty minutes, and then we get on the plane, and they made us sit there! On the runway! For forty minutes! We had to sit there.” Oh, really? What happened next? Did you fly through the air incredibly, like a bird? Did you you partake in the miracle of human flight, you non-contributing zero? That you got to FLY?? YOU’RE FLYING! It’s amazing! Everybody on every plane should just constantly be going, “OH MY GOD! WOW!” You’re flying! You’re sitting in a chair in the sky. New York to California in five hours. That used to take thirty years to do that. And a bunch of you would die on the way there and have a baby. You be a whole different group of people by the time you got there. Now you watch a movie and you take dump and you’re home.”
—Louis CK “Everything Is Amazing And Nobody Is Happy”
