Can’t stereotype my tingo: As a huge fan of neologism, the poetry of idiom and general language geekery, it gladdens my heart to hear of a new book collecting words with no precise English equivalents. 
Adam Jacot de Boinod’s The Meaning Of Tingo sounds like linguistic jalebi (via Boing Boing):
The Japanese have bakku-shan – a girl who appears pretty from behind but not from the front. Then there’s a nakkele – a man who licks whatever the food has been served on (from Tulu, India). [Link]
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p>Wayne’s World fans already have ‘scud,’ a bakku-shan equivalent dating back to the first Gulf War. Tulu is, of course, Aishwarya Rai’s native tongue. Mmm, lickable dishy.
You know how poets, writers and Mr. Everything Comes From India sit around at desi parties and smoky cafés bemoaning what they miss about the old country? ‘Beta, how can you explain the meaning of x? It’s not translatable. Only a true x would know about x~ness.’ Here’s to moody linguistic ethnocentrism, this from Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk:
The key, he said, is to understand the concept of huzun. This Turkish word describes a kind of melancholy, he says, not so much a personal state as one shared by an entire society, a mood of resigned despair for the great past… “The thought behind huzun was: People in Europe are happy, but we are doomed…” [Link]
I’ll throw one out: in Punjabi, nakhreli, a finicky woman (from nakhra karna, to turn up your nose at everything). In the highly functional, less ornamented American culture, there’s no exact equivalent. Or in Spanish, the idiom ‘dar calabazas’ — to give pumpkins, meaning to jilt or ignore.
… nakhur, Persian for “camel that won’t give milk until her nostrils are tickled”… tsuji-giri is Japanese for “trying out a new sword on a passer-by”… [Link]
I wonder whether nakhur is related to nakhreli. Here are other poignancies:
The French have Saint-Glinglin to mean a date that is put off indefinitely… Madogiwazoku… Japanese window gazers (office workers who sit at desks with little to do)… [Link]Kummerspeck is a German word which literally means grief bacon: it is the word that describes the excess weight gained from emotion-related overeating…
A Putzfimmel is a mania for cleaning and Drachenfutter – literally translated as dragon fodder – are the peace offerings made by guilty husbands to their wives. Or there’s die beleidigte Leberwurst spielen – to stick one’s lower lip out in a sulk (literally, to play the insulted liver sausage). Perhaps it’s a Backpfeifengesicht – a face that cries out for a fist in it…… uitwaaien is Dutch for walking in windy weather for fun…
The Albanians exhibit a strange fascination for facial hair… Madh means a bushy moustache, posht is a moustache hanging down at the ends and fshes is a long broom-like moustache with bristly hairs… Vetullkalem describes pencil-thin eyebrows, vetullperpjekur are joined together eyebrows and those arched like the crescent moon are vetullhen… [Link]
The Inuit, meanwhile, rely on areodjarekput, the practice of exchanging wives for a few days, to combat the monotony of the long arctic night… mahj – Persian for looking beautiful after a disease – and the wonderful Italian word for one tanned by sun lamp, slampadato. [Link]
… his favourite is the word in the title, tingo, which is from the Pascuense language of Easter Island and means to borrow objects from a friend’s house, one by one, until there is nothing left. [Link]
“A frustration in compiling this book has been finding wonderful words that I’ve been unable to verify, and so had to leave out,” he said. “Age-otori for example, a Japanese word which supposedly means ‘to look worse after a haircut’ – I’ve been there…” [Link]
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p>And some contributions from BBC readers:
In Afrikaans we sometimes call a stapler, a ‘pampiervampier’. Literally, ‘paper-vampire’… From German, “Blechlawine” literally a “metal avalanche” which is a long queue of stationary cars on the Autobahn. [Link]
Don’t miss Dick & Garlick, a compendium of Hinglish, Tamlish, Bonglish and related slang.
You mean nakhrewali ? Nakhre has something to do with nails (Nakhoon – in Hindi).
No, nakhreli:
Maybe it’s more Punjabi than Hindi?
on similar lines, I Hindi / Sanskrit also lacks some words that are frequently used in Enlgish. Can anyone suggest Hindi/ Sanskrit for “Risk”, for instance ?
