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Every language has its own grace, uniqueness, and complexities. Yup! You read it right, Complexities! If you are a language lover, you may have noticed that there are numerous expressions in one language that have no refuge in another language.

One such is the Italian language. This language is said to be the language of romance. In terms of vocabulary, it is the second-closest language to Latin right after Sardinian.

This post uncovers 7 words from the Italian language that are so-called untranslatable. However, we got handy definitions for few words, but they cannot be assumed as exact meaning.

Take a glance at them, one by one:

Apericena:
In the English language, we use the French word “aperitif” to define an alcoholic drink before meal. In Italy, it is known as an “aperitivo.” When you pay for a glass of wine before dinner, you get a free buffet of food and in this way; this special tipple becomes an “apericena,” a cross between “aperitif” and “dinner.”

Ciofeca:
The “Ciofeca” represents anything of poor quality. Mostly used to define a disgusting drink, but in English context, “Crap” would be the nearby translation. However, this Italian word has no exact replacement in the English language.

Culaccino:
Have you ever noticed that annoying watermark on your table when you put a cold or wet glass? Well, in Italy, it is considered so irritating that they have even a word for it: “Culaccino.”

Gattara:
Well, you would be surprised to know that “Gattara” exists in every country, but it has no refuge in English. “Gattara” means a woman, typically elderly who dedicates her time to look after stray cats.

Magari!:
It is a tricky word that has different meanings and cannot be directly translated. Typically, one can translate this word as “even if”, “maybe” or “probably” in an English sentence. But, with an exclamation sign, “magari!” becomes an expression of a strong desire.

For instance, if your friend asks if you want to be a billionaire, you may candidly say “magari!” This word has no exact equivalent in the English language.

Menefreghista:
In the Italian language, you might have heard this phrase “Non me ne frega!” which means “I don’t care!” Italians also use “Menefreghista” as a noun to describe someone who thinks with the same feeling. The English language has no equivalent or nearby replacement for this word.

Meriggiare:
Originating from the word “meriggio” (noon), “meriggiare” is a wonderful verb that means resting at midday in a shady (under a tree) spot. You can find the usage of this word in a poem by Eugenio Montale.

Pantofolaio:
Word “Couch potato” maybe its closest equivalent in English for the Italian word “pantofolaio,” but it is not as humorous. In Italian, you might have heard “pantofole” which means “Slippers.” But, a “pantofolaio” is one who prefers the quiet home life and don’t want to get involved in any activity (hence the slippers).

Suggest few more interesting words that have no equivalent in the English Language.

In the beginning, we mentioned that every language has its complexities, and Italian is not different from others. We know this fact better than the most because document translation is our full-time job, and we have the most skilled translators at work. Whether it is driver’s license translation, certified translation, or business translation, we do it all. For any translation help, feel free to reach us at 888-670-3369.

This is our third and the final installment on the Chaos in the English language. In our very first blog, we explained how “invasion and theft” made English a language of chaos and capricious mess. Then, in our second part, we uncovered how “economy of efforts” transformed The English Language.

In this final part, we will see how snobbery made the English language a losing game.

It began in the 11th century, when French was considered as a high-standard language and loaded up all our culinary, legal and lyrical vocabularies. But snobbery reached its pinnacle when various intellectuals and scholars developed a crush on the ancient classics. They started experimenting with classics by borrowing words wholesale; consequently, today we have various scientific and technical terms in the English language that have been derived from Latin and Greek. However, while creating crush, they also decided to keep the words we already had just to ensure the remix they are creating should contain the flair to appeal to be a classical heritage.

For instance, “peple” derived from the Latin word “populous,” and to maintain its nobility, “o” had been added to make it “people.” Similarly, the letter “b” was added to “det” derived from “debitum” to make it “debt.” It was done with many words like indi(c)tablefau(l)t. Occasionally, scholars changed their dictions just to match their spellings, like in fault. Though none of them make any sense, but this is how it all happened.

Sometimes, the re-spellings were all wrong if we see them from etymology. For instance, the word “isle” (formerlyile) came from “insula” (hence the s), but “Island” came from old English “Iegland.”

Over the last couple of centuries, another reason or layer of snobbery that glorifies the complications of the English language across the Atlantic was national pride. Take a glance at some words that create a difference between the American and the British English by spellings.

Color for colour, center for centre, favorite for favourite, leukemia for leukaemia and may others. It is known to be American simplifications of spelling that desires to create a distinctive American English.
Now, the situation is like we don’t want to spell things as they sound or you can say we have become habitual of using snobbish English. The spellings like hed, lafter, dotter, hart, and det would look to you uneducated, right? Perhaps, the truth is we enjoy this discomfort and such arbitrary practices.It makes English the language of peculiaritiesand mystery.

