Excerpted from Lost in Translation: An Illustrated Compendium of Untranslatable Words From Around the World by Ella Frances Sanders. Out now from Ten Speed Press.
Icelandic, verb
It can be difficult to part with things of value, such as time and money, as they aren’t infinite and they can slip through our fingers with surprising ease. We can’t get them back once we’ve given them away, and so wanting to keep them for as long as possible is understandable.
Japanese, noun
It may be temporarily blinding, but it’s most definitely beautiful. There is something wonderfully evocative and uniquely magical about sunlight filtered through green foliage.
Tulu, noun
Something we’ve likely all experienced at once time or another, commonly because our watch was slightly too tight or our socks too small. Tulu, incidentally, is spoken in parts of southwestern India.
Yaghan, noun
A word so difficult to spell, it aptly reflects the tangled and incomprehensible nature of this look. Fittingly, Yaghan is an indigenous language of distant Tierra del Fuego, Chile.
Finnish, noun
This may seem like a very imprecise and rather unpredictable way to measure distance, but actually it’s pretty widely acknowledged (in reindeer circles at least) that a poronkusema is about 4.7 miles.
Hawaiian, noun
When they explained how to get there, their directions all made perfect sense—you nodded and looked back with clear understanding. Then you parted ways, and now you can’t remember whether to take a left or a right.
Wagiman, verb
Whether you are searching for something tangible (like a perfectly shaped pebble) or something intangible (like an answer to one of life’s many questions), it can probably be found in the wise, all-encompassing oceans. Or sometimes in rivers, lakes, and streams. And on occasion, in puddles. (Wagiman is a nearly extinct Australian language.)
Swedish, noun
All illustrations by Ella Frances Sanders. Reprinted with permission from Lost in Translation: An Illustrated Compendium of Untranslatable Words From Around the World by Ella Frances Sanders, copyright © 2014. Published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Random House LLC.
