Re: Language superiority, improvement, etc.

Schadenfreude.  There is no word like this in English, it is almost
untranslatable except in a sentence, which is why it's such a wonderful
wholesale borrowing.  It's that contemptible, rarely admitted to secret
satisfaction that some people (and all of us from time to time) take in
the misfortune of another person, specifically a rival, or someone we have
secretly envied or felt contempt for.  It's not quite sadism, it's not
quite "I-told-you-so-ism."  At least that's how I understand it
as a word borrowed into English.  Walter Benjamin has a well-known essay
on the basic "untranslatability" of source languages into target
languages.  "The Task of the Translator."

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Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/teonaht.html

Rin euab ouarjo vopy vytssema tohda uo zef:
ar al aippara brottwav; ad kemban aril yllefo
brotwav fenom; vybbrysan brotwav an; he ad
edirmerem brotwav kronom.

"A cat and a man are not all that different.
Both are on my bed; both lay their head on their
arm; both have mustaches; both purr when they
sleep."
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