• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

eshte thike me thike (Albanian) to stand toenail to toenail (prior to an argument)

Mind the gap

Several cultures have words to describe the space between or behind limbs: irqa (Khakas, Siberia) is the gap between spread legs, and awawa (Hawaiian) that between each finger or toe. While jahja in Wagiman (Australia) and waal in Afrikaans both mean the area behind the knee.

Skin deep

We describe it with just one word but other cultures go much further, whether it’s alang (Ulwa, Nicaragua), the fold of skin under the chin; aka’aka’a (Hawaiian), skin peeling or falling off after either sunburn or heavy drinking; or karelu (Tulu, India), the mark left on the skin by wearing anything tight. Another Ulwa word, yuputka, records something we have all experienced – having the sensation of something crawling on one’s skin.

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. Sometimes 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