In the very first piece of our Upside series, our reporter Jon Henley visited Finland to learn why the Finns seem to be getting so much right. Many of the people Jon spoke to mentioned the Finnish concept of sisu, hard to translate into a single English word but meaning something akin to a dogged, courageous persistence, and traditionally considered integral to the Finnish character.
Which got us thinking: what other revelatory words are out there that can’t be simply translated into English, and what might we learn from them? This week, as millions head off on holiday, we found 10 of the best. And then you provided hundreds more. Read on for those.
Elsewhere this week, Gavin Kelleher visited the Nepal-India border where a growing number of young Nepalese women from remote communities – perhaps as many as 10,000 a year – are being kidnapped and trafficked for sex. Now a team of female “interceptors” is patrolling the border and fighting back.
And in the heart of prosperous Brighton, Aditya Chakrabortty visited some of the most deprived housing estates in Britain, where residents have rallied to save one of their few remaining social hubs: the local pub.
What we liked
This Rolling Stone piece on a theatre programme helping inmates at New York’s infamous Sing Sing prison.
What we heard
There was an extraordinary response to our piece on the world’s best words that are hard to translate. Here are some highlights:
Tanzania: pole [pole-ey]
It means something like “I recognise your suffering”. This word is a social lubricant that exemplifies the empathetic nature of Tanzanian society. It’s also a great leveller. A boss can say pole to a cleaner, and a cleaner can say pole to a boss, each recognising the strains of work on each other. You just can’t translate this into one word in English. It is so much more than “sorry”.
Suggested by commenter KJHawkins below the line
Germany: verschlimmbesserung [versh-lim-bess-air-oong]
To make things worse by trying to improve them. It applies to just about every human endeavour I have ever encountered.
Suggested by commenter MailHater00, and many others, below the line
Portugal: saudades [so-thaw-thes]
Noun, plural use. It means “longing”, “missing something or someone”, but is not a verb. You would say: I have saudades of you, or I have saudades of the green of my country. It is a deep feeling in the heart and body, an essential component of the Portuguese and Brazilian soul.
Suggested by Maria Cadaxa via email
Peru: taki onqoy [tah-kee on-goy]
In Quechua, the concept of taki onqoy is irresistible. It explains Saturday night fever, the roar of the crowd at a football game, the fans doing the wave at a baseball game. It literally translates as sickness (onqoy) of the chant (taki). Although its history dates to the conquest and the behaviour that arose from the spiritual pain caused by the brutality of the Spanish as they decimated an ancient, beautiful culture, taki onqoy describes the frenzy of the dance club, the bliss that church choristers feel when singing hymns together and, on the dark side, the lynch mob. It is something that we have all experienced, a subliminal force that binds us together at times and aids us in moving as one.
Suggested by Patt O’Neill via email
Ireland: craic [crack]
It’s not just about having fun but doing something for its own sake. A former colleague once told me she’d retrained as a lawyer “for the craic”, and it was a perfect use of the word.
Suggested by commenter edwardBear below the line
Where was the upside
In Amsterdam, Senay Boztas met a woman who specialises in manure couture, making award-winning clothes out of cow poo.
