There is also one of my favorites, "l'esprit de l'escalier," the spirit of the staircase, when you come up with that perfect line or retort long after the conversation is over. For instance, George Costanza and the jerk store.
It's of interest to me that several of these have to do with indescribable loneliness or longing. I'd spend more time thinking about what that means linguistically but it'd probably just depress me.
First of all, hate to be a nit-picker, but not all of these are foreign words. Many are phrases, which makes it less interesting. It's not unusual to be unable to translate an idiom.
Apparently, all those phrases left no room for what I've always thought was the perfect example of the untranslatable word: Schadenfreude.
There's also a host of Yiddish words that ostensibly have English synonyms but those synonyms that don't quite carry the same bite or nuance: mensch, schlemiel, naches, yenta ...
A lot of those Yiddish phrases have been absorbed or adopted by American English, so I bet you a lot of people wouldn't even know that, for instance, schmuck is a "foreign" word.
The most useful Yiddish word I know is one that is perfectly easy to translate, but that English doesn't have a word for. It's "machetunim" (the ch is the guttural Yiddish one) and it's the word for the relationship between your parents and your spouses parents. "In-laws" doesn't really cover it - that's traditionally only one degree of separation: you to your spouses's parents or siblings, your sibling's spouse, etc. This is two degrees - your son's wife's parents. As in "we're having the prospective machetunim over for dinner" or when two friends are watching their kids play together, "maybe they'll get married - I could do a lot worse for machetunim!"
English is crappy at familial relationship words anyway. I love the Scandinavian languages, where your male cousin on your mom's side has a completely different word than your female cousin on your dad's side. Awesome.
Another word I'm fond of is "Nervio." A Spanish word -- in Chile, specifically -- that has to do with the notion of wanting to hug something so much that you fear you might hurt the object of your affection.
See, e.g., http://boingboing.net/2006/10/25/happy_birthday_pablo.html
The problem with "schadenfreude" is that, as a quintessential German word, it is so freaking long that even though there is no equivalent English word, it's still only a few syllables shorter than the phrase "joy at others' misfortune" and barely shorter than "joy at others' loss." So, while we don't have the word, we can get across the point almost as efficiently. Which all proves that Germans need shorter words. (And, you know, that may be why they love David Hasselhoff.)
A lot of these seem to be slang terms, some of which even have direct English equivalents, for example:
sensation of crawling on the skin? Formication.
Addicted to tanning salons? While I would never actually use the term "tanorexic", I've certainly seen it used in print, and it seems to capture the gist of "slampadato" pretty well.
I remember my mom explaining this exact example to me when I was a kid. Her boss was about to meet his future machetunim and my mom was envious that there was a word for that relationship.
I was at a wedding last night and was commenting that I have "mazel tov" envy. It conveys something that I just can't seem to capture with another word or phrase. I can't pull it off though, any more than I could pull off y'all.
There is also one of my favorites, "l'esprit de l'escalier," the spirit of the staircase, when you come up with that perfect line or retort long after the conversation is over. For instance, George Costanza and the jerk store.
ReplyDeleteIt's of interest to me that several of these have to do with indescribable loneliness or longing. I'd spend more time thinking about what that means linguistically but it'd probably just depress me.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, hate to be a nit-picker, but not all of these are foreign words. Many are phrases, which makes it less interesting. It's not unusual to be unable to translate an idiom.
ReplyDeleteApparently, all those phrases left no room for what I've always thought was the perfect example of the untranslatable word: Schadenfreude.
There's also a host of Yiddish words that ostensibly have English synonyms but those synonyms that don't quite carry the same bite or nuance: mensch, schlemiel, naches, yenta ...
A lot of those Yiddish phrases have been absorbed or adopted by American English, so I bet you a lot of people wouldn't even know that, for instance, schmuck is a "foreign" word.
ReplyDeleteSome are concepts, but one is a sniglet.
ReplyDeleteWasn't it just Bee Season, where we find out that all useful Yiddish words are official English words now?
ReplyDeleteThe Russian poshlost is a good one -- a state of self satisfied mediocrity, more or less.
ReplyDeleteI also like the Dutch uitstraaling - a sort of radiant inner beauty shining through.
ReplyDeleteThe most useful Yiddish word I know is one that is perfectly easy to translate, but that English doesn't have a word for. It's "machetunim" (the ch is the guttural Yiddish one) and it's the word for the relationship between your parents and your spouses parents. "In-laws" doesn't really cover it - that's traditionally only one degree of separation: you to your spouses's parents or siblings, your sibling's spouse, etc. This is two degrees - your son's wife's parents. As in "we're having the prospective machetunim over for dinner" or when two friends are watching their kids play together, "maybe they'll get married - I could do a lot worse for machetunim!"
ReplyDeleteEnglish is crappy at familial relationship words anyway. I love the Scandinavian languages, where your male cousin on your mom's side has a completely different word than your female cousin on your dad's side. Awesome.
Another word I'm fond of is "Nervio." A Spanish word -- in Chile, specifically -- that has to do with the notion of wanting to hug something so much that you fear you might hurt the object of your affection.
ReplyDeleteSee, e.g., http://boingboing.net/2006/10/25/happy_birthday_pablo.html
The problem with "schadenfreude" is that, as a quintessential German word, it is so freaking long that even though there is no equivalent English word, it's still only a few syllables shorter than the phrase "joy at others' misfortune" and barely shorter than "joy at others' loss." So, while we don't have the word, we can get across the point almost as efficiently. Which all proves that Germans need shorter words. (And, you know, that may be why they love David Hasselhoff.)
ReplyDeleteA lot of these seem to be slang terms, some of which even have direct English equivalents, for example:
ReplyDeletesensation of crawling on the skin? Formication.
Addicted to tanning salons? While I would never actually use the term "tanorexic", I've certainly seen it used in print, and it seems to capture the gist of "slampadato" pretty well.
I did like "kummerspeck" though.
I remember my mom explaining this exact example to me when I was a kid. Her boss was about to meet his future machetunim and my mom was envious that there was a word for that relationship.
ReplyDeleteI was at a wedding last night and was commenting that I have "mazel tov" envy. It conveys something that I just can't seem to capture with another word or phrase. I can't pull it off though, any more than I could pull off y'all.