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| Thread: Untranslatable words from your own language or any other |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 · NEXT» |
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted December 12, 2013 11:28 PM |
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Untranslatable words from your own language or any other
THIS gave me the idea to open this thread. Put (preferably interesting) words that does not exist in other tongues. When speaking English, I often miss the handy sabahlamak which means, in one word, to stay up all night till the sun rises. I also find it very surprising that there is no specific word for "romantic kind of love" (we have ask and sevda in Turkish) other than love in general.
Btw, I read sowhere, this is an actual military rank in Finnish but I'm guessing it's some kind of joke or word play:
Lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas
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xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
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posted December 12, 2013 11:53 PM |
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Edited by xerox at 23:55, 12 Dec 2013.
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artu said:
When speaking English, I often miss the handy sabahlamak which means, in one word, to stay up all night till the sun rises.
This word exists in Swedish! It's a verb called "dygna", which is directly derived from another word that strangely doesn't exist in English, "dygn" = day AND night (all 24 hours in the same word). I believe "to dygna" is a rather new word as I pretty much only hear young people using it. Does it have a more traditional background in Turkish?
There's a really handy newly invented Swedish word called "hen". Basically it's a gender neutral pronoun.
He = Han.
She = Hon.
She/he = Hen.
It always annoyed me having to write han/hon and now he/she in english.
____________
Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted December 13, 2013 12:25 AM |
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Edited by artu at 00:26, 13 Dec 2013.
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Well, sabah (morning) is quite a traditional word that comes from Arabic at least as early as 14th century, probably through Islamic morning prayer and terminology. The -la suffix sounds quite 20th century to my ear though and the -mak is just the -ing. So I'm guessing the derivative is relatively new, not a very new, youth culture based word though. I've seen it in many novels and so on...
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xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
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posted December 13, 2013 01:27 AM |
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I was thinking it might have something to do with Muslims being interested in the moon and such.
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Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted December 13, 2013 01:59 AM |
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The Islamic calender is a moon calender, but I'm (totally) guessing the journey of the word is not about that, it's probably about the special prayer (namaz) that is done five times a day based on the position of the sun. The first one is naturally the morning prayer and it takes a daily habit like that to replace and transfer a word as basic as morning.
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JoonasTo
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted December 13, 2013 05:27 AM |
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Edited by JoonasTo at 05:40, 13 Dec 2013.
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That is a real rank artu:
Aero-plane-jet-engine-turbine-second-mechanic-non-commissioned-officer-student
Now finnish has a LOT of words other languages miss, especially english. the ones I miss most are:
-tuima, this is a descriptive adjective for flavour, when the food needs more salt, funny fact, korean has this one
-solista and all it's many derivates, soliseva, solisten, etc. This is a descriptive verb for a very specific kind of sound that can come from a small stream running in the forest, or someone's singing for example. It's a mix between chiming
-ystävä, a substantive for true friend, english friend translates to finnish "kaveri" which is more like a pal. Kinda hard to explain in english but I think true friend is closest.
Obligatory note about having gazillion different kinds of words for snow, frost, etc. 
Just read the comic, there are words there that actually translate to finnish, mångata is kuunsilta, jayus is puujalka(vitsi) and I'm pretty sure there's a word for goya but it's not commonly used outside of literature circles anymore so can't remember that.
I'd also be willing to bet some other mediterranean languages have the small talk after dinner word.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted December 13, 2013 05:47 AM |
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JoonasTo said:
-tuima, this is a descriptive adjective for flavour, when the food needs more salt, funny fact, korean has this one
We have this one, too. Simply, it's a kind of -less suffix added to the word salt, (tuz, tuz-suz). English has the word saltless but I've never heard anyone say "meh, this meat loaf is way too saltless for me" or anything. Maybe, it's used more for food specially produced without salt, like saltless cheese for people with health problems.
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted December 13, 2013 06:04 AM |
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There's a simple thing that English lacks that Russian has, and that's the conjunction "a" (pronounced [a], for those of you who know IPA). It's sometimes translated as "and" and sometimes as "but", but it's really neither. It's like "and" but it's comparative.artu said:
When speaking English, I often miss the handy sabahlamak which means, in one word, to stay up all night till the sun rises.
That's called an "all-nighter".
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Eccentric Opinion
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JoonasTo
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted December 13, 2013 07:14 AM |
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Korean has the same thing mvass.
Oh yeah, I really miss 'hän' from Finnish. It's a genderneutral him/her and Finnish itself is genderless so I miss the whole concept of it.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted December 13, 2013 07:35 AM |
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Isn't that more specific like you study up or work and pull an all-nighter? This verb is more neutral.
