Re: Untranslatable words

On Jun 24, 2004, at 8:03 AM, Ray Brown wrote:
> On Wednesday, June 23, 2004, at 05:00 , Peter Bleackley wrote:
> [snip]
>> The most untranslatable words from other languages
> [snip]
>> altahmam Arabic for a kind of deep sadness
>> gezellig Dutch for cozy
>> saudade Portuguese for a certain type of longing
>
> Welsh:
> _hiraeth_ both an expectant longing for what is to come & a nostalgia
> for
> what is past and gone.
> _hwyl_ /hujl/ - mood, atmosphere, emotion etc. What one may experience
> listening to a great orator, being in the Millennium Stadium at Cardiff
> when Wales are playing, hearing great music etc, etc.
> Neither word has a single English equivalent. Indeed, the two words not
> infrequently occur in the _English_ of more or less monoglot English
> speakers in Wales.
> A not uncommon valediction is: pob hwyl /po:b hujl/ - 'pob' = 'every',
> 'all'.
> Pob hwyl!
> Ray

ObConlangification!

Rokbeigalmki:
_ngiirau_ /n"aj4O/ (/n"/=uvular nasal)
A feeling of awe, appreciation, love, fear and respect for that which
is Dangerously Powerful - usually a natural phenomena; very rarely a
person.
Stuff like the forces at work during the destruction of Numenor (in
Rokb.: Numyénaur), in "Akallabeth" in _The Silmarillion_.


-Stephen (Steg)
  "numyenaurkim uhmzu-elyeb, numyenaurkim oolu-sfãs
   i uhmzu-peiwang ga'eilosm uhmzú;
   akh báhhihr uzu-ghalub wa'laur uhmsh,
   i uzu-brodak uhmsh wa'sháíl
   fa'zanlm i fa'pyetikm i fa'ĝanmeiĉĥarzad."
  (Numenoreans came, Numenoreans who became selfish
   and thought that they were gods;
   but Ocean rose up over them,
   and traded them to Underworld
   for murex-shells and pebbles and for glitterings of light.)