So this is like me saying Thendi and only true Malayalees knowing what the heck it meant..
“on similar lines, I Hindi / Sanskrit also lacks some words that are frequently used in Enlgish. Can anyone suggest Hindi/ Sanskrit for “Risk”, for instance ?”
“Khatra” in Hindi would be close. It means danger to be exact.
sun-shay written as below in devanagari script – s – dot on top – sh – y
actuaries and accountants have been at it in india for a fair bit longer than most of the world – ‘risk’ is not a word that would skip the language if there was money involved 🙂
sanshay is suspicion
… and risk, doubt, etc. according to Dr. Girirajsharan Agrawal and Dr. Baljit Singh’s Diamond Hindi-Angrezi Shubd-Kosh.
Anyway… here’s something more interesting -… two-four
Sounds like we need to read some research on the strong and weak versions of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis:
Some of these words are so cool! Like “you look worse after getting your hair done in comparison to before” is simply Age-Otori!
It’s great to see all this, I’m someone who laments the dearth of vibrant linguistics. English, my best language, is so rich but is rapidly losing its colour. I’m glad to see that languages are still developing.
Sometimes the neologisms are not so fun. Staying with Japanese – there is now a word for ‘teenage suicide’ as it is so common. I think it’s jisatsu. India may soon develop their own word for that too.
(NB – Neologisms are one of the symptoms of schizophrenia and frank mania).
And karoshi, death by overwork.
And of genius 😉 Btw, what’s frank mania, death by hot dog?
BOng breaker, why do you suppose English seems to be getting colorless (surely it’s the writers who are so, eh, namby-pamby about it all?)
This summer, when I went through a mini-Victorian period, I reveled in the langauge. We should raid the past, invent new things with it, and mix-it-up. Manish is good at this…..
Didn’t know that one Manish. Frank mania is just the term given to proper proper manic behaviour as opposed to hypomania – which is just a sped up version of a person’s normal personality. Hypomania is generally not so bad, but as soon as people start hallucinating, having delusions that they’re CEO of FOX, staying awake for days on end and making up words – it’s full-blown mania = frank mania.
You’re thinking of frankfurtitis. Rarely life-threatening, and oddly high rates in Japan.
MD, why is it happening? Beats me. Kids are getting thicker and thicker. Exams are getting easier. They’re not being stretched. TV has replaced books. Video games have replaced speaking. Language classes have been phased down. Text messaging. Emailing. MTV. Take your pick.
Other words that I find evocative:
“paatarni” for butterfly in the Urdu/Hindi of the Deccan…and “sudmunji”, also from the Deccan, for sullen-faced/sulky…
Some of these words are so cool! Like “you look worse after getting your hair done in comparison to before” is simply Age-Otori!
It’s great to see all this, I’m someone who laments the dearth of vibrant linguistics. English, my best language, is so rich but is rapidly losing its colour. I’m glad to see that languages are still developing.
I have to get a copy of this book. Bong Breaker, you’re right, some of these words are really a hoot!
I don’t know so muh about the British English, but American English is really becoming boring….when ‘fa shizzle’ is the most creative that can be suprted out, we really indeed are in trouble. Thank goodness for some fun light hearted books like this.
this entry makes way too much sense
american english has so many words from african american culture its ridcrunkulous
there’s got to be some reason for that
In Hindi, I love the word “lachak” (which describes the particular agility in the gait of a woman), and I haven’t been able to find a good English equivilent. Can anyone think of one?
Rishi: That’s a great one, I can’t think of an English equivalent…
The closest I ever got to that tone was in this line from “Murphy” : “She stormed out of the phone booth, followed excitedly by her hips…”
How about the Bollywood favotrite – “chammak challo”?
