Untranslatable words do exist. The reason is fairly obvious. Cultural groups have their own characteristics and idiosyncrasies. We humans have different habits and daily routines, our own specific sense of humor and ways of living in society that differ around the world.
Words or phrases are considered untranslatable when there is no precise corresponding meaning in a target language.
Words that are untranslatable normally are tied to an experience that is unique to a specific culture or society. An example of an untranslatable word is komorebi, a Japanese word that refers to the sunlight that filters through the leaves of trees.
It keeps alive the possibility of escape—of something surviving far beyond our everyday experiences. The concept of “untranslatable words” preserves the idea that the world can never be fully mapped out and expunged of mystery. It is also an easy replacement for the hard tasks of empathy and understanding.
In fact, the problem of untranslatability arises because of the cultural differences between the people speaking the original language text and those speaking the language of the target language text, e.g. Arabic & English. This is especially conspicuous when it comes to food and religion culture, for instance.
“Without translation, the world would be a duller, poorer and more unequal place, both economically and culturally, where only the 'happy few' with a knowledge of other languages would have access to goods, information and culture from other countries.”
Untranslatability is a property of a text, or of any utterance in one language, for which no equivalent text or utterance can be found in another language J.C.Catford, a celebrated translation scholar of linguistics school, raised the issue of untranslatability in 1965.
French is often considered to be the most romantic language in the world. It is another Romance language that originated from Latin. French is a very musical language, and its pronunciation contributes to its melody.
Sanskrit is a classical language that has influenced modern South and Southeast Asian languages at least as much as Greek and Latin have influenced modern European languages. This language has an astounding 96 words for love.
The English language contains a lot of unique words that sometimes have not real equivalent in any other languages. These untranslatable words in English may initially be confusing, but they are also interesting to learn (and sometimes funny too!)
1. Mandarin Chinese. Interestingly, the hardest language to learn is also the most widely spoken native language in the world. Mandarin Chinese is challenging for a number of reasons.
Interestingly, the hardest word in the world to translate is Ilunga. This word belongs to the Luba-Kasai or Tshiluba language, which is spoken by more than 6 million speakers in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
There are few, if any, words that are the same across all languages and language families, but a team of linguistic researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands think they might have found one: “Huh.”
According to scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, there is only one word in existence that's the same in every language, and that word is 'huh'.
Nepal's Kusunda language has no known origin and a number of quirks, like no words for "yes" or "no". It also has only one fluent speaker left, something linguists are racing to change.
If there is a language which draws a unanimous worldwide consent regarding its beauty, it is French. According to several informal online surveys, there seems to be a general infatuation for spoken French all over the world. French has been described as smooth, flowing, elegant and aesthetically pleasing.
The votes are in and it's unanimous: French is the sexiest language in the history of ever. To make things even steamier, French is a legit Romance language along with Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and a few others, named as such because of their Latin roots.
English
English is one definitely one of the most important languages to learn in 2021 and beyond. It is used in global business, worldwide travel, diplomatic affairs, and in computer technology. Not only that, but many of the top global economies are English-speaking ones — the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK.
One way to deal with untranslatability is calque. Calque attempts to parse, or separate, an expression into its components. The readily available translation of its individual elements are often hyphenated, set in quotes, or otherwise made clear that the translation is of uncertain creation.
What was the first translation in history? One of the most accepted theories states that the first translation known was a poem called The Epic of Gilgamesh, originally written in Sumerian and translated into a variety of Asian languages.
Poetry is untranslatable to the extent that, as pointed out by Dante Milano (2004), an exemplary translator of Dante Alighieri, Baudelaire and Mallarmé, "a poet's language cannot be transferred to another language; one can translate what he meant to say, but not what he actually said." It is clear that what he said in ...