reading review - lost in translation, part five (finals)

Howdy,

As per the disclaimers seen so far in this series, if this post doesn't already make sense to you, follow these links and get caught up:

The Lost In Translation bracket, 2020 edition

• 9/20 - Intro and 1st Round
• 9/25 - Quarterfinals, part one
• 9/29 - Quarterfinals, part two
• 10/9 - Semifinals

For the rest of us, on to the finals, which I think is best presented in a head-to-head format...

Iktsuarpok (Inuit) – noun, the act of repeatedly going outside to keep checking if someone (anyone) is coming.

-vs-

Hiraeth (Welsh) – noun, a homesickness for somewhere you cannot return to, the nostalgia and the grief for the lost places of your past, places that never were.

I went back and did a little research on the 2016 edition of the bracket for some added context about this matchup. In some ways, it's a little lopsided - iktsuarpok was the winner, while hiraeth was knocked out in the first round (final sixteen). I suppose in one way it's been a long four years, reflected in a way by the ascent of hiraeth into this final round; I suspect in the time of COVID, many readers can relate to the feeling of a vague homesickness for the past. But the fact of a repeat appearance from iktsuarpok confirms the old adage that the more things change, the more they stay the same; the word itself speaks to the sensation.

What I wrote four years ago about hiraeth holds up quite well - ultimately, the homes we miss distract us from the homes we must keep within, simply because life doesn't let us keep any other home. Home is indeed, as I referenced back then, where the hurt is, but that's partly because clutching for the material meaning of home, the time and the place of it, prevents us from living with and through our hurt in any other way, in any other place. Hiraeth is in some ways the breaking point, when a new dawn will shine a light on the rubble for exactly what it is, and give you the clarity of vision for building anew.

I felt a similar way when I looked back on iktsuarpok - I said quite a bit about it in 2016, and much of it holds up. In the first round, I wrote about the word as resilience against modernity, referencing as it does the basic human contradiction of constantly seeking ways to pass the time despite our ongoing insistence that we never have enough time. Or perhaps, as I noted in the quarterfinal, it simply restates the futility of having to wait for someone, for anyone, to bring significance into a lifetime stuck in the mud of the mundane - and of waiting while knowing that nobody might come at all. The thoughts I expressed in the semifinal were perhaps the most significant at the time, where I described the process of grief as like a period of waiting, in a land where no one will find you, until you see the return of yourself; I've only grown more appreciative of this perspective in the ensuing years.

The 2016 tournament ended on a somewhat surprising note, as I had expected komorebi to take the top prize. I remember how as I wrote I slowly worked my way to a different conclusion, the crux of it an understanding that despite its foreign origin komorebi was hardly a word beyond the American grasp, and easily translated with a certain kind of non-linguistic effort. Iktsuarpok works on a different level for it refers to something that doesn't exist in our culture, or at least has no value; we often talk in our hospice volunteer team about the counter-cultural aspect of hospice, as if participating in the institution is a certain understated form of protest, where we demonstrate against a society that expresses its fear of death through violence against suffering, defeated bodies. In hospice, people wait. They wait for their friends, they wait for their families, they wait for their God - they wait for anyone, whoever is coming, if anyone; we wait with them, and take on the role of visitor, so that the resident feels less like a visitor in their own home, and may find comfort in the sense of belonging.

In some ways, when I look at these two words I see the bones of a very similar idea - each speaks to a certain reality of transition and creates the language we need to communicate the heart and heartbreak of change. But hiraeth, though a powerful idea, places us squarely in the physical world, and moves us within its confines; iktsuarpok is an expansion, in that the physical world is reframed as the transition. I feel I've had my taste of each perspective, and I have a strong sense of which leads us to a path where we can seek belonging, and discover home, here on this earth.

Silver medal

2) Hiraeth (Welsh) – noun, a homesickness for somewhere you cannot return to, the nostalgia and the grief for the lost places of your past, places that never were.

Gold medal

1) Iktsuarpok (Inuit) – noun, the act of repeatedly going outside to keep checking if someone (anyone) is coming.

reading review - lost in translation, part four (semifinals)

Hi folks,

If this post doesn't already make sense, refer back to last Tuesday's post, and follow the chain back to the first entry from this series.

For the initiated, let's have a first look at the final four:

Missing the medal stand

4) Warmduscher (German) – noun, refers to someone who would only take a warm shower (not an icy cold or burning hot one), implying that they are a bit of a wimp, and unwilling to step outside of their comfort zone.