So the chaos in English all started with Greed, then the economy of efforts glorified it, but snobbishness lionized it. Whom to blame, it all transpired because of us humans!

No need to worry, though. Being a leading translation agency, we would never hesitate to call a spade a spade. Further, our translation experts have gained a par excellence in dealing with such mess. For document translation, we are certainly the one you can rely upon. For any query, or language translation related services, you can reach us at 888-670-3369.

Economy of Effort is just a sophisticated way of saying lazy tongues because something as trivial as laziness cannot seem to affect a language. However, it does!

The last time we discussed how Invasion and theft made a chaos in the English Language, we already knew the other factors affecting and resulting in this chaos, however, we chose to unveil them step and by step, blog by blog!

The foreign language influence hadn’t yet clawed deeper into the language when lazy tongues came into picture. Linguists prefer to call it “Economy of Efforts.” In an attempt to “use efforts economically” while speaking, English speakers developed sounds that were not what it were meant to be. The way this functioned for these lazy tongues was by dropping some sounds out of the pronunciation to save efforts. It was claimed that this dropping of sounds made the pronunciation more distinct for the listener.

The complicated bits of pronunciation in the Old English that came from French and Scandinavian influence were the sounds that were dropped. Hopian seemed too long, so it became “hope” and the “e” in the end was just preferred to be kept silent. Some sound combinations that were tricky got simplified, such as, “kn” was reduced to “n” and “wr” was just “r.” When these sounds were deleted in speech, some also disappeared from writing while some still remained. The sound of “kh” was spelled as “gh” but the pronunciation was just “f” as in laughter and at times, this new “gh” was altogether dropped in speech like in “daughter.”

Lazy tongue was not the only reason for this chaos caused due to pronunciations. The Great Vowel shift made a lot of difference. It was all unclear and unpredictable. In the duration between the 1400s to sometime in 1700, the pronunciations kept dissolving into something else leading to the present day pronunciations. There was a time when “boot” sounded like “boat” and “out” was pronounced as “oot.” The sounds changed, and the spellings remained.

The present day English is a complicated mess. However, our translation experts have mastered this mess in order to offer you the best language translation services. From legal document translation services to passports and others, we provide it all. Give us a buzz at 888-670-3369 and we shall address all your translation and interpretation related queries.

The beauty of a language lies in its simplicity, and if we talk about the English language, no doubt, it is a language of “talk less and express more.” So, for a language lover, efforts should be to express complex thoughts in a simple way so that everyone could understand it.

However, with the passage of time, the English language has become a language of chaos and a capricious mess for entirely human reasons.

For instance, take a glance at first four lines of the poem by Gerard Nolst Trinité called The Chaos.

Dearest creature in creation

Studying English pronunciation,

I will teach you in my verse

Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

The poem contains around 800 spelling inconsistencies in the English.

Such meaningless and fiddling attempts take readers to the state of extreme confusions. Though alterations are the act of creativity, it should be done within bounds so that the thing you are experimenting on should not lose its originality.

However, the problem of great confusion starts when letters came from Latin while building a spelling system in English. Let’s delve deeper to know what happened to English, what made it a complete chaos, and what kind of mocktail, we have been serving in the name of English.

The story is full of invasions and thefts. It all started when Romans invaded Britain in the 1st century AD and brought their alphabet. Then turn came for the Angles and Saxons in the 7th century; they came with their language. Further, in the 9th century, Vikings captured few part of England and introduced few words including ‘they’ by displacing old English ‘hie’. In 1066, Norman French added words from French vocabulary that with the passage of time became beef, pork, tongue, invade, and so on.

Though, a few centuries later, English separated out the French (but not their words), they started to capture territories in Australia, India, Africa, and America. Consequently, the English language became a language of conquests. However, the irony is these mock tails in English have become a topic of debate as some people consider it right while several find it wrong. So, one can say the borrowed words that came from other Latin alphabet spelling systems, are neither entirely rejected or adapted. For instance, Norwegian set the word chauffeur into sjåfør and Finnish people turned strand into ranta. But, in English, we adopted the pronunciation but modified the spelling of several words, for example, galosh (from French galoche), boat (from French bateau) and strange (from French estrange).

So, we do not like to spell things as they sound, and in this way, we created chaos in the English language. Needless to say, we enjoy such discomforts and confusions because this is how we boast how big we are the knower of the English language.

True that the English language is an inevitable part of our lives because it allows us to express our thoughts.The good thing is still we have several agencies that do not believe in arbitrary practices and offer professional language translation services as per your requirement. Get your doc translated in or from English while you wait for the next part of this story. Give us a buzz at 888-670-3369 and we shall address all your translation and interpretation related queries.

