tsundoku

[AlexBell]

This week's edition of the guardian weekly has in the Books section an article entitled 'Are some words untranslatable?'

One of the words the author (Lucy Greaves) discusses is 'tsundoku', the Japanese word for 'the act of leaving a book unread after buying it, typically piling it up together with other such unread books'.

Don't you wish English had a word like that?

[Kumabjorn]

Every language has that

[HarryT]

English does have a word: "TBR".

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by HarryT

English does have a word: "TBR".

There is a difference Harry, TBR implies that the holder has, if not the intention at least the ambition, to read the books. Tsundoku is more of exasperation and the notion that the books will never be read, only gather dust.

[mojos]

We could always create a word for it. It's just a matter of mixing some letters up and adding meaning to it.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

There is a difference Harry, TBR implies that the holder has, if not the intention at least the ambition, to read the books. Tsundoku is more of exasperation and the notion that the books will never be read, only gather dust.

TBR is what the buyer says; Tsundoku is what the spouse says, right?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Every language has that

There is a long-standing debate as to whether concepts shape language, the conventional view, or whether language shapes worldview and thus thought and behavior.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

There is a long-standing debate as to whether concepts shape language, the conventional view, or whether language shapes worldview and thus thought and behavior.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity

That's one of the themes of Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four"; that removing a word (like "rebellion") from the language, means that people will no longer be able to imagine the concept expressed by the word.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's one of the themes of Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four"; that removing a word (like "rebellion") from the language, means that people will no longer be able to imagine the concept expressed by the word.

Jack Vance built THE LANGUAGES OF PAO on that theory.
It's something of a causality question, ala chicken-and-egg, though not as easy to solve/verify as languages evolve in many ways.

[elemenoP]

I have seen a few fun articles about words in other languages that we don't have in English, here is one for Swedish:

http://blogs.sweden.se/expat/2012/03...mediately-now/

(I once mentioned "fika" to a native Danish speaker and I was surprised that he had no idea what I was talking about.)

But what about words we have in English that they don't have in other languages? Can you think of any examples? Or, do other languages just adopt the English word when this happens?

eP

[HarryT]

There are certainly words in British English that don't appear to exist in American English. A while ago I used the word "whinge" in a post here at MR, for example, and an American poster asked me what it meant.

Not having a word in a language doesn't mean that you can't explain the concept with a phrase, of course. Eg, there's no direct English equivalent for the very useful German word "Schadenfreude", but it's easy to explain in English as "taking pleasure from the misfortune of others".

[DiapDealer]

Bookstipation.

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Not having a word in a language doesn't mean that you can't explain the concept with a phrase, of course. Eg, there's no direct English equivalent for the very useful German word "Schadenfreude", but it's easy to explain in English as "taking pleasure from the misfortune of others".

Well, I would say there used to be no direct English equivalent, but now there is "schadenfreude". If some other language has a handy word, we can always just steal it. It'd be the same with tsundoku, if we could get enough people to agree.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by elemenoP

But what about words we have in English that they don't have in other languages? Can you think of any examples? Or, do other languages just adopt the English word when this happens?

eP

Yes.
The most notable example I have heard of is "efficiency".
As a product of the industrial revolution, the concept originated in the UK and spread out. Most other languages had no native equivalent.
Lots of technical terms and concepts originated in english and were then merrily adopted/adapted to other languages. There are exceptions, of course. Some languages are hostile to neologisms and imports.

[Kumabjorn]

I remember reading somewhere that the number of Swedes who answers "warrior woman" to the question, what is amazon, is dwindling.