Category talk:Terms without an English counterpart

RFD

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Category:Terms without an English counterpart

Yet another useless category. If we really want to keep it, it should probably have a language prefix. SemperBlotto (talk) 11:14, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

I can see why this would exist. But how to define it and manage it, very difficult. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:36, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

What would go in these categories? Anything without a one- or two-word gloss in contemporary English?

Delete DCDuring TALK 15:44, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

It would be necessarily subjective. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:26, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Strong keep Speedy delete in favor of Appendix - This concept is itself independently notable and such categorization is necessary for the eventual completeness of our project. Consider the following:

bakku-shan (Japanese) - An ugly woman who is beautiful from behind.

See バックシャン (​bakkushan). I dimly recall hearing of an English slang word that fit this meaning to a T, but I can't remember what it was.

espirit d'escalier (French) - To think of the perfect verbal comeback much too late.

mamihlapinatapai (Yaghan) - A look between two people that suggests an unspoken, shared desire.

backpfeifengesicht (German) - A face badly in need of a fist.

nunchi (Korean) - The innate ability to sense what would be the wrong thing to say in a given situation.

desenrascanco (Portuguese) - To pull a MacGyver.

tingo (Pascuense) - To borrow from a friend until he has nothing left.

shlimazl (Yiddish) - Someone who has nothing but bad luck.

sgiomlaireachd (Scottish Gaelic) - When someone pops in and interrupts meal time.

tatemae and honne (Japanese) - What one pretends to believe and what one actually believes, respectively.

Tatemae is basically a compound, not so far removed semantically from window dressing. Meanwhile, honne is also a compound, and not so far removed from true feelings.

toska (Russian) Vladmir Nabokov describes it best: “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, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.”

jayus (Indonesian) – A joke so poorly told and so unfunny that one cannot help but laugh.

litost (Czech) - A state of agony and torment caused by the sudden sight of one's own misery.

kyoikumama (Japanese) – A mother who relentlessly pushes her children toward academic achievement.

Also a compound, and actually a phrase, not a single word. See 教育ママ (​kyōiku mama) (also at w:ja:教育ママ and w:Kyoiku mama, since we're missing it here at the moment). Mirrored in English by the recent buzzword tiger mom, or somewhat by the term helicopter parent that I've heard bandied about by teachers (though admittedly the meaning of that one is a bit further off).

tartle (Scottish) – The act of hesitating while introducing someone because you’ve forgotten their name.

ilunga (Tshiluba) – Someone who is ready to forgive and forget any first abuse, tolerate it the second time, but never forgive nor tolerate on the third offense.

prozvonit (Czech) – To call a mobile phone and let it ring once so that the other person will call back, saving the first caller money.

cafuné (Brazilian Portuguese) – The act of tenderly running one’s fingers through someone’s hair.

ya’aburnee (Arabic) - Simultaneously morbid and beautiful.

zhaghzhagh (Persian)  - The chattering of teeth from the cold or from rage.

yuputka (Ulwa) - A word made for walking in the woods at night, it refers to the phantom sensation of something crawling on one's skin.

slampadato (Italian) – An addiction to the UV glow of tanning salons.

luftmensch (Yiddish) - An impractical dreamer with no business sense. Literally, air person.

iktsuarpok (Inuit) - The feeling of anticipation while waiting for someone to arrive at one's house and meanwhile intermittently going outside to check for them.

cotisuelto (Caribbean Spanish) - One who wears the shirt tail outside of their trousers.

glas wen (Welsh) - A smile that is insincere or mocking. Literally, a blue smile.

pana po’o (Hawaiian) - To scratch one's head in order to recover a memory.

gumusservi (Turkish) - A scene in which moonlight shines on water.

vybafnout (Czech) - To jump out and say boo.

mencolek (Indonesian) - To tap someone lightly on the opposite shoulder from behind as a trick.

faamiti (Samoan) - To make a squeaking sound by sucking air past the lips in order to gain the attention of a dog or child.

boketto (Japanese) - To gaze vacantly into the distance without thinking.

This is an adverb, not a verb. Compare English vapidly or vacantly.

These are just a few examples in various aggregate lists from across the Internet. There is a great deal of potential for expansion in this area and I am confident that it will come to be valued by both our community and readers.   — C M B J   14:27, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Most of those terms are not in the right script, are not capitalised correctly, don't exist at all (and have failed WT:RFV) or don't have the meaning various websites allege they have...but that's neither here nor there. - -sche (discuss) 18:40, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

The fact that the terms I linked are not in the right script or are capitalized incorrectly is irrelevant. They were merely intended to serve as examples of what this category should contain. The acceptability of those sources is also irrelevant because verifiable sources do exist in this area of research.   — C M B J   00:01, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Delete. Probably inspired by a recent news article which listed many such words, mostly inaccurately (see my previous comment). - -sche (discuss) 18:40, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

As I said above, these are just a few examples from aggregate lists. They are not scholarly definitions, but scholarly definitions do exist. This is not an adequate reason to delete a valuable category.   — C M B J   23:51, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Delete. It would be impossible to manage such a category. For one, anyone adding a page to this category would have to know every single English word used since the sixteenth century. Also, it would encourage people to add false words from books and articles dealing with untranslatable terms. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 19:45, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Firstly, it is not impossible to manage such a category because the project is developed progressively and based upon consensus. Secondly, it is not necessary to know every single English word since the sixteenth century because entries should be based upon verifiable source content. Lastly, if words are described in books and articles as being untranslatable, then they are by definition relevant to our project.   — C M B J   23:40, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Ok then: we would need to know every single English word from sources written since the 16th century.