On my list, I think there is only room for one word of this type - the playful zinger, let's call it - but what a zinger! I'd say if someone pointed at a stranger and told me the person was a warmduscher, I would have a pretty good read of that person - wouldn't you? The very fact of this word makes me want to move to Germany and start accusing people of being warmduschers.

In some ways, this word represents the point of Lost In Translation better than any other in the book. It cuts right across the communication barrier of language in a way not achieved by many other translated words. Think about how many misunderstandings or little speculations you might need in the process of describing this kind of person, and then compare it to the communication efficiency of using the one word - warmduscher. Who wouldn't understand? In just one word, you can describe a certain type of person to almost anyone, and connect with others in a way that epitomizes the most powerful use of language.

(As a side note, I've spent the last few minutes trying to think of my own version of warmduscher. I think the word we need would describe a dining companion who wouldn't tell you that you have food on your face - let's say a drop of ketchup, for this example. Ketchupduscher? I'm working on it.)

Bronze medal

3) Komorebi (Japanese) – noun, the sunlight that filters through the leaves of the trees.

There was an early spring iteration of this list that ranked komorebi #1, but perhaps I had gone too long without seeing the phenomenon; I also suspect words that describe a specific thing tend to lose ground in revision. I'll speculate that the pandemic played a surprising role in this change because one silver lining on the (very dark) cloud of COVID-19 is the way it forced many people to slow down and live life at a more leisurely pace. In the past, I used to think komorebi was a very useful way for people to assess their speed - if you never noticed the sunlight filtering through the leaves, you were walking too fast, or needed to make time to sit under a tree. I don't think this is as true anymore.

For those who are still chuckling to themselves about warmduscher (or are feeling flushed, in the embarrassed spirit of self-recognition) I will justify this #3 ranking by pointing out that I feel most people reach an inflection point in life when their concern expands a little bit past the limit of individual comprehension; the rest of life is a futile attempt to close this gap. In other words, at some point you start to see things that may or may not always have been there in your surroundings. When my mom died, I saw the sun, the sky, and the leaves a little differently, at least on certain days; I realized that komorebi had finally translated for me. It's a subtle theme in Lost In Translation, but an important one - sometimes the barrier to understanding is not a lack of language skill, but of life experience.

Championship Game

We're left with two words, listed here in alphabetical order.

Hiraeth (Welsh) – noun, a homesickness for somewhere you cannot return to, the nostalgia and the grief for the lost places of your past, places that never were.

Iktsuarpok (Inuit) – noun, the act of repeatedly going outside to keep checking if someone (anyone) is coming.

All to be settled next Friday!

Thanks for reading.

reading review - lost in translation, part three (quarterfinals #2)

Hi folks,

As I mentioned on Friday, if this post doesn't already make sense, refer back to that Friday post (and to the prior post referenced within it) before proceeding today.

For the rest of us, let's have a look at remainder of the quarterfinals:

7) Akihi (Hawaiian) – noun, listening to directions and then walking off and promptly forgetting them means you’ve gone ‘akihi’.

6) Trepverter (Yiddish) – noun, a witty riposte or comeback you think of only when it is too late to use – literally, ‘staircase words’.

It's interesting that these two words have the underlying quality of essentially happening after the ending, but that's about it for the similarities.

Akihi is truly a gem of a word, and not just because it sounds good - it also elevates a common forgetfulness to a higher plane, as if the support of a good word is all that was required to describe an ill-fated walk as some kind of special rite of passage. Amusingly, I've noticed this problem on the sidewalks of Boston, and I have a theory - when we need directions, we forget that we have no chance of remembering more than one or two sentences, and end up receiving a lot more information that we can handle. In other words, it's our forgetfulness about our short-term memory that manifests as forgetfulness about a set of directions. When I imagine the mechanics of a person going akihi, I blame an overloaded brain that short-circuited after the third left turn of the explanation. I don't suppose there is a solution to this problem, so when I give directions I usually point in the general direction, offer one or two additional steps, and suggest they ask someone else when they are a little closer to the destination; I'm sure they forget this last part, or give themselves credit for thinking it up on their own a little later.

Trepverter is a little closer to my experience - I'm more commonly rehashing conversations than giving directions, or getting lost - so I nudged it ahead in the ranking. It's an odd concept if you think about it - why do we feel bad hours later, when we've had time to think a little more, and perhaps cool down a hot temper? Trepverter suggests that the best and the worst of us are inseparable - we constantly demand the best in ourselves yet often unreasonably apply the standard; if I think of another clever insight about this word tomorrow, I won't beat myself up over it.