Ameet
Agha Shahid Ali (deceased 3-4 yrs ago) wrote the following poem No language is old—or young—beyond English. So what of a common tongue beyond English? I know some words for war, all of them sharp, but the sharpest one is jung—beyond English! If you wish to know of a king who loved his slave, you must learn legends, often-sung, beyond English. Baghdad is sacked and its citizens must watch prisoners (now in miniatures) hung beyond English. Go all the way through jungle from aleph to zenith to see English, like monkeys, swung beyond English. So never send to know for whom the bell tolled, for across the earth it has rung beyond English. If you want your drugs legal you must leave the States, not just for hashish but one—bhung—beyond Englih. Heartbroken, I tottered out “into windless snow,” snowflakes on my lips, silence stung beyond English. When the phrase, “The Mother of all Battles” caught on, the surprise was indeed not sprung beyond English. Could a soul crawl away at lask unshrivelled which to its “own fusing sense” had clung beyond English?
There is a Hindi equivalent of ‘bakku-shan’ – PSAT: Peeche Se Achhi Thi
This reminds me of all the monosyllabic desi words you hear in daily life, that have no exact English equivalent. Bengalis (as I’m sure other desis) say ‘Eeeesh’ and ‘chee’ to express disgust and disdain, whether real or in jest. Then there’s the ever-present ‘arrey’ which could mean ‘hey’ but that has never sounded like a proper translation to my ears. ‘Hai’ is another one. I’m sure there are tons more.
This whole discussion has been english-centric: ie, let’s compare all these languages to English…
“a new book collecting words with no precise English equivalents”… but then there’s also tons of English words with no Hindi/Tamil/Mandarin/Hungarian/etc etc equivalent.
It all brings up the question of translation vs. transliteration
“The flesh is strong but the spirit is weak” can get translated as “The meat is good but the wine is poor”
Languages are not supposed to have 1:1 correspondence for words.
another favorite, in French: l’esprit d’escalier (forgive my spelling, as this is some of the only french I know outside of ballet terms)
Literally it’s “spirit of the staircase” but it describes that feeling you get after an argument or discussion, as you’re leaving (walking down the stairs) and you think of all the clever things you should have said… after the fact.
I’ve often mused over how there don’t seem to be any Punjabi words for ‘please’ or ‘sorry?’ The closest words I can think of are ‘kirpa kar ke’ (kindly) and ‘afsos’ (regret, grief).
There is no english equivalent for
pa-er dabana ( massaging/pressing foot/leg just doesnt cut it in english)
chutiya (no good equivalent in english either)
Some more Hindi that I can’t translate into English:
Isn’t chutiya = f*cker?
I agree about how there don’t seem to be any words for “please” in any of the North Indian languages that I know of.
“Sorry”, however, does have some translations: “Shamaa/maaf kijiye”. However, they’re not used as casually as in English, eg. when you say “Sorry” after accidentally bumping into someone.
Some other North Indian words that appear to have no direct English translation:
Gharelu and Rakhrelu; I think the latter in particular is Gujarati although a number of my other non-Gujju friends seem to be familiar with it too. These words can be applied to both men and women but, by the 1st-Generation in particular, they seem to be applied more towards desi women in order to divide them (many would say pidgeonhole/stereotype them) into “good” and “bad” girls.
Doesn’t that mean dark one?
Never heard chutiya. If it really mean f*cker, I’m sure my grandma would’ve said it by now (not kidding – the woman has a foul mouth! Her potty mouth is the
jokepride and joy of the family).Kali would be dark and Vaali would be one but Khalli valli (short ‘kh’ and ‘veh’ not ‘khaa’ and ‘vaa’) elude me. I’ve heard khalli valli used as “whatever” and “let it be” and here’s a translation from a tune: “Manchali took my heart away, Khalli valli, khalli valli, khalli valli”
[hahaha]
…but I still have no clue what the words mean…
Ang, your grandma sounds like my new best friend.
Jai: In Urdu you would use “baraaye meherbani” where people typically use “please” in English, so that’s at least one North Indian language accounted for…
kripiyaa is the closest thing I know to “please”, but most people in the North just say it in English…
Re: “Kripiya” and “baraaye meherbani”
True, but people don’t use these words as casually as “please” in spoken English. If you were asking someone to pass you the salt (or whatever), you wouldn’t say “baraaye meherbani etc” — the other person would probably think you were being sarcastic.
(Or maybe you would ? Do Urdu speakers use that term as often as the English version ?)