Re “if words are described in books and articles as being untranslatable, then they are by definition relevant to our project”. Not really. If a word does have an English equivalent, then it has an English equivalent even if a thousand articles say it is untranslatable, and if word doesn’t exist, it doesn’t exist even if another thousand articles say it is a real untranslatable word. Note that we have deleted the Pascuense word tingo, found in your list above, twice because we were unable to verify its existence outside lists and books about untranslatable words.

I’m sorry if I’m sounding harsh. I think this category is an interesting idea, but one too impractical for us to use. If you think a foreign word has an interesting meaning, with or without an English equivalent, you can nominate it at WT:FW, which requires some verification (to prevent made-up words from being featured). At least one word from your list has already been featured: Portuguese desenrascanço. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 00:13, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

There is nothing impractical about this concept because we base our entries upon the attestation of acceptable sources. If the best sources available say that a knowable term is untranslatable, and we cannot readily demonstrate otherwise, then our project should describe that usage until such time that a depreciated 16th century equivalent is rediscovered. If quality of sourcing is a concern, I am not opposed to laying out clear guidelines in this area, but convenient omission is a non-solution and a great mistake. Regarding tingo's repeated deletion, this also should have never happened and I am starting a new discussion to move for its reinclusion.   — C M B J   06:47, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

One alternative to a category is the creation of an Appendix of terms that are said not to have an English one- or two-word equivalent (or longer) or not to be definable in less than an encyclopedic article. Category work best when membership criteria are self-evident. Appendices work better than categories when membership needs an explanation, because they can include an explanation. —This unsigned comment was added by DCDuring (talk • contribs).

That may be a mutually agreeable path forward. I will sleep on it and return with further input.   — C M B J   12:13, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry that I didn't mention it sooner. It does not have to be a black hole. All the words that meet CFI and are in principal namespace can have a link to the Appendix under the "See also" or even the "Usage notes" header. DCDuring TALK 13:28, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

My problem is that one example that we have, desenrascanço, clearly has many counterparts. The definition offers three, disentanglement, hack, McGyverism (more mentions then uses, but still probably citable). Jury-rig comes to mind, also.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:31, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

There are a fair number of them where little or no question exists about their translatability — and I think this is ultimately going to boil down to case-by-case consideration.   — C M B J   22:40, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

• Just for completeness' sake, I've gone through the list above and added comments for the Japanese items listed. I'm a Japanese-English translator, and there's a lot less that's truly “untranslatable” than most people seem to want. Some really interesting terms require explaining, but they're still translatable -- translation just takes more words in the target language than in the source.

So really, I think the core problem of this category is that we don't agree on what is meant by “untranslatable”. CMBJ, can you state what you mean by this word, and hopefully help bring some better focus to this discussion? Cheers, -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 22:42, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

The best solution in my mind at the moment is to use a title like Appendix:Terms considered difficult or impossible to translate into English and work together toward defining and refining what exactly that should mean.   — C M B J   12:28, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

• An appendix is not a bad idea. It would centralise and make watchlistable the addition of new words, thus making it more likely for someone to catch a word that does have a translation. However, if it we do this, I suggest the existence of the following rules:

• only words with CFI-compliant citations can be added (this should prevent the inclusion words whose meaning is misinterpreted in books and articles about untranslatable words);
• an “incubation period” of, say, a week, between a word being nominated in the Talk page and it being added to the Appendix page (to give people the chance to chew over possible translations).

— Ungoliant ^(Falai) 04:18, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

We have no reason to think that we will need this much procedure. Won't terms prove to be "undefinable" (= no known brief definition) in the normal course? Why don't we try it out more simply, relying only on active contributor participation and the talk page?

For existing terms in a given [language name], an extra step could be the creation of a new template for mark particular undefined [language name] ("L2") sections or senses that are deemed untranslatable and the creation of a page to be watched by those interested. Presumably the L2 section would also appear in a "[language name] terms needing attention" category and/or a "Translation requests ([language name])" category.

For candidates not known to meet CFI, wouldn't the normal request for entry process work, possibly with the same template for needed definition if the term is hard to define. DCDuring TALK 11:51, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

If we don’t add checks to the appendix it will become packed with made-up definitions, because people will add words from lists such as those in the links above. Made-up definitions for languages no contributor here speaks will remain there for ages. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 20:18, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

It might. The same is true even for principal namespace entries in such languages. We could limit the appendix to CFI-meeting terms for which we had entries. DCDuring TALK 20:45, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

We can probably cut down on the majority of nonsense just by asking one or two regular contributors who speak a given language to add the page to their watchlist. For those living languages where we don't have a single contributor, maybe it's a good opportunity to try and manually recruit one. A native Pascuense speaker, for example, might be found at one of the following:

• Merahi Rapa Nui Foundation
• University of Hawai'i at Manoa's Rapa Nui archaeological field school
• Facebook's Rapa Nui newsgroup
• Facebook's Liceo Lorenzo Baeza Vega page, which implicitly contains alumni of Easter Island's main public school

Odds are, there's somebody, somewhere out there that will heed a polite request to join our project and provide the clarifications that we need.   — C M B J   09:07, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I think an incubation period would contravene the spirit of the project, but I am highly supportive of an advisory editnotice that highlights relevant policies and contains common sense advice on how to avoid expected pitfalls.   — C M B J   11:51, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

• Delete. Ƿidsiþ 16:12, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

I reject the idea that you'd have to know every English word. Terms could reasonably be considered without an English counterpart and if one is eventually found, remove them from this category. This is a wiki. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:19, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

RFD-failed. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:17, 19 July 2013 (UTC)