25 Untranslatable Words: From Hygge to Toska, a Global Lexicon of Feelings
A recent feature on Quartz explores 25 words from languages around the world that lack direct English equivalents, each naming a specific feeling, moment, or behavior. The article highlights how vocabulary develops around cultural needs, citing Danish hygge (coziness), Portuguese saudade (longing), Japanese komorebi (sunlight through leaves), and German fernweh (longing for distant places). It also includes words like Tagalog gigil (urge to squeeze something cute), Scots tartle (panic when forgetting a name), Spanish sobremesa (lingering after a meal), and Inuktitut iktsuarpok (restless waiting for arrival). The piece notes that some words, such as hygge and gigil, have been absorbed into English dictionaries, while others remain untranslated. It emphasizes the precision of these terms, often requiring full sentences in English, and discusses the cultural contexts that gave rise to them, from Denmark's long winters to Portugal's maritime history. The article also mentions the 1994 Guinness Book of World Records listing mamihlapinatapai as the most succinct word, and references literary figures like Vladimir Nabokov and Milan Kundera who have attempted to explain Russian toska and Czech litost to English readers. The feature underscores the value of these words in capturing universal human experiences that English has not yet named.
Key facts
- The article lists 25 words from languages including Danish, Portuguese, Japanese, German, Tagalog, Arabic, Russian, Swedish, Greek, Czech, Scots, Indonesian, and Yaghan.
- Hygge is a Danish and Norwegian word for coziness and comfortable togetherness, popularized outside Scandinavia around 2016.
- Saudade is a Portuguese word for deep melancholic longing, central to fado music and marked by Dia da Saudade on January 30 in Brazil.
- Mamihlapinatapai, from Yaghan, was listed in the 1994 Guinness Book of World Records as the most succinct word.
- Komorebi is a Japanese word for sunlight filtering through leaves, reflecting Japanese tradition of naming natural phenomena.
- Gigil, a Tagalog word for the urge to squeeze something cute, was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2015.
- Tartle is a Scots word for the hesitation when forgetting someone's name.
- Sobremesa is a Spanish word for lingering conversation after a meal.
- Iktsuarpok is an Inuktitut word for the restless anticipation of a visitor's arrival.
- Fernweh is a German word for longing to travel to distant places, opposite of Heimweh (homesickness).
- Jayus is an Indonesian slang word for a joke so bad it becomes funny.
- Kummerspeck is a German word literally meaning 'grief bacon', for weight gained from emotional eating.
- Toska is a Russian word for a deep spiritual anguish without clear cause, described by Vladimir Nabokov.
- Utepils is a Norwegian word for the first outdoor beer of the season.
- Litost is a Czech word for the anguish of confronting one's own misery, explained by Milan Kundera.
- Age-otori is a Japanese word for looking worse after a haircut.
- Tsundoku is a Japanese word for buying books and letting them pile up unread.
- Vergüenza ajena is a Spanish phrase for secondhand embarrassment.
- Meraki is a Greek word for doing something with soul and personal care.
- Gökotta is a Swedish word for waking early to hear the first birdsong.
- Duende is a Spanish word for an intense artistic power, associated with flamenco.
- Ya'aburnee is an Arabic word expressing hope to die before a loved one.
- Mångata is a Swedish word for the moon's reflection on water.
- Torschlusspanik is a German word for the fear that time is running out.
- Pochemuchka is a Russian word for a person who asks too many questions.
Entities
Artists
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Caspar David Friedrich
- Milan Kundera
- Vladimir Nabokov
- Federico García Lorca
Institutions
- Guinness Book of World Records
- Oxford English Dictionary
- Yale University
Locations
- Denmark
- Norway
- Portugal
- Brazil
- Japan
- Germany
- Philippines
- Russia
- Sweden
- Greece
- Czech Republic
- Scotland
- Indonesia
- Tierra del Fuego
- Chile
- Argentina
- Spain
- Mexico
- Canada
- Arctic
- Lisbon
- Tokyo
Sources
- Quartz —