It’s an interesting reflection on Indian social mores and customs, though — the fact that there aren’t casual versions of the words for “Please” and “Sorry” (and DesiDancer you’re right, most people these days do use the English versions instead, back in India too). Does this mean Indians are less polite, or just that there is less formality ?
(I do know that Mughal society was a hell of a lot more formal though, at least amongst the aristocracy, so perhaps Umair could enlighten us if the Urdu phrases already mentioned were used in every-day speech in those times, and indeed if Urdu-speaking Indians continue to use them today).
You wouldn’t use “baraaye meherbaani” in informal contexts, but you probably would use “meherbani kar ke…” etc., but the sort of demographic that would once upon a time have been likely to say this would now just use “please,” as you and DesiDancer have noted…I think a lot of Muslim Indians do use word slike “meherbaani” in this context, but I think for those who are the product of English-medium schools “please” has definitely replaced it in all but the most formal settings…
As for the Mughals, not sure if Urdu, being such a late development, is the relevant language…certainly even as late as the death of Aurangzeb (1707) I imagine Persian would have been the language in question, though that’s just a guess on my part. But the Urdu-oriented later sub-cultures of Avadh, etc. would certainly have been formal enough to use such phrases in everyday usage…
Interesting how society changes, isn’t it — that the Urdu phrases previously used would now be deemed excessively formal and are replaced by the more casual English equivalents.
You’re right about Persian being the official language in the Mughal court — in fact it was the official state language of India right up to 1837. However, I know that Urdu is greatly derived from Persian (the words not the grammer, obviously), so I was just wondering how many of the words and courtly customs are still in common use in our modern times.
I’m stating the obvious, but it’s fascinating how language can be a reflection of the attitudes and customs of the society it’s used in — especially if there are certain words and terms in the language of one culture which have no equivalent in another country/community or ethnic/religious group.
Rishi and Umair.. do you mean undulate? That describes a slow, sexy walk though..(wavelike)
I like this one in malayalam-ish slang : Vaaye-nokke. Literally Mouth-See i.e. to stare at somebody with your mouth open. How about that for a phrase that “reflects the customs of a society” ? 🙂
besides, doesn’t hindi have a built in “please” with the difference in “karo” and “kejiye” for example. Yes it’s formal and informal, but if I say kejiye to a peer, then obviously I’m being polite, right?
(legitimately asking, as my hindi sucks like a hoover)
I think the word you’re looking for is “sashay”, although “undulate” definitely sounds more, er, evocative.
Don’t forget “jatka” either (a certain professional dancer on this blog will know what this word means laughing). I’m not sure what the literal English translation would be.
Another untranslatable word: “Latka”, eg. “Look at all her latke and nakhre.” (Usually spoken by disapproving Aunties in reference to younger desi women who are insufficiently shy and demure).
there’s no word for sorry and i think thats has sociological implications
for jatka….i’ll nominate “do that thing”
since y’all love the double standards, badmash for boys means something more benign than it does for girls
yeah, definitely a visual not able to be translated to English. good one, ha!
DesiDancer: karo/kijiye: that’s a good point, it’s like the French tu/vous difference (“tum” and “aap”), though there’s an added twist: “tu,” which could be really intimate (Urdu-speaking Muslims would reference Allah thus, or one might speak to one’s lover thus, but one might also refer to a servant thus). Interestingly, some of my older relatives refer to their own spouses using the formal “aap”…
feisty wench
My personal favorite from german:
schadenfreude
Taking this back to one of the earlier posts, I think that the most accurate translation of “nakhre” is “antics”.
DesiDudeInAustin : Great translation ! As in “Fetch me my ale, feisty wench”. Great stuff 😉
Never heard chutiya. If it really mean f*cker, I’m sure my grandma would’ve said it by now
My Asian friends use it CONSTANTLY, although they say/spell it “chooth.” Googling around gets me results on chooth/choothiya as well as chut/chutiya. They also say “tatti” a lot.
I think Anna linked the Malayalee version of this a long time ago, but here’s the Hindi insult page.
AFAIK Chootiya means stupid,dunce,idiot something like that not perverted. Chod, Chuud(h) mean different things.
I was recently introduced to the term “butter face”. As in, “Everything about her is hot butter [but her] face.” Linguistic convergent evolution?