Factnazi perhaps?
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Sufficient?
In theory it might be by the sign - I’m a British Sign Language / English interpreter and translator. BSL has a base lexicon of about 4,500-5,000 signs (depending on who you ask). There are an infinite number of ways of modifying each one. All of them can be “translated”. So what if they can’t be “perfectly” rendered in a single word? You can’t even do that intralingually.
There’s even a German word for “failing to realise that compound words have no more intrinsically expressive power than any other way of expressing yourself”.
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Even from the examples given, “Tretar” = “Third cup of coffee” or “second refill”. That’s trivially easy, and familiar to anyone who drinks coffee. It’s not untranslatable, it’s merely mildly interesting that there’s a language with a single word for it.
Or maybe the ostensible “untranslatability” of the words is already subverted by the existence of those descriptions and paintings, and is a conceit exploited here to highlight the inherent communicability of experience and how the variety of human expression is not truthfully limited to the morphic payload of single words.
Just maaaaybe.
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“Sufficient” is just enough. Lagom is just enough is best - the right amount. Sufficient does not weigh in on the merit of the amount, where as Lagom does.
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Wabi sabi is used as an art term (like “chiaroscuro”), and is understood by people who don’t speak Japanese. I myself used it when teaching a Photoshop class to help students understand that the world around them has lovely imperfections in it, and they are what make things individual.
Depending on need, some words may be “adopted” into other languages. One commonly internationalized word: “computer”.
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In that vein, the definition of a word in an English dictionary, despite involving no translation at all, is a fairly similar looking sentence-or-two arrangement of English words. Not exactly poetry; but it conveys the meaning about as well as anything short of a snapshot of the introspective state of somebody thinking about the word (technology probably not coming real soon).
If that’s enough to make something ‘untranslatable’, than aren’t basically all English metaphors, figures of speech, and jargon terms not even ‘translatable’ into their own language?
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catches on what?
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One of my all-time favorite comics was an Alan Moore/Bill Willingham Green Lantern story called “In Blackest Night”. The Corps discovers a previously-unknown dark sector of the galaxy and sends Katma Tui to recruit a Lantern there – but it’s a dark sector, the beings there haven’t evolved sight, and they have no translation for words like “Green” and “Lantern”.
Eventually, she comes up with the idea of going with a sound metaphor instead of light, and rewrites the Green Lantern Oath in very Moore-ian fashion:
In loudest din, in hush profound
My ears hear evil’s slightest sound
Let those who toll out evil’s knell
Beware my power: the F-sharp Bell!
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There is no reason to assume universality for all words or concepts (I’d hate to explain what ‘burning pain’ is to somebody who hasn’t been burned, or the downright hackneyed colors-to-a-blind-man problem); but it’s a taller order to show that a different distribution of compact jargon terms reflects a fundamental, irreconcilable, difference in experience. It probably does tell you about differences in priorities; but that’s rather less profound.
And these people are idiots. Even in Englisch „a word“ is distinct from „one word“. Hence word of god.
By the way, “Machtword” is another fine word that’s not that easy to translate, even though “command“ or “put down one’s foot” manage to convey what it is about.
Although it could have a completely different meaning, you definitely can translate the italian “commuovere” in english.
“commozione” (noun for commuovere) directly translates in… “concussion”.
Yep, the traumatic event that can happen to your head, we can use it in a meaning that’s completely psychological either than physical. But the word is that.
Are you very sure? I’m feeling it has much more to do with “commotion” (but more in a ‘causing an emotional disturbance’ way than in English).
Always loved the welsh word that means a longing for home - hiraeth.
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You make me think more about that, and not, I’m not so sure.
In italian “concussion” is usually translated as “commozione cerebrale” (cerebrale > of the brain), “cerebrale” is added in order to disambiguate the physical injury from the psychological one. But there’s also “concussione”, and that’s the perfect translation for concussion (“cerebrale” is usually added here, too).
Commotion, I just didn’t know this word existed (pardon me), according to google translate, this word too don’t match the meaning that is given to in italian. But phonetically is just perfect. And I can see that the meaning of this word too involve movement.
In italian “commozione” and “concussione” are pretty much synonyms, both come from latin words that involve movement, something shaken. Just “commozione” can assume the psychological meaning (as “psychologically shaken”).
So I’m not sure the word can be defined untranslatable.
See, where I grew up, we had no word for that.
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It’s definitely translatable to Portuguese: ‘comover’. Sure seems to derive from movement as well (‘mover’ = to move).
They could use some better research in those lists.
