Leit Sabon - Lexical Gaps! (was: Words for "boredom")

On Mon, 17 Jun 2002 15:25:10 -0400 John Cowan <jcowan@...>
writes:
> Thomas R. Wier scripsit:
> > (I mean, it's
> > clear that modern tribes in the forests of New Guinea had until
> > recently no reason to have a word for "gun" or "penicillin",
> Dougie's lovely list of lexical gaps:
> # [H]ow do you say "skyjacking" in Hunnish, or "ribosome" in
> Phoenician,
> # or "jazzercise" in Aramaic?
> --
> John Cowan <jcowan@...>
-

Actually, i once knew someone who used to tell the "No Soap Radio" joke
in Aramaic.  It went something like this:

Trei pilei havu b'ambatya.
Pila hhad eimar, "hav na sabona."
Pila trei eimar, "leit sabon - radyo!"

Of course, |radyo| was a flagrant borrowing from Modern Hebrew...  :-P


-Stephen (Steg)
 "There is darkness all around us;
 but if darkness *is*,
 and the darkness is of the forest,
 then the darkness must be good."
     ~ song of the BaMbuti in troubled times