Sunday, October 10, 2010
20 Awesomely Untranslatable Words from Around the World
Written by Jason Wire
There are at least 250,000 words in the English language. However, to think that English – or any language – could hold enough expression to convey the entirety of the human experience is as arrogant of an assumption as it is naive.
There are at least 250,000 words in the English language. However, to think that English – or any language – could hold enough expression to convey the entirety of the human experience is as arrogant of an assumption as it is naive.
Here are a few examples of instances where other languages have found the right word and English simply falls speechless.
1. Toska
Russian – Vladmir Nabokov describes it best: “No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.”
2. Mamihlapinatapei
Yagan (indigenous language of Tierra del Fuego) – The wordless and silent, yet meaningful look shared by two people who both desire to initiate something but are both reluctant to start.
3. Jayus
Indonesian – A joke so awful and told so poorly that a listener can’t help but laugh.
4. Prozvonit
Czech – This word means to call a mobile phone and let it ring once so that the other person will call back, saving the first caller money. In Spanish, the phrase for this is “Dar un toque,” or, “To give a touch.”
5. Litost
Czech – Milan Kundera, author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, remarked that “As for the meaning of this word, I have looked in vain in other languages for an equivalent, though I find it difficult to imagine how anyone can understand the human soul without it.” The closest definition is a state of agony and torment created by the sudden sight of one’s own misery.
6. Kyoikumama
Japanese – A mother who relentlessly pushes her children toward academic overachievement.
7. Tartle
Scottish – The act of hestitating while introducing someone because you’ve forgotten their name.
8. Ilunga
Tshiluba (Southwest Congo) – A word famous for its untranslatability, most professional translators pinpoint it as the stature of a person who is ready to forgive and forget any first abuse, tolerate it the second time, but never forgive nor tolerate on the third offense.
9. Iktsuarpok
Inuit – To go outside to check if anyone is coming.
10. Cafuné
Brazilian Portuguese – The act of tenderly running one’s fingers through someone’s hair.
11. Schadenfreude
German – Quite famous for its meaning that somehow other languages neglected to recognize, this refers to the feeling of pleasure derived by seeing another’s misfortune. I guess “America’s Funniest Moments of Schadenfreude” just didn’t have the same ring to it.
12. Torschlusspanik
German – Translated literally, this word means “gate-closing panic,” but its contextual meaning refers to the fear of diminishing opportunities as one grows old.
13. L’appel du vide
French – “The call of the void” is this French expression’s literal translation, but more significantly it’s used to describe the instinctive urge to jump from high places.
14. Dépaysement
French – The feeling that comes from not being in one’s home country.
15. Ya’aburnee
Arabic – Both morbid and beautiful at once, this incantatory word means “You bury me,” a declaration of one’s hope that they’ll die before another person because of how difficult it would be to live without them.
16. Tingo
Pascuense (Easter Island) – Hopefully this isn’t a word you’d need often: the act of taking things from the house of a friend by gradually “borrowing” all of them.
17. Hyggelig / Gezellig
Danish – Many claim this word is closely tied to the Danish national character. Its “literal” translation into English gives connotations of a warm, friendly, cozy demeanor, but it’s unlikely that these words truly capture the essence of a hyggelig; it’s likely something that must be experienced to be known. I think of good friends, cold beer, and a warm fire.
18. Wabi-Sabi
Japanese – Much has been written on this Japanese concept, but in a sentence, one might be able to understand it as a way of living that focuses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay.
19. Duende
Spanish – While originally used to describe a mythical, spritelike entity that possesses humans and creates the feeling of awe of one’s surroundings in nature, its meaning has transitioned into referring to the mysterious power that a work of art has in deeply moving a person. There’s actually a nightclub in the town of La Linea de la Concepcion, where I teach, named after this word.
20. Saudade
Portuguese – One of the most beautiful of all words, translatable or not, this word refers to the feeling of longing for something or someone that you love, but is lost. Fado music, a type of mournful singing, relates to saudade.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Who Gets U.S. Foreign Aid
Who Gets U.S. Foreign Aid
COUNTRY AID
1. Israel $2.4 billion
Virtually all of this money is used to buy weapons (up to 75% made in the U.S.). Beginning in 2009, the U.S. plans to give $30 billion over 10 years.
2. Egypt $1.7 billion
$1.3 billion to buy weapons; $103 million for education; $74 million for health care; $45 million to promote civic participation and human rights.
3. Pakistan $798 million
$330 million for security efforts, including military-equipment upgrades and border security; $20 million for infrastructure.
4. Jordan $688 million
$326 million to fight terrorism and promote regional stability through equipment upgrades and training; $163 million cash payment to the Jordanian government.
5. Kenya $586 million
$501 million to fight HIV/AIDS through drug treatment and abstinence education and to combat malaria; $15 million for agricultural development; $5.4 million for programs that promote government accountability.
6. South Africa $574 million
$557 million to fight TB and HIV/AIDS; $3 million for education.
*Source: Estimates based on figures and documents from the U.S. Department of State. Click here for more information.
— Rebecca Davis O'Brien
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
Sunscreen
Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97:
Wear sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.
Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 pm on some idle Tuesday.
Do one thing every day that scares you.
Sing.
Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.
Floss.
Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.
Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.
Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.
Stretch.
Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.
Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.
Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.
Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.
Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.
Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.
Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.
Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.
Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.
Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.
Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders.
Respect your elders.
Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.
Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.
But trust me on the sunscreen.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Saturday, October 2, 2010
More Quotes
Not all who wander are lost.
~ J. R. R. Tolkien ~
An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered.
An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.
~ G. K. Chesterton ~
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step
~ Lao Tzu ~
Only the curious have, if they live, a tale worth telling at all
~ Curiosity - Alistair Reid ~
Thank God! there is always a Land of Beyond
For us who are true to the trail;
A vision to seek, a beckoning peak,
A farness that never will fail;
A pride in our soul that mocks at a goal,
A manhood that irks at a bond,
And try how we will, unattainable still,
Behold it, our Land of Beyond!
~ The Land of Beyond (Last Verse) - Robert Service ~
A nomad I will remain for life,
in love with distant and uncharted places.
~ Isabelle Eberhardt ~
Do not follow where the path may lead.
Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~
Growing old is mandatory
Growing up is optional
The impulse to travel is one of the hopeful symptoms of life.
~ Agnes Repplier ~
Now more than ever do I realize that I shall never be content with a sedentary life,
and that I shall always be haunted by thoughts of a sun-drenched elsewhere.
~ Isabelle Eberhardt ~
I travel not to go anywhere, but to go.
I travel for travels sake.
The great affair is to move.
~ Robert Louis Stevenson ~
The freedom of travel opens the mind to unlimited possibilities.
If you do nothing unexpected,
nothing unexpected happens.
~ Fay Weldon ~
I may not have gone where I intended to go,
but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.
~ Douglas Adams ~
But do not ask me where I am heading,
As I travel in this limitless world
Where every step I take is my home
~ Portion of a Poem by Eihei Dogen ~
Alone I wander a thousand miles,
and I ask my way from the white clouds.
~ Maitreya ~
Each day in life is training - training for myself;
Though failure is possible, living each moment equal to anything,
ready for everything, I am alive - I am this moment - my future is here and now.
For if I cannot endure today, when and where will I?
~ Soen Ozeki ~
An adventure is never an adventure when it's happening.
Challenging experiences need time to ferment,
and an adventure is simply physical and emotional discomfort
recollected in tranquility.
~ Tim Cahill ~
Surely it is the right wish that draws us to the right place.
Nothing of importance happens accidentally in our life.
~ Lama Anagarika Govinda - The Way of the White Clouds ~
The wonders of a journey consist far more of such intangible experiences and unexpected situations than of factual things and events of material reality.
~ Lama Anagarika Govinda - The Way of the White Clouds ~
The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands. The blood flows with the fast circulation of childhood.
~ Sir Richard Burton - African Explorer ~
I want to know - therefore I go.
Dream big, and dare to fail.
~ Norman Vaughan ~
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the places and moments that take our breath away.
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did.
So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.
~ Mark Twain ~
Some people travel only to look - others to see.
Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.
The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.
~ St. Augustine of Hippo ~
The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
~ Jack London ~
They have cradled you in custom, they have primed you with their preaching,
They have soaked you in convention through and through;
They have put you in a showcase; you're a credit to their teaching -
But can't you hear the Wild? - it's calling you.
Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us;
Let us journey to a lonely land I know.
There's a whisper on the night-wind, there's a star agleam to guide us,
And the Wild is calling, calling...let us go.
~ The Call of the Wild (Last Verse) - Robert Service ~
Learn a lot.
Live a lot.
See a lot.
Make your choice, adventurous stranger.
Strike the bell and bide the danger.
Or wonder 'til it drives you mad,
What would have followed, if you had.
~ The Magicians Nephew - C.S. Lewis ~
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
~ The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost ~
It is fine wherever my feet take me
As long as there are sights to see
The true traveler is without goal. It is the absence of goals which creates the ultimate traveler.
Live the life you love, and love the life you live.
Finding fortune among the accidents of life - is there any greater talent?
A man's reach should exceed his grasp.
We want fewer, but higher-paying guests than before. Backpackers spend almost nothing, stay for a long time, and stir up the Tibetans against us. We definitely do not want them.
~ Senior tourist official in Chengdu as quoted in South China Morning Post ~
Don't dream your life
Live your dream.
May all your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view......where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you.
~ Edward Abbey ~
We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope, and hope does not disappoint us.
Physical discomfort is important only when the mood is wrong. Then you fasten on to whatever thing is uncomfortable and call that the cause. But if the mood is right, then physical discomfort doesn't mean much.
No one ever travels so high as he who knows not where he is going.
~ Cromwell ~
Most people don't see the world as it is.....they see it as they are.
As with all travelers, I've seen more than I remember, and remember more than I've seen.
Security is mostly a superstition.
It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.
~ Helen Keller ~
Whatever you can do,
or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius,
power and magic in it.
~ Goethe ~
Learn as if you will live forever; live as if you will die tomorrow.