5) Mamihlapinatapai (Yaghan) – noun, a silent acknowledgement and understanding between two people, who are both wishing or thinking the same thing (and are both unwilling to initiate).

I did a little side research and was surprised to learn that it's considered one of the most succinct words; I'm sure it scores high, but it does have a lot of letters. I'd think it's possible there is a more succinct 'succinct' word - how about "mom"? I don't know why anyone bothers ranking words, all you get is trouble.

Anyway, I think this word has an obvious angle of romance, and partnership more generally, that makes it instantly relatable across a wide range of people despite the vast differences we have with each other. But in these days of COVID, I'm also seeing this word playing out with the same drama on a much smaller yet less intimate stage. How many times do I approach someone on narrow sidewalk, with each of us starting those little missteps and wobbles from many strides away, as the moment of evasion approaches without a clear indication of whose foot is headed for the gutter? There are many large problems that seem knotted forever in a tangle of competing priorities and interests, but I suspect the reality is far simpler; we all know what must be done - whether it be as one individual, one country, or one human race - but we remain unwilling to initiate.

Semifinals

Down to a final four - here's what we have left:

Hiraeth (Welsh)
Iktsuarpok (Inuit)
Komorebi (Japanese)
Warmduscher (German)

Back in a few days with the next round - thanks for reading.

reading review - lost in translation, part two (quarterfinals #1)

Hi all,

Please see Sunday's post if this concept doesn't make any sense to you; the rest of us are marching on.

Quarterfinals

8) Commuovere (Italian) – verb, to be moved in a heartwarming way, usually relating to a story that moved you to tears.

I believe I dismissed this word at first glance because it read too much like 'feel good story'; a translation felt entirely unnecessary. I quickly came to my senses and acknowledged that there was a significant difference - this word expresses the way we feel about a story rather than forcing us to guess about its intrinsic qualities. We need more words like this, that help us bring our experience out of the shadows, where it forever lurks anytime the civilized folks suppress their emotions under the guise of a grave discussion about the work's permanent, inarguable characteristics.

We ask each other - was the book good? I always want to snap - who cares? We should ask instead - what did you feel about the book you read? Or, how did the book make your life better? Of course, maybe we don't ask, because we are terrified of what someone might say; we should be all in, we should be fascinated with each other. We can do so much better than resorting to clichés like 'feel good story', an expression that sounds like a C+ book report from a kindergarten; this phrase reinforces the divide of experience and expression that has stunted so many around me. Is it so bad to say a story made us feel good, so bad that we prefer to hide our feelings by attributing them to an inherent quality of the work, as if we had no choice in the matter, or that anyone else would have felt the same?

So, I thank the Italians for commuovere, a word that forces us to describe our feelings and live in our experience, where the walls are made of see-through skin; it's the house, the home that we are in, for all our time.

Back early next week to wrap up the quarterfinals - thanks for reading.

reading review - lost in translation

Longtime TOA readers will recall 2016’s Lost In Translation bracket, a well-intended linguistic circus that ultimately saw me crown 'iktsuarpok' as my favorite from among the book’s many untranslated, wonderful words. My 2019 December rereading exercise brought me back to this work, and I feel the time is right for an update. So, in lieu of a reading review (but how could anyone review this book, honestly) I'm giving you, dear reader, something you didn't have the courage to ask for - a sequel. This time, I’ve gone with a ranked list rather than a bracket, which is much less work for everyone (including you); as a homage to the original exercise, I roughly organized the list into bracket-sized blocks.

We'll begin today with the eight words that would have been knocked out in a theoretical Round of 16 (aka, the sweet sixteen, for those of you who don't like to pay athletes).

Lost In Translation by Ella Frances Sanders (December 2019)

Just missing the cut

17) Nunchi (Korean) – noun, the subtle, often unnoticed art of listening and gauging another’s mood.

Ha! You can't have a bracket without someone just missing out, so let's start at #17.

This word names a natural behavior and therefore enables us to both value and cultivate the skill. With words like nunchi, we elevate what gets taken for granted to an artform. I acknowledge that English at least recognizes the base behavior of nunchi, so a translation of this word isn't urgent, or even unnecessary; I left it just outside my top sixteen.

