Covering up
Once it comes to adding clothes to the human frame, people have the choice of either dressing up…
tiré à quatre épingles (French) dressed up to the nines (literally, drawn to four pins)
’akapoe (Cook Islands Maori) donning earrings or putting flowers behind the ears
angkin (Indonesian) a long wide cloth belt worn by women to keep them slim
Pomadenhengst (German) a dandy (literally, a hair-cream stallion)
FHCP (French) acronym of Foulard Hermès Collier Perles, Hermes scarf pearl necklace (a female Sloane Ranger)
or down…
opgelozen (Yiddish) a careless dresser
padella (Italian) an oily stain on clothes (literally, a frying pan)
Krawattenmuffel (German) one who doesn’t like wearing ties
cotisuelto (Caribbean Spanish) one who wears the shirt tail outside of the trousers
tan (Chinese) to wear nothing above one’s waist
or just as they feel…
sygekassebriller (Danish) granny glasses
rash (Arabic) skirt worn under a sleeveless smock
alyaska (Russian) anorak or moon-boots
hachimaki (Japanese) headbands worn by males to encourage concentration and effort
ujut’a (Quechuan, Peru) sandals made from tyres
English clothing
English words for clothes have slipped into many languages. Some-times the usage is fairly literal, as in smoking to describe a dinner jacket in Swedish or Portuguese; or pants for a tracksuit in Spanish. Sometimes it’s more metaphorical: the Hungarians call jeans farmer, while their term for a T-shirt is polo. In Barbados the cloth used for the lining of men’s clothes is known as domestic. Sometimes it’s just an odd mix: the Danish for jeans, for example, is cowboybukser, while the Japanese sebiro means a fashionably cut suit, being their pronunciation of Savile Row, London’s famous street of tailors.
On reflection
Go whistle
On the tiny mountainous Canary Island of La Gomera there is a language called Silbo Gomero that uses a variety of whistles instead of words (in Spanish silbar means to whistle). There are four ‘vowels’ and four ‘consonants’, which can be strung together to form more than four thousand ‘words’. This birdlike means of communication is thought to have come over with early African settlers over 2500 years ago. Able to be heard at distances of up to two miles, the silbador was until recently a dying breed. Since 1999, however, Silbo has been a required language in La Gomera schools.
The Mazateco Indians of Oaxaca, Mexico, are frequently seen whistling back and forth, exchanging greetings or buying and selling goods with no risk of misunderstanding. The whistling is not really a language or even a code; it simply uses the rhythms and pitch of ordinary speech without the words. Similar whistling languages have been found in Greece, Turkey and China, whilst other forms of wordless communication include the talking drums (ntumpane) of the Kele in Congo, the xylophones used by the Northern Chin of Burma, the banging on the roots of trees practised by the Melanesians, the yodelling of the Swiss, the humming of the Chekiang Chinese and the smoke signals of the American Indians.
Movers and Shakers
mas vale rodear que no ahogar (Spanish)
better go about than fall into the ditch
Shanks’s pony
There’s much more to walking than simply putting one foot in front of the other:
berlenggang (Indonesian) to walk gracefully by swinging one’s hands or hips
aradupopini (Tulu, India) to walk arm in arm or hand in hand
uitwaaien (Dutch) to walk in windy weather for fun
murr-ma (Wagiman, Australia) to walk along in the water searching for something with your feet
’akihi (Hawaiian) to walk off without paying attention to directions
Walking in Zimbabwe
The Shona- speaking people of Zimbabwe have some very specialized verbs for different kinds of walking: chakwaira, through a muddy place making a squelching sound; dowora, for a long time on bare feet; svavaira, huddled, cold and wet; minaira, with swinging hips; pushuka, in a very short dress; shwitaira, naked; sesera, with the flesh rippling; and tabvuka, with such thin thighs that you seem to be jumping like a grasshopper.