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs,
even though checkered by failure,
than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer too much,
because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
~ Theodore Roosevelt ~
From a certain point onwards there is no turning back.
That is the place that must be reached.
Only dead fish go with the current.
Never confuse a street address for where you actually live.
Everyone who lives, dies
But not everyone who dies has lived.
No rest is as good as the one that comes after an endeavor.
No accomplishment is as satisfying as one that contained doubt.
And no courage is as great as one that included fear.
The same thing that makes you live can kill you in the end.
Everything is funny if you wait long enough.
Don't let your fears stand in the way of your dreams
You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in.
Life's a journey, not a destination
The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd.
The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been.
~ Alan Ashley-Pitt ~
I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
Don't take life too seriously -- you'll never get out if it alive.
There's a race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.
~ The Men That Don't Fit In (First Verse) - Robert Service ~
Suddenly you are five years old again. You can't read anything. You only have the most rudimentary sense of how things work; you can't even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.
~ Neither Here Nor There - Bill Bryson ~
Everything...we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is golden for him who has the vision to realize it as such.
~ Henry Miller ~
The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see.
~ G. K. Chesterton ~
Tourists don't know where they've been. Travelers don't know where they're going.
~ Paul Theroux ~
Don't simply seek interesting surroundings, but be continually interested in whatever surrounds you.
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
~ Little Gidding - T. S. Eliot ~
It is fatal to know too much at the outset. Boredom comes as quickly to the traveler who knows his route as to the novelist who is over certain of his plot.
~ To the Ends of the Earth - Paul Theroux ~
A good traveler has no fixed plan, and is not intent on arriving.
~ The Way of Life - Lao-Tzu ~
When you travel you experience, in a very practical way, the act of rebirth. You confront completely new situations, the day passes more slowly, and on most journeys you don't even understand the language the people speak....You begin to be more accessible to others, because they may be able to help you in difficult situations.
~ The Pilgrimage - Paulo Coelho ~
Bear in mind that the special advantage of vagabonding is the experience of not really knowing what happens next, which you can obtain at bargain rates in all cases....The challenges you face offer no alternative but to cope with them. And in doing that, your life is being fully lived.
~ Vagabonding in Europe and North Africa - Ed Buryn ~
What I find is that you can do almost anything or go almost anywhere, if you're not in a hurry.
~ The Happy Isles of Oceania - Paul Theroux ~
Those who visit foreign nations, but associate only with their own countrymen, change their climate, but not their customs. They see new meridians, but the same men; and with heads as empty as their pockets, return home with traveled bodies, but untraveled minds.
~ Lacon - Charles Caleb Colton ~
We do not need to understand other people and their customs fully to interact with them and learn in the process; it is making the effort to interact without knowing all the rules, improvising certain situations, which allows us to grow.
~ Peripheral Visions - Mary Catherine Bateson ~
The man who is truly good and wise will bear with dignity whatever fortune sends, and will always make the best of his circumstances.
~ Ethics - Aristotle ~
The pleasure in traveling consists of the obstacles, the fatigue, and even the danger. What charm can anyone find in an excursion when he is always sure of reaching his destination, of having horses ready waiting for him, a soft bed, an excellent supper, and all the eases and comfort he can enjoy in his own home! One of the great misfortunes of modern life is the want of any sudden surprise, and the absence of all adventure. Everything is so well arranged.
~ Wanderings in Spain - Theophile Gautier ~
The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they really are.
~ Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson - Samuel Johnson ~
Often I feel I go to some distant region of the world to be reminded of who I really am....Stripped of your ordinary surroundings, your friends, your daily routines, your refrigerator full of your food, your closet full of your clothes, you are forced into direct experience. Such direct experience inevitably makes you aware of who it is that is having the experience. That's not always comfortable, but it is always invigorating.
~ Travels - Michael Crichton ~
The "danger" of vagabonding resides in having your eyes opened - in discovering the world as it really is.
~ Vagabonding in Europe and North Africa - Ed Buryn ~
People say that what we are all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think this is what we're really seeking. I think what we're seeking is an experience of being alive.
~ The Power of Myth - Joseph Campbell ~
A Nice Story
Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room.
One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs.
His bed was next to the room’s only window
The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back.
The men talked for hours on end.
They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation..
Every afternoon, when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window.
The man in the other bed began to live for those one hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and color of the world outside.
The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake.
Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats.. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every color and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance.
As the man by the window described all this in exquisite details, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine this picturesque scene.
One warm afternoon, the man by the window described a parade passing by.
Although the other man could not hear the band – he could see it in his mind’s eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words.
Days, weeks and months passed.
One morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths only to find the lifeless body of the man by the window, who had died peacefully in his sleep.
She was saddened and called the hospital attendants to take the body away.
As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch, and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.
Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look at the real world outside.
He strained to slowly turn to look out the window besides the bed.
It faced a blank wall.
The man asked the nurse what could have compelled his deceased roommate who had described such wonderful things outside this window.
The nurse responded that the man was blind and could not even see the wall.
She said, ‘Perhaps he just wanted to encourage you.’
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