20 Awesomely Untranslatable Words from Around the World - 1 views
-
Ryan Catalani on 29 Oct 10My favorite: "mamihlapinatapei," meaning "the wordless, yet meaningful look shared by two people who both desire to initiate something but are both reluctant to start." Note (via Language Log) that by "untranslatable," the author really means that there's no one English word which corresponds exactly with the foreign word. Clearly, the words are translatable, just as English phrases.