—to be continued.

Arabic is a wonderfully expressive, visual language. Many terms used throughout the Arab world would not make much sense out of context, or if translated into another language. Oftentimes, colloquialisms or even idioms are the hardest part of a language for a foreigner to understand, as they are so deeply rooted in the culture. Arabs, a traditionally desert people, have several words that describe particular kinds of desert winds, something very unique to the language, just like Eskimos in Alaska have several words to describe different types of snow and ice.

Na’eeman (نعيماً)

A term used after someone gets a clean shave, a haircut or takes a shower. It’s kind of like blessing them and saying “Congrats on looking cleaner/fresher” and there is certainly no way of saying it in English. Oftentimes, after a man gets a fresh shave or hair cut, his pals will slap the back of his neck saying this term. The response is “Allah yena’am ‘alek”.

‘Ala Rasi (على راسي)

Literally translated into “On my head”, this is a saying commonly used when someone asks you for something or demands something. If a friend says “I need you to give me a ride later today,” the response could be “‘Ala Rasi”, kind of like saying “Anything for you”.

Kol Sana Wa Enta Salem/Enti Salmeh (كل سنة ونت سالم)

A phrase said to someone on their birthday or on religious holidays like Easter, Ramadan and Eid, it translates to something akin to “With each year you’re safe/peaceful”. Of course in English there is nothing similar to this, but in Arabic it can be more common than saying Happy Birthday or Ramadan Kareem.

To’oborni (تقبرني)

Used quite often in Lebanon, this term literally translates to “You bury me”, but means more like I love you so much I would rather die and you bury me before losing you. Again, probably not something you’d commonly say in English, but this term is used quite often from mothers to their children or to a friend or person you really adore. Though it sounds cryptic when translated, it’s used in a loving and upbeat way.

Wafaret/Wafarti (وفرت)

Though this is an older term that is not commonly used these days, I recall many times my grandmother would say this word to me as she offered me food and I refused it. It translates to something like, “Fine, you don’t want it? That’s more for me, and it saves me the trouble anyway”. I used to laugh when she would say it to us before understanding it probably wasn’t meant sarcastically by any means.

Language Oasis offers Arabic Language Translation services. We have the most skilled translators at work. Got a document to translate? Give us a buzz at 888-670-3369 and we shall address all your translation and interpretation related queries.

Article Reference: http://www.barakabits.com/2014/07/5-arabic-words-english-equivalent

Imagine a world void of language! Sounds scary, doesn’t it? Language is a beautiful form of expression. Had the language not existed, our lives would have been a clutter of misunderstandings and havoc. Depression would have creeped in.

However, we are blessed with the glory of expression through language- a tool that can even act as a weapon if needed. The diversity of language is magnificent.

Looking at the other side of the coin, we are all trapped under the limitations of language. There are millions of emotions that do not find a refuge in our language and we are unable to express it just because of the language constraint.

How about adopting foreign languages to express ourselves? Brilliant, isn’t it?

So what if your language does not have a word for something? There might be other languages that have a word for it? Let’s see a few untranslatable words with meanings that might prove to be helpful:

Akihi

You go Akihi when you listen to the directions explained to you, and then, as soon as you walk away, you forget the directions just explained. Very similar to what happens most of the times when you venture into unknown roads, right?

Akihi is a Hawaiian word.

Usage: “I have gone akihi”

Hiraeth

Know that feeling when you feel homesick for a place of the past that you can never go back to? This extreme homesickness when tinged with grief and sadness is called Hiraeth.

Hiraeth is a Welsh word.

Usage: “My hiraeth fades when I am in my homeland.

Iktsuarpok

Ever felt the urge go out again and again to see if someone is coming? Iktsuarpok is used as a noun to describe a feeling when you are in anticipation of someone coming and you are not patient enough to wait. You keep going out to check whether someone has come.

Iktsuarpok is an Inuit word.

Usage: “I have some major iktsuarpok going on because my husband hasn’t returned yet.”

Boketto

Boketto is a term that describes that situation when you keep gazing at the distance without thinking of anything specific. Just vacantly gazing.

Boketto is a Japanese word.

Usage: “She was in boketto all the time.”

Such beautiful words and we never knew them? How sad! Now that you know them, you can easily use them in your day to day language.

It is sad that there are many words that cannot be translated in other languages. However, if tried with care and dexterity, one can create a translation that is just near perfect. Language Oasis helps you with translation and language interpretation services dealing in various languages. We have experts in various languages translating and interpreting your documents for you. Got a query? Give us a buzz at 888-670-3369 and we shall address all your translation and interpretation related queries.

