By David Gramling (he/they), professor and head of the Department of Central, Eastern, and Northern European Studies
An untranslatable isn’t something that you can’t translate. In fact, words, concepts, and meanings that are difficult to render from one language to another usually prompt people to try even harder to translate more, in the hopes of getting it right.
The truth is that the many thousands of languages (real, fictional, ancestral, secret) on this planet are each home to specific meanings that don’t exist in other languages in the same way. Untranslatability isn’t a fault of a translator or language user; it’s a baked-in feature of languages themselves. Untranslatables are the reason why we have to learn languages instead of using apps to translate for us.
Maybe you know a language that has a specific word for auntie, education, or being in love. Maybe you and your friends speak a language that has a phrase you all love to say, but you’d have no idea how to say it in French or English if you tried. Maybe there are even some special meanings in your languages that English or French seem hell-bent on ignoring. Knowledge of the real world is made in all sorts of languages, many of which are not even recognized as “a language”. Consider the multitude of potential untranslatables in:
- Elite or specialized jargons, like sports and dance language
- Religious concepts from Qur’anic, Confucian, or Talmudic sources
- Scientific and technological languages
- Colonial or authoritarian discourses
- Indigenous and local repertoires
- Cryptolects or secret languages
What can make words and their meanings untranslatable is often their context of customary use. If a context in one language doesn’t quite exist in another in the same way—say a particular kind of kitchen, landscape, ritual or community—it’s difficult for that meaning to have a direct translation and breathe the air of the language’s context.
“Cuoŋu (North Sámi dialect) is a hard crust that forms on top of a snow pack during the late winter, when the sun warms the snow enough to melt the top layer, which then refreezes. Cuoŋu makes for wonderful times to migrate with reindeer. The word is so important that the month of April today is called cuoŋománnu, or the snow crust moon.”
More untranslatable examples
| Untranslatable | Native language | Country of origin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Komorebi | Japanese | Japan | Sun rays penetrating between the leaves of trees. |
| Kilig | Tagalog | Philippines | A feeling of exhilaration or elation caused by various circumstances related to love or a romantic experience. |
| Cafuné | Portuguese | Brazil | The act of caressing or tenderly running fingers through a loved one’s hair. |
| Hiraeth | Welsh | Wales | A blend of homesickness, nostalgia, and longing that conveys the feeling of missing something that is no longer within reach. |
| Abbiocco | Italian | Italy | Drowsiness from eating a big meal. |
We tend to vastly underestimate these distinctions between languages, because we’re eager to minimize linguistic differences for the sake of communication. We cut our losses and accentuate what seems common ground, but in the process we can often sweep vast ranges of meaning under the rug of intercultural communication. Identifying “untranslatables” isn’t a bad thing; it’s just one way we can share why the meanings we grew up with, that we’ve learned, or that we value matter to us in the way they do.
So what’s your favorite untranslatable? There’s a whole book of them to get you started. Ironically enough, this book was translated from the French original by Barbara Cassin and her friends, but these books are primarily focused on the fields of philosophy and literary studies. They tend to foreground the academic sphere rather than other aspects of meaning in everyday life. In the Faculty of Arts, you could be studying in any number of disciplines—from sociology to theatre to First Nations and Indigenous Studies. You also may be a user of multiple languages already and recognize an untranslatable from time to time. You may notice that a certain language you know has a word or concept that could be of significant use or benefit in solving a problem or identifying a shared reality—if only it could be conveyed more effectively across language frontiers.
David Gramling is a professor and head of the Department of Central, Eastern, and Northern European Studies, where we teach German, Polish, Russian, Swedish, Danish, and—soon—Yiddish! David lives and works on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil- Waututh) Nations.
