Mid-morning. A
dusting of snow this morning and after a relaxing breakfast with Carol you
discovered this on BBC.
** **
16 December
2014
Lost in
Translation: The world's most unique words?
By Fiona
Macdonald
Mangata
In the introduction
to her book Lost in Translation, Ella Frances Sanders writes: “There may be some
small essential gaps in your mother tongue, but never fear: you can look to
other languages to define what you’re feeling”. The British designer has
illustrated 50 words that have specific meanings in cultures around the world,
including Mangata, Swedish for ‘the road-like reflection of the moon in the
water’. (All images reprinted with permission from Lost in Translation by Ella
Frances Sanders, published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Random House LLC)
Akihi
“The speed and
frequency of our exchanges leave just enough room for misunderstandings … and
now perhaps more than ever before, what we actually mean to say gets lost in
translation.” Sanders believes the ‘untranslatable’ words can offer small
moments of recognition regardless of native language. Akihi is a Hawaiian term
expressing a situation familiar to many – the forgetfulness felt immediately
after being given directions.
Hiraeth
There is often
poetry in labelling the intangible: the Welsh term Hiraeth has similarities
with the word ‘saudade’, describing a sense of melancholy that is supposedly
characteristic of the Portuguese or Brazilian temperament, and sums up
wistfulness for a place that never was. According to Sanders, learning
about words like this “reminds us of how inherently human we all are—that we
are all made of the same stuff, that we don’t necessarily need fluency in other
languages to be able to communicate well”.
Iktsuarpok
An Inuit noun,
Iktsuarpok exists “somewhere between impatience and anticipation”. It sums up
the “feeling that compels you to go outside and inside, and outside and then
inside again, to check if someone is walking over the hill or around the
corner”. As Sanders tells BBC Culture, “often these words give a name to
feelings or actions that we already know and recognise. Then, someone from
Brazil isn’t too different to someone from Sweden, who isn’t too different from
us.”
Kummerspeck
The German
expression Kummerspeck – meaning ‘grief bacon’ – refers to the excess weight
gained from emotional over-eating. “Unfortunately, we are programmed to find
comfort in the edible,” says Sanders. “Until you catch sight of yourself in a
reflective surface a month later, it often works.”
Wabi-sabi
The Japanese
expression Wabi-sabi means “finding beauty in the imperfections, an acceptance
of the cycle of life and death”; according to Sanders it is derived from Buddhism,
which teaches that understanding “our transience and the asymmetry within our
lives can lead us to a more fulfilling yet modest existence”.
Pisanzapra
Many of the words
express a form of measurement specific to a certain place. The Finnish word
Poronkusema describes ‘the distance a reindeer can comfortably travel before
taking a break’, while Pisanzapra is a Malay term referring to ‘the time needed
to eat a banana’.
Kalpa
Meaning “the
passing of time on a grand, cosmological scale”, Kalpa is a Sanskrit term.
Sanders says: “Once you have a word for something, it becomes much more
tangible, much more accessible. The shapes of your thoughts begin to include
these different ways of seeing, of being.”
Tsundoku
The Japanese
expression Tsundoku, meaning “leaving a book unread after buying it, typically
piled up together with other unread books”, has offered reassurance to book
hoarders. One forum allows avid readers to join if they have more than 1000 books – Sanders claims
that “the Tsundoku scale can range from just one unread book to a serious
hoard”.
Boketto
“It’s nice that the
Japanese think so highly of thinking about nothing at all that they actually
give it a name,” says Sanders. Boketto – meaning “gazing vacantly into the
distance without really thinking about anything specific” – is her favourite
word; she says: “I’ve been known to do this far too often.”
From -
http://www.bbcDOTcom/culture/story/20141216-ten-untranslatable-words
** **
1026 hours. I will have to read these carefully. I love
grasping innuendos about how people think and consider. It also helps me to
think ‘alien’ from myself. Thought-shifting is the word I have for it.
1251
hours. Among other things, after taking the time to read the above more
carefully I can see that thinking ‘alien from myself’ is basically thinking
like most anyone else who is human. This has threads of dark humor embedded for
my realistic interpretation.
You are thus no more of an exception than
anyone else, is that the thread? – Amorella
Yep. This is always understood deeper down but once and a
while fancy takes an unprecedented leap. You know, like a small bass jumping
two feet out of the water for an insect long gone by the time he arrives.
Late afternoon. You are at Hallmark on
Mason-Montgomery Road after a very late excellent lunch at Outback. You each
had the Wednesday special, a three-course dinner, salad, steak and dessert, for
$11.95 each.
1644 hours. We are home and a Winter cold is creeping in
from the northwest this thickly cloudy day before dusk. I am wondering on how the
story on the progression of the soul can be incorporated in these Merlyn tales?
You rush things, boy. Earlier, mid-morning, you followed through with
your forty minutes of exercises while Carol was on the phone with her sister
Linda. You think on the wheel as an ideal for this progression as you call it
but realize there is a sloppiness built in – with nothing perfect in this world
or the next or the one before, for that matter. – Amorella
1750 hours. I had a short nap and feel better.
When I began this series I did not realize I would come up with more concepts
(through you) such as this. I feel like I should scuttle all these books and
start anew now that I have a broader perspective.
Boy, you have no idea. Consider, once you complete these other two
books, don’t you imagine you will have an even broader fictional perception? –
Amorella
1757 hours. If I live that long, what do I do
then? Start anew? To stretch reason and imagination from the soul to beyond a
cluster of universe takes in about everything – unless, of course, all that is
discovered in a raindrop. Surely, eventually there would be an end to it. As I
have a body, I cannot think outside of the concept of another body (organic-like
system).
If at that time you feel the same then this should be the conclusion of
such mythological matters. You will have used your reason and imagination to
carry you much further than a single lifetime on a single planet. – Amorella
1808 hours. I will say that writing allows me to
more intimately sense all these concepts and my humanity feels, so far, to have
gained from it.
Snack supper and you watched NBC News. Carol is talking to her sister,
Gayle. You want to get started with Chapter Eight, “The Dead” hoping to see
some of these expanded thoughts put to use while still fresh. – Amorella
1950 hours. I made a working document of Dead 8,
so perhaps later tonight. I really want to develop a sense of these concepts in
the novel; otherwise it is of no use as far as I can see.
2205 hours. I am 235 words into the first draft
of Dead 8.
