TRANSLATING UNTRANSLATABLES
“Untranslatable” is a label assigned to terms in one
language for which there is no single-word counterpart in other
languages (or, more often than not, in English). They express
ideas or emotions that other languages do not identify with a
name, although the concepts may not be unfamiliar to speakers of
those languages. When potential counterparts are advanced in
translation, there are always subtle differences left, nuances that
only a native speaker can truly understand and explain.
Even though such terms doubtlessly pose a challenge to
translators
and,
notably,
interpreters,
their
actual
untranslatability is debatable, as it is straightforward that quality
translation does not entail word-count equivalence. Every
language has words the exact meaning of which is not reflected in
a single lexical unit in several other languages, but this does not
necessarily render translation difficult or impossible.
Furthermore, it is unreasonable to assume that one language can
express human cognition in its entirety. Each language integrates
terms or ideas that its speakers need at some point in history and
may then discard them in the course of its evolution. In addition,
languages mirror the collective memory and cultural
representations of their communities, reflecting perceptions,
beliefs, feelings, attitudes, relations and experiences in a way that
cannot be strictly universal. Lexical differences and gaps are a
direct outcome. Consequently, translators often choose to expand
on a definition that is consistent with the target language and with
the awareness of its speakers. This is why we may be surprised to
encounter a whole sentence proposed as the semantic counterpart
of a single word.
There are manifold “untranslatable” terms originating
all over the world, from the solemn to the hilarious, from the
profound to the abrupt, from the transparent to the delightfully
quirky. Some are difficult to translate because they embody an
entire culture, whereas others have meanings which are too
specific to be prevalent. All of them, however, are strangely
appealing and perplexing to some extent, and have the potential
to fascinate at a glance, particularly because they disclose so much
about the concerns and fundamentals of other cultures. You may
discover hereunder ten of the most scrutinized world-famous
“untranslatable” words. Hopefully you will recognize concepts you
needed to verbalize at some point or terms you would like to
adopt in your own language. Fathom their charm and internalize
their singularity as your mind travels and expands.
Duende (Spanish)
This enchanting Spanish word, which recently migrated
to English, roughly designates a “heightened state of emotion,
expression and authenticity”, a “climactic show of spirit”
characteristic of flamenco dancing or bull-fighting. It is a
mysterious and ineffable lure, the power by which a work of art
can genuinely move someone, but also the physical and emotional
response to a vivid artistic performance, since the duede seizes
both the artist and the audience.
Originally, duende was a generic name (coined from
duen de casa – home owner) for fairy- or goblin-like creatures in
Iberian and Latin American mythology, usually mischievous,
which take possession of humans and make them experience awe
before natural surroundings.
www.lexington.ro
In his 1933 lecture Teoria y juego del duende (Theory
and Play of the Duende), Federico García Lorca developed a new
meaning of duende, describing it in the words of Goethe: “the
mysterious power that we all feel, but that no philosopher could
explain”. According to Lorca, this is a demonic earth spirit that
confronts artists with death and helps them create and convey
breathtaking, almost unbearably intense moments. It differs from
grace or the muse in that the artist does not instantly surrender to
the duende, but has to fight it dramatically, and in the effect it has
on the audience, allowing it to understand art spontaneously, thus
becoming “the very dearest thing that life can offer the
intellectual”. It always brings along a radical change, miracle-like
novelty, and an “almost religious enthusiasm”. For the artist, it is
not related to ability, but to a living style, spontaneity, cultural
ancestry, and emotional darkness.1
Filotimo (Greek)
Also spelled philotimo (Greek φιλότιμο), it literally
means ‘friend of honor’, but involves a complex set of virtues and
manifold emotions, deeply ingrained in Greek culture and
identity, which make it intensely evocative and therefore hard to
translate.
Filotimo is the expected behavior of any Greek, the
desirable way of life, associated with acts of generosity and
sacrifice for one’s family, community and society without
expecting anything in return; it is inbred and cannot be taught. It
comprises unconditional love and respect toward parents and
friends, gratitude for any small kindness, admiration for one’s
ancestors and heritage, honor, dignity and courage, pride in being
Greek transposed into a sense of duty to the country. It also
involves a deep personal freedom which makes one stand strong
and dignified, demanding respect in any circumstances.
All these virtues are part of filotimo, but the concept is
more than the sum of its parts, it implies something that
Sophocles referred to as a mystery, the essence of being Greek. In
the words of Thales of Miletus, “Filotimo to the Greek is like
breathing. A Greek is not a Greek without it. He might as well not
be alive.”2
Fremdschämen (German)
The verb fremdschämen signifies feeling embarrassed
for or on behalf of someone who should be ashamed but is not. Its
components are the adjective fremd (foreign, other, external) and
the reflexive verb schämen (to be or feel ashamed), but the term
does not just refer to vicarious embarrassment, considering there
is an additional implication: the other person does not realize they
are in a shameful situation, often because of ignorance, and that
they should be embarrassed for themselves. This type of
embarrassment is experienced when the other’s actions do not
directly affect one or one's image, it is simply an empathetic
process: one is touched by the other’s condition even if one is a
mere witness thereof.