One and done

16) Goya (Urdu) – noun, a transporting suspension of disbelief – an ‘as-if’ that feels like reality – such as in good storytelling.

One common theme in this book is that the biggest threat to greatness is the modifier, which prevents the nuanced distinctions that would otherwise get lost as a torrent of '-ers' or '-ests' crowds around an overused base word. At first glance, goya seems like a small step above ‘wonderful’, but it's hardly the same thing as saying ‘pretty wonderful’; my advice to any storyteller is to reject the modifier, and guide the audience toward their own moment of goya.

15) Mangata (Swedish) – noun, the road-like reflection of the moon in the water.

14) Cafune (Brazilian Portuguese) – noun, the act of tenderly running your fingers through the hair of somebody you love.

13) Pisan zapra (Malay) – noun, the time needed to eat a banana.

Another theme throughout was the long list of words naming the mundane that might otherwise pass without a second thought. A name turns a moment into an experience – one day after starting this post, I noticed how the smoke-covered sun left its own mangata in the Charles, a clay-colored causeway across the rippling river. A fresh label can also be a catalyst for change - when we acknowledge how long it takes to eat a banana, it changes the way we think about eating; when we mark propaganda, oppression, or injustice, it changes the way we participate in our democracies.

In terms of the ranking, for these three words I felt that although each was an example of a charming way to use language, none of the trio was as insightful as the words higher in my list. I put mangata at the back because it's essentially a more colorful way to describe certain reflections; pisan zapra made me laugh so it ended up beating cafune by a hair.

12) Struisvogelpolitiek (Dutch) – noun, literally, ‘ostrich politics’, acting like you don’t notice when something bad happens and continuing on regardless, as you normally would.

This word is almost an extension of the previous three with the added bonus of an animal comparison, which seems to be a widely shared preference across various languages, and pushes this word up by one slot. I like this word because it names a behavior (and a pretty common one, as far as I can tell). This word, unlike the others thus far, seems to have purpose - it calls out absurdity in the hope of directing our elected officials toward better future performance. The mocking tone in the word is critical; don’t they say that the Devil is defeated with laughter? But as a word, I'm not sure it requires translation, so #12 seems appropriate.

To bring it back to the prior trio for a moment - if there was a word for how long it took a monkey to eat a banana, it would surely be much higher in the list. For those who are inventing new words, take note - if possible, use animal comparisons.

11) Saudade (Portuguese) – noun, a vague, constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, a nostalgic longing for someone or something loved and then lost.

10) Szimpatikus (Hungarian) – adjective, when meeting someone for the first time, and your intuition tells you that they are a good person, you can refer to them as ‘szimpatikus’.

These words score higher for describing subtle variants on otherwise commonly shared feelings. The nostalgia of saudade may be especially relevant in these days of COVID, where so much of normal has been relegated to the drying ink on freshly revised history books. But I slotted it behind szimpatikus because the Hungarian word is a reminder that as social creatures our powers of interpersonal intuition can only be restrained, but never eliminated. These words are similar in a certain way for they establish a link between our emotions and our imaginations; szimpatikus looks forward and sees untapped potential, so it narrowly finishes ahead of saudade, which to me feels like the downside of applying the same instinct to the past.

9) Tima (Icelandic) – verb, not being ready to spend time or money on a specific thing, despite being able to afford it.

Tima is truly a word in the spirit of this book; it takes a common situation that we all understand - the stingy miser - and adds a subtle, brilliant nuance that changes our perspective. We see a pile of coins, and vilify Scrooge being consumed by greed; tima is the empathy required to help our imagination see in those dollars a protective shield, or a crutch, which will stand guard until the support is deemed surplus to requirements.

I suspect tima can also speak to both a problem and a solution at a societal level - the pandemic response has proven our ability to move and move quickly on important problems, spending freely once ready; I fear bringing the reluctant around will once again become an obstacle when the situation stabilizes and we look for our next problem. The horizon beckons with new challenges and the solutions will require another full collective effort. We must act now because at current prices, we can afford it; the sale will end soon.

Quarterfinals

I'll be back shortly with the quarterfinals, but for now I'll leave you with a list of those top eight words, presented here in alphabetical order:

Akihi (Hawaiian)
Commuovere (Italian)
Hiraeth (Welsh)
Iktsuarpok (Inuit)
Komorebi (Japanese)
Mamihlapinatapai (Yaghan)
Trepverter (Yiddish)
Warmduscher (German)

Thanks for reading.