Filipino, also known as Pilipino, is the national language of Philippines. Along with English, Filipino has been designated as the official language of the country. Every language has a history and so has Filipino. It was derived from Tagalog, the most widely understood language in the Philippines. However, with time, the language evolved and there were various Spanish and English words introduced to it. This evolved language was termed as Filipino as it turned out to be a more convenient and commonplace version.

Filipino is the language of emotions. Some of the most beautiful words describing emotions belong to this language of Philippines. These words are such exact matches for our emotions that they make us feel an intense urge to replicate these words in English, a rather understandable language for all.

Learning various languages is fun and acquainting yourself of some of the most beautiful words of that language is even more fun. Let us find out some of the sweet-sounding words of the Filipino you will wish had English equivalents.

Pambahay
Noun. The outfit worn within private space and avoided for public appearances.
This translation couldn’t do justice to the meaning. It basically means your baggy clothes you wear at home. Remember those pair of shorts and shabby tee-shirts you love to slip into as soon as you are home? Yes, that’s what the Phillipines call Pambahay. We so need an English equivalent because we love those grungy clothes we wear at home but calling them grungy just doesn’t serve the purpose.

Sayang
Interjection. Used to express frustration over something you have just missed.
This is a super needed word. Imagine a situation when you are hurrying up to catch a bus. You reach at the bus station and as soon as you reach, you see the bus departing from the station. How frustrating, isn’t it? And all we can say to express it are some *abuse* words. However, there has to be something that describes it well. This frustration is supreme and needs justice. That is where “Sayang” comes in.

Tampo
Noun. A fake tantrum thrown to evoke apology from someone.
Ah, this one’s going to be a favorite. You encounter such “drama” (as we call it) just every other day. Sometimes from our moms and most of the times from our partners, we come across Tampo so frequently that it is a necessary word.

Pikon
Noun. The emotion of anger upon vengeance.
Can you relate to the feeling that emerges when you are at the receiving end of vengeance? That is Pikon. Such apt description of this type of anger makes things easier to express.

Gigil
Noun. The extreme urge to cuddle (almost squeeze) something or someone when the object is either cute or irritating or both.

Where do the Philippines bring such accurate depictions from? Probably because they have mastered the expression of emotions. Remember that feeling when you see an adorable baby? You feel that urge to squeeze the baby hard. That is Gigil. Also, that feeling when a baby is too irritating (yet cute), you feel a similar urge. That is Gigil.

Filipino is a beautiful language. However, translating these words was a tough call, indeed. If you tried google translator or some amateur translator to translate these words for you, you could never have realized the beauty of these words because good translation needs experts and that’s where we come in.

Language Oasis offer extensive Filipino language translation service for all types of translation requirements. Be it your documents or books, we translate it all. Got a query? Give us a buzz at 888-670-3369 and we shall address all your translation related queries.

In the world where the barriers of borders and race have begun to blur, there should be no place for barriers of language. When we can travel to countries on the other side of the globe, why should language restrict us from communicating with people on the other end of the globe?

Waverly labs addressed this important issue and took an initiative to change the face of foreign language communication.

Meet the Pilot:
This man, the creator of the device, calls this device the Pilot. The Pilot is a wearable device that you can put in your ears like earplugs. It is the first smart earpiece that translates language real time while conversations. Two people speaking in two different languages have to plug in this piece and they can hear each other’s sentences in their own language. This master device comes with a handy app that helps you choose between languages and do the settings according to your preferences. The languages that this device is capable of translating are French, Spanish, Italian, and English. Available in three colors- white, red and black, this device is expected to be out in the market in September 2016 at a price of $129. The website is up and running taking orders for the Pilot beforehand. You can book your Pilot on the Waverly labs website and your smart earpiece will be on its way. This groundbreaking innovation is said to have a beautiful background. Read further…

The Story Behind the Pilot
The creator of the Pilot met a French girl and he realized the hopelessness of language barriers. You cannot take a translator with you always. If you want to communicate, you need to be able to speak in the language of the listener. Learning French is not an easy feat. Neither was creating this device! But Andrew chose the highway. He wanted to create something that worked not just for him, but also for the entire world facing the same issue. He thought of this device when he met this French girl.

The Video
This powerful video shows how the Pilot blurs the language barriers and how it works.

Is it for You?
The Pilot might not be a device that everyone needs, but it is definitely a great step towards ending the global barriers. While you might still need Language Oasis for your professional translation needs, this device is something that can help people communicate. It cannot perform your Birth Certificate translation, of course, but it can indeed help you understand your friend who speaks foreign language without the need of a google translator every time.
If professional translation is something you are looking for, reach out to us and we will help you translate your documents. Give us a call at 888-670-3369 and we shall address all your translation related queries.