Fremdschämen is a fairly new word in German, used in
colloquial language and frequently associated with talent shows
and the way judges and viewers relate to certain performances on
stage, which are so ridiculous that they stop being entertaining,
making one feel utterly uncomfortable and ask oneself how the
protagonists can be unaware of their derisory circumstances.
Writings
October 2013
Since German schadenfreude, the delight in another’s
misfortune, already entered the English language, its positive,
sympathetic counterpart fremdschämen, currently gaining online
popularity, is expected to be adopted as well.3
Ilunga (Tshiluba)
Ilunga is an elegantly succinct term famous for its
untranslatability: it was chosen as the most untranslatable word
in the world in a 2004 survey carried out by Translation Today
among 1000 linguists. It designates “a person ready to forgive any
abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a
third time”.
Impressive in the complexity of its meaning, ilunga
captures three distinct types of emotion in a single lexical unit. It
does not simply refer to a ‘two-time forgiver’, but represents a
gradual change of attitude - three phases on the way to
intolerance, each influencing the next.
Tshiluba (also known as Luba Kasai) is a Bantu
language, one of the four national languages in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, spoken by about 6 million people. In the
DR Congo, Ilunga is also a common family name.4
Inat (Serbian)
Defined as “an attitude of proud defiance, stubbornness
and self-preservation - sometimes to the detriment of everyone
else or even oneself”, ѝна̄т is a core part of Serbian culture and
mentality. It is argued to be the result of the last five centuries of
Balkan conflicts, including the Ottoman rule, during which the
Serbian character was formed out of persecution and frustration
while people fought to defend their land, identity or religion; the
word itself comes from Turkish, where it means ‘persistence’.
Inat implies defying for the sake of defiance or doing
things simply because they are forbidden. This kind of demeanor
makes one “cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face” or harm
somebody while deliberately harming oneself, and is said to be a
national trait in contemporary Serbia as well.
This emotionally complex concept reunites both
positive and negative aspects: it holds people together, motivating
them under adversity, but at the same time it nurtures conflict
within the community, as illustrated by the Serbian saying
translated as “May the neighbor’s cow die”. Thus, it is inat which
explains both Serbs’ proud and composed resistance under NATO
bombing during the Kosovo war, and their belligerence in
controlling the Balkan region.5
Jayus (Indonesian)
This is a slang term spreading swiftly in major
Indonesian cities, but also reaching Malaysian and Tagalog. It
refers to “a joke so poorly told and so unfunny that one cannot
help but laugh” or to a person who tells such jokes. This curious
type of humor stems not from the corny joke itself, but from the
person’s failure to convey the punch line, a situation so common
that it is surprising it is not captured in a word.
Jayus differs from what the English call ‘anti-jokes’ in
that the comic effect of the latter only resides in the irony of not
hearing the expected funny ending, whereas in the case of this
useful Indonesian term it is the joke-teller’s style which has a
crucial role in rendering humor.
www.lexington.ro
The origin of the word appears to be a story the main
figure of which, a teacher named Jayus, always makes awkward,
humorless jokes. His students endeavor to laugh politely every
time, and before long they do not laugh with him, but at him,
specifically at the way in which Jayus manages to tell such odd,
embarrassingly dull anecdotes. In slang, his name became a
common noun illustrating such situations.6
Litost (Czech)
Litost is the title of Part Five in The Book of Laughter
and Forgetting by Czech-born Milan Kundera, who defines it as
“a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one’s own
misery”. This state overwhelms the student in the novel, who
realizes that what he had interpreted as Krystyna’s immense love
for him was actually her fear of pregnancy.
As presented in the narrative, it consists of a feeling of
imperfection, humiliation, despair about oneself and one’s life,
but also a certain delight obtained when persisting in failure. In
romantic relationships, litost originates in the absence of an
absolute identity with one’s partner. It is said to characterize
youth, as experience turns imperfection and agony into routine.
The devastating suffering also triggers an urge for revenge - a
desire to make the tormenter as wretched as oneself -, and the
hypocrisy of exposing the reasons of such revenge as pure and
benevolent.
The resonance and untranslatability of litost are
confirmed by Kundera himself: “Its first syllable, which is long
and stressed, sounds like the wail of an abandoned dog. 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.”7
Mamihlapinatapai (Yagán)
Listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as the
“most succinct word”, this exquisite compound comes from
Yagán, one of the indigenous languages of Terra del Fuego, now
virtually extinct as there is only one native speaker left in the
world. Also spelled mamihlapinatapei, it designates “the
wordless, yet meaningful look shared by two people who both
desire to initiate something but are both reluctant to start”; each
wishes the other would take the initiative and do what is expected
from both. As the term suggests mutual urging in expressive
silence, an apposite counterpart proposed for it is “eye-contact
implying ‘after you...’”.
