Terms of Endurance

In the news, have heard recently & quite frequently the use of the German word "Schadenfreude" (perverse pleasure taken in another's plight or misfortune). It has gained an ironic (yes, that's our culture for you, ever since Seinfeld & audience infamously mistook cynicism for a fashionable form of "irony") prevalence, what with tsunamis, hurricanes, and earthquake news coverage.

Schadenfreude, a word which I think adequately reflects upon the traffic phenomenon of rubbernecking. Or for that matter, for what passes as "news," as covered by corporate media. A perfect word, we have to borrow it, co-opt its hapless sound into our own lapses. But so appropriate.

Are there other concepts which don't have a precise word in English?

English language has a powerful ability to absorb and utilize other cultures' words. A good or bad thing, depending on one's point of view. Just as our quite maleable culture absorbs, transmutes, and appropriates every other culture it comes into contact with. So we have a word for almost everything we value. Especially in science and technology, worldwide, English terms are predominant.

No wonder this language currently dominates the world. English-language schools know it's often a necessary tool for success. But I don't think it's just because of its alignment with economics or capitalism, or pop culture, let alone military might. Although it's being predicted that English may not be the lingua franca of the next 50 years, I still don't see the pretenders to the throne — Mandarin Chinese or Arabic — doing that; they've historically been too self-referential, insular of influence.

But about those words and our customs about words?

… You know the common but false story that there are vast numbers of Inuit words for snow? It has been reported recently that climate change in the Arctic means that snow and ice conditions are occurring for which the native population has no words, since they've never seen them before.

Evidently there are 27 Albanian words for "moustache" and another 27 for "eyebrows."

Some interesting words and meanings:

… Persian "nakhur," which means "a camel that won't give milk until her nostrils have been tickled."

… Indonesian didis — "to search and pick up lice from one's own hair, usually when in bed at night."

… Cook Islands Maori: papakata, meaning "to have one leg shorter than the other."

… Japanese: bakkushan, for "a girl who looks as though she might be pretty when seen from behind, but isn't from the front."

… Tingo, from the Pascuense language of Easter Island, meaning "to borrow objects from a friend's house, one by one, until there's nothing left."

… Hawaii: ho'oponopono — "solving a problem by talking it out"

… Japanese: kyoikumama — "a mother who pushes her children into academic achievement"

… Indonesia: kekaku — "to awaken from a nightmare"

… Mayan: Bol — "stupid in-laws"

… German: Torschlüsspanik — "the frantic anxiety experienced by unmarried women as they race against the 'biological clock'";

Treppenwitz — the "clever remark that comes to mind when it is too late to utter it" (similar, I think, in meaning to the French "Esprit de I'escalier" — a witty remark that occurs to you, literally, on the way down the stairs);

Schlimmbesserung — "a so-called improvement that makes things worse";

Drachenfutter — "a peace offering from guilty husbands for wives," or literally "dragon fodder" (perhaps not an image most wives would be happy to be associated with);

… Russian: Razbliuto — the feeling (not quite of love, but perhaps close) a person has for someone once loved but now longer the object of affection

… Attaccabottoni — someone who grabs the conversation and won't let you go

… Korinthenkacker (literally "raisin crapper") — someone who obsesses on insignificant details

Arabic: Taarradhin — Arabic has no word for "compromise" in the sense of reaching an arrangement via struggle and disagreement. However a much happier concept, taarradhin, exists in Arabic. It implies a happy solution for everyone, an "I win, you win." It's a way of resolving a problem without anyone losing face.

… New Guinea is actually home to a fifth of the world's languages. From the highlands: Buritilulo — "the practice of comparing yams to settle a dispute."

… From the Kilivila language, spoken on Kiriwina, the largest of the Trobriand Islands, part of Papua New Guinea: Mokita — "the truth everybody knows but nobody speaks" (such as, for instance, the idea that most Americans seem to be against immigration, or that IQ measures only academic performance: facts well known to the scientific community, but perhaps best not discussed in public).

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If you're interested in a great book about language and its effect on people, cultures and history, I highly recommend "Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World" by Nicholas Ostler. Fascinating, about which a starred, informative review in Booklist says:

"… readers learn how languages ancient and modern (Sumerian and Egyptian; Spanish and English) spread and how they dwindle. The raw force of armies counts, of course, in determining language fortunes but for far less than the historically naive might suppose: military might failed to translate into lasting linguistic conquest for the Mongols, Turks, or Russians. Surprisingly, trade likewise proves weak in spreading a language — as the Phoenician and Dutch experiences both show. In contrast, immigration and fertility powerfully affect the fate of languages, as illustrated by the parallel histories of Egyptian and Chinese. Ostler explores the ways modern technologies of travel and communication shape language fortunes, but he also highlights the power of ancient faiths — Christian and Moslem, Buddhist and Hindu — to anchor language traditions against rapid change. Of particular interest [to readers] will be Ostler's provocative conjectures about a future in which Mandarin or Arabic take the lead or in which English fractures into several tongues. Few books bring more intellectual excitement to the study of language."