Malaysian movements
The elegant Malaysians have a highly specialized vocabulary to describe movement, both of the right kind, as in kontal-kontil, ‘the swinging of long earrings or the swishing of a dress as one walks’, and the wrong, as in jerangkang, ‘to fall over with your legs in the air’. Others include:
kengkang to walk with your legs wide apart
tenjack to limp with your heels raised
kapai to flap your arms so as to stay afloat
gayat feeling dizzy while looking down from a high place
seluk to put your hand in your pocket
bongkeng sprawling face down with your bottom in the air
Ups…
Sometimes our movements are deliberately athletic, whether this involves hopping on one leg (vogget in Cornish, hinke in Danish), rolling like a ball (ajawyry in the Wayampi language of Brazil), or something more adventurous:
angama (Swahili) to hang in mid-air
vybafnout (Czech) to surprise someone by saying boo
puiyarpo (Inuit) to show your head above water
povskakat’ (Russian) to jump one after another
tarere (Cook Islands Maori) to send someone flying through the air
lele kawa (Hawaiian) to jump into the sea feet first
Lele kawa, of course, is usually followed by curglaff, Scottish dialect for the shock felt when plunging into cold water.
… and downs
But on other occasions there seems to be a banana skin waiting for us on the pavement:
blart (Ullans, Northern Ireland) to fall flat in the mud
lamhdanaka (Ulwa, Nicaragua) to collapse sideways (as when walking on uneven ground)
tunuallak (Inuit) slipping and falling over on your back while walking
kejeblos (Indonesian) to fall into a hole by accident
apismak (Turkish) to spread the legs apart and collapse
jeruhuk (Malay) the act of stumbling into a hole that is concealed by long grass
False friends
gush (Albanian) to hug each other around the neck
shagit (Albanian) to crawl on one’s belly
snags (Afrikaans) during the night
sofa (Icelandic) sleep
purr (Scottish Gaelic) to headbutt
What-d’you-call-it
Just because there is no word for it in English doesn’t mean we haven’t done it or experienced it:
mencolek (Indonesian) touching someone lightly with one finger in order to tease them
wasoso (Hausa, Nigeria) to scramble for something that has been thrown
idumbulu (Tulu, India) seizing each other tightly with both hands
přesezený (Czech) being stiff from sitting in the same position too long
’alo’alo kiki (Hawaiian) to dodge the rain by moving quickly
honuhonu (Hawaiian) to swim with the hands only
engkoniomai (Ancient Greek) to sprinkle sand over oneself
tallabe (Zarma, Nigeria) to carry things on one’s head without holding on to them
gagrom (Boro, India) to search for a thing below water by trampling
chonggang-chongget (Malay) to keep bending forward and then straightening (as a hill-climber)
When it all goes horribly wrong…
That sinking feeling, puangi (Cook Islands Maori), the sensation of the stomach dropping away (as in the sudden surge of a lift, plane, swing or a tossed boat), is something we know all too well, as are:
dokidoki (Japanese) rapid pounding heartbeats caused by worry or surprise
a’anu (Cook Islands Maori) to sit huddled up, looking pinched and miserable
nggregeli (Indonesian) to drop something due to nerves
bingildamak (Tu
rkish) to quiver like jelly
… scarper
baotou shucuon (Chinese) to cover one’s head with both hands and run away like a coward
achaplinarse (Spanish, Central America) to hesitate and then run away in the manner of Charlie Chaplin
Learning to relax
In some parts of the world relaxation doesn’t necessarily mean putting your feet up:
ongkang-ongkang (Indonesian) to sit with one leg dangling down
naganaga (Rapa Nui, Easter Island) to squat without resting your buttocks on your heels
lledorweddle (Welsh) to lie down while propping yourself up with one elbow
karvat (Hindi) the side of the body on which one rests
Dropping off
Once we start relaxing, snoozing becomes an increasingly strong possibility. Both Danish, with raevesøvn, and Russian, with vpolglaza, have a word to describe sleeping with one eye open, while other languages describe other similar states of weariness:
aiguttoa (Votic, Estonia) to yawn repeatedly
teklak-tekluk (Indonesian) the head bobbing up and down with drowsiness
utsura-utsura (Japanese) to fluctuate between wakefulness and being half asleep
utouto (Japanese) to fall into a light sleep without realizing it
tengkurap (Indonesian) to lie or sleep with the face downwards
kulubut (Kapampangan, Philippines) to go under the blanket
Out for the count
Having achieved the state the Japanese describe as guuguu, ‘the sound of someone in a deep sleep accompanied by snoring’, we can either have a good night…
bilita mpash (Bantu, Zaire) blissful dreams