Mamihlapinatapai consists of the reflexive/passive
prefix ma- (mam- before a vowel), the root ihlapi (meaning ‘to be
at a loss as what to do next’), the stative suffix -n, an achievement
suffix -ata, and the dual suffix -apai, which in conjunction with
reflexive ma- has a reciprocal sense.
The term is used in game theory in association with the
volunteer’s dilemma, where two or more players are faced with a
choice: either make a small sacrifice for the common benefit or
become a free rider.
Mamihlapinatapei is also the title of a 2004 song by
American singer-songwriter Ronny Cox, who provides a rhyming
definition of the word: We can't say what's in our hearts / Our
minds keep saying “Is this smart?” / But our eyes ask “Can't we
start?” / Mamihlapinatapei.8
Writings
October 2013
Serendipity (English)
In fact, this multi-faceted, unitary concept has been
characterized as “a key to the Russian soul”, a prime
representative of Russian culture. It is closely associated to the socalled Russian national type: the “eternal seeker”, with a
“predilection for the infinite” and a “capacity for the endurance of
suffering”. Toska is an everyday word in Russian, used much
more often than any of its English counterparts, and its beauty
and nobility are widely revered.10
Voted among the ten English words hardest to
translate, serendipity is an “aptitude for making desirable
discoveries by accident”. The term was first used by Horace
Walpole in a 1754 letter to Horace Mann, where he describes a
heraldic discovery as “of that kind which I call Serendipity”.
Walpole maintains that he coined this noun from the fairy tale
The Three Princes of Serendip, published in Venice in 1557; its
heroes, who travel around Serendib, an old Arabic name for Sri
Lanka, “were always making discoveries, by accidents and
sagacity, of things they were not in quest of”. Serendipity became
known in the 19th century, when Walpole’s correspondence was
published, and gained popularity in the second half of the 20th
century. In 2000 it was the tenth most popular name of pleasure
boats in the U.S., and the top favorite word at the London Festival
of Literature.
The concept has a whole book dedicated to it: The
Travels and Adventures of Serendipity studies its origins and
uses, developing the theory of serendipity as a scientific method
and highlighting the importance of the unintended outcomes of
intended actions. The authors argue that, according to Walpole’s
description, serendipitous findings are not necessarily valuable as
some modern dictionaries assume. Furthermore, Walpole’s
definition contains an important component which is frequently
omitted in current usage and which is critical in the scientific
method: the acute discernment needed in order to be able to reach
a noteworthy conclusion by relating apparently uninteresting
data. It is not mere luck or accidental discovery, as the
serendipiter is looking for something else.
In sociology, the serendipity pattern refers to the
experience of observing “an unanticipated, anomalous and
strategic datum” which leads to theory creation or extension. The
sociological use of serendipity led to its adoption in many
languages in which adaptation was easier than translation (e.g.,
French sérendipité, German Serendipität).9
I. D.
Toska (Russian)
English translation attempts for тоска include
depression, melancholy, yearning, boredom or nostalgia.
However, the Russian noun blends all these states, and has the
meaning of each at the same time; depending on context, one
component may become more prominent than the others.
Essentially, it refers to the anguish felt when something that is
dearly loved is missing, and felt as intangible, which creates a
distinctly nostalgic, poetic shade of meaning. It also conveys an
intense pervasive feeling of emptiness, with implications of
indefiniteness and inexplicability.
Its most famous definition is provided by Vladimir
Nabokov in his translation and commentary for Alexander
Pushkin's epic of the Russian soul, Eugene Onegin: “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, lovesickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.”
Nabokov also mentions that toska was one of Pushkin’s favorite
words.
www.lexington.ro
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duende
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duende
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filotimo
http://www.helleniccomserve.com/filotimo.html
3 http://betterthanenglish.com/fremdscham-german/
http://obscenedesserts.blogspot.ro/2010/03/fremdscham-is-new-schadenfreude.html
4 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3830521.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilunga
5 http://wwword.com/2685/words/untranslatable/inat/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1999/02/99/e-cyclopedia/325997.stm
6 http://www.altalang.com/beyond-words/2008/10/12/ten-most-difficult-words-totranslate/
http://hardiannazief.com/10/jayus/
7shttp://anobiumlit.com/2013/07/13/litost/
http://www.harpercollins.com/browseinside/index.aspx?isbn13=9780060932145
8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamihlapinatapai
http://ronnycox.bandcamp.com/track/mamihlapinatapei
9 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serendipity
http://www.sundaytimes.lk/050102/plus/11.html
10khttp://books.google.ro/books/about/Eugene_Onegin_Commentary_and_index.ht
ml?id= l00OTAOKbesC&redir_esc=y
http://www.scribd.com/doc/116112137/Semantics-Culture-and-CognitionUniversal-Human-Concepts-in-Culture-Specific-Configurations
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