He(insert verb meaning sabahlamak) just looking at the sky, watching the stars and not even realizing the hours spent.
or
We(insert verb meaning sabahlamak) and watched all of the Sean Connery Bonds in a row.
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JoonasTo
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted December 13, 2013 07:37 AM |
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I'm no native but the first one doesn't sound like an all-nighter to me while the second one definitely does.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted December 13, 2013 07:44 AM |
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Come to think of it, I think you're right. It's not a verb but you can insert "pulled an all-nighter" in the second example. In situations like the first one, in which you don't intentionally stay up, it doesn't work though.
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The_Polyglot
Promising
Supreme Hero
channeling capybara energy
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posted December 13, 2013 09:08 AM |
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All time favourite near-nonsense word:
'megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért'
Something like 'For your repeated acts of being undesecratable'
Word I miss from English?... hard question. Maybe, like artu, I miss the distinction between romantic love, 'szerelem' and brotherly love 'szeretet'
Fun fact: I'm pretty sure Hungarian has words for most of the things mentioned. 'éjszakázni' (literally 'nighting') covers sabahlamak pretty well.
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Friend-shaped
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master_learn
Legendary Hero
walking to the library
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posted December 13, 2013 09:40 AM |
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Depaysement can be translated in one bulgarian word(even if the english one have to be a phraze).
What I mean is some languages can have words that English doesn't or English may have a word that Bulgarian don't,but some other language may have.
You have to be a real polyglot to say with certanty a word in one don't exist in the rest of them.
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"I heard the latest HD version disables playing Heroes. Please reconsider."-Salamandre
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JoonasTo
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted December 13, 2013 10:46 AM |
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I can with certainty name a couple of finnish specific words because they're culture dependant but I think so can everyone from every language. Simply naming foods gets you quite far.
But that was probably not the point
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Minion
Legendary Hero
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posted December 13, 2013 11:25 AM |
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Edited by Minion at 11:27, 13 Dec 2013.
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I guess the most famous finnish word lacking proper translation to any other language is "sisu". Loosely translated it means the strength of will, perseverance or just "having guts".
The other one is an emotion quite common to Finnish people "myötähäpeä". It is a shared sense of shame. Like sometimes listening to Kimi Räikkönen speak, it causes this "myötähäpeä".
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"These friends probably started using condoms after having produced the most optimum amount of offsprings. Kudos to them for showing at least some restraint" - Tsar-ivor
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OhforfSake
Promising
Legendary Hero
Initiate
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posted December 13, 2013 06:45 PM |
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Nisse.
Not to confuse with fisse, which means c**t.
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Living time backwards
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kipshasz
Undefeatable Hero
Elvin's Darkside
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posted December 13, 2013 10:22 PM |
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Bepasikiskekpousteliaudamasis. Longest Lithuanian word. Clearly untranslatabe, and I even have no idea how to describe it properly. Do not worry, it is not anything offensive or anything of that sort.
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"Kip is the Gavin McInnes of HC" - Salamandre
"Ashan to the Trashcan", "I got PTSD from H7. " - LizardWarrior
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xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
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posted December 14, 2013 02:06 AM |
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OhforfSake said:
Nisse.
that means gnome in swedish
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Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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Lexxan
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Unimpressed by your logic
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posted December 15, 2013 01:17 AM |
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Snelrecht: a noun that means "a sped-up course of justice, in which a perpetrator of a crime will get convicted more quickly than normal"
faciliteitengemeente: a town or community where speaker of a language that is native to Belgium but *not* to that town, is eligible receive administrative accomondations in their native tongue, ignoring the monolinguality of the region the faciliteitengemeente is in. (ie: a native french speaker in a flemish faciliteitengemeente can obtain official documents such as court summons in French instead of Dutch, despite the fact that Flanders is monolingually Dutch-speaking)
uitwaaien: to spend an unspecified amount of time relaxing away from your hectic daily life, usually in a calm, rural environment.
eergisteren and overmorgen: "the day before yesterday" and "the day after tomorrow" respectively. Seriously, why doesn't English have these words?
de brug maken: (lit: to build a bridge): to take a day off on a regular work day wedged between a holiday and the weekend.
snipperdag: basically, "a day you've taken off work", but one that is SPECIFICALLY taken at a random day in a regular week for no specific reason.
knarsetandend: adjective. "so angry at something you're grinding your teeth" (n.b. its use is mostly figurative, but still)
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Coincidence? I think not!!!!
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