altjiranga mitjina (Aranda, Australia) the timeless dimensions of dreams
ngarong (Dyak, Borneo) an adviser who appears in a dream and clarifies a problem
rêve à deux (French) a mutual dream, a shared hallucination
morgenfrisk (Danish) fresh from a good night’s sleep…
or a bad one:
menceracan (Malay) to cry in one’s sleep
kekau (Indonesian) to wake up from a nightmare
igau (Malay) to talk while trapped in a nightmare
kerinan (Indonesian) to oversleep until the sun is up
On reflection
Back as forth
Whatever their length, words have provided excellent material for games from the earliest times. One of the more pleasing arrangements is the palindrome, which is spelt the same backwards as forwards, and can create some bizarre meanings:
neulo taas niin saat oluen (Finnish) knit again, so that you will get a beer
Nie fragt sie: ist gefegt? Sie ist gar fein (German) she never asks: has the sweeping been done? She is very refined
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni (Latin) we enter the circle after dark and are consumed by fire
nipson anomemata me monan opsin (Ancient Greek) wash (off) my sins, not only my face (written on the edge of a well in Constantinople: NB the ‘ps’ is a transcription of the Greek letter ψ)
The Finns have three of the world’s longest palindromic words:
saippuakivikauppias a soapstone seller
saippuakuppinippukauppias a soap-cup trader
solutomaattimittaamotulos the result from a measurement laboratory for tomatoes
Getting Around
dalu tongtian, ge zou yi bian (Chinese)
the highway comes out of one’s mouth
Thumbing it
Some rides are free:
fara a puttanu (Icelandic) to hitchhike (literally, to travel on the thumb)
usqar (Khakas, Siberia) to take someone on the back of one’s horse
radif (Persian) one who rides behind another on the same horse
menggonceng (Indonesian) to have a free ride usually on a friend’s bike
plomo (Spanish, Central America) a bus passenger who is just on for the free ride (literally, a lead weight)
Others involve money…
ngetem (Indonesian) to stop (of a bus) longer than necessary at unauthorized points along the route to the terminus to look for more paying passengers
ngojek (Indonesian) to earn money by carrying a paying passenger on the rear seat of one’s motorbike
… or getting your own transport:
essoreuse (French) a noisy motorbike (literally, spindryer)
Warmwassergeige (German) a souped-up motorcycle (literally, warm-water violin)
teplushka (Russian) a heated goods van used for carrying people
bottom-bottom wata wata (African Creole) a submarine
gung gung chi chuh (Chinese) a bus
vokzal (Russian) a railway station (named after Vauxhall in London)
voiture-balai (French) the last train or bus (literally, broom-vehicle as it sweeps up the latecomers)
Set of wheels
One particular form of transport is pre-eminent in the modern world: whether normal, or convertible (spider in Italian), or vintage (oldtimer in German). What lets most cars down, however, are the people driving them, be it the viande paraguero (Caribbean Spanish), the Sunday driver (literally, an umbrella stand); or the Gurtmuffel (German), someone who doesn’t wear a seat belt. Then, of course, there’s the way people drive:
sgasata (Italian) a sudden and violent acceleration
appuyer sur le champignon (French) to put one’s foot down (literally, to stamp on the mushroom)
Geisterfahrer (German), a person driving on the wrong side of the road
Road rage
Hazards are all too common, whether in the car…
desgomarse (Caribbean Spanish) to have bad tyres
ulykkesbilen (Danish) an ill-fated car
Blechlawine (German) a huge traffic jam (literally, a sheet-metal avalanche)
matadero (Spanish, Central America) a car scrapheap (literally, a slaughterhouse)
… or out of it. The French have the most evocative expressions to describe both the reckless pedestrian – viande à pneux, meat for tyres, and the knock suffered by a cyclist – l’homme au marteau, literally, the man with the hammer.
Apache cars
The Apache people of the USA name the parts of cars to correspond to parts of the body. The front bumper is daw, the chin or jaw; the front fender is wos, the shoulder; the rear fender is gun, the arm and hand; the chassis is chun, the back; the rear wheel is ke, the foot. The mouth is ze, the petrol-pipe opening. The nose is chee, the bonnet. The eyes are inda, the headlights. The forehead is ta, the roof.
The metaphorical naming continues inside. The car’s electrical wiring is tsaws, the veins. The battery is zik, the liver. The petrol tank is pit, the stomach. The radiator is jisoleh, the lung; and its hose, chih, the intestine. The distributor is jih, the heart.
False friends
punk (Japanese) flat tyre
The Meaning of Tingo Page 3