parebos (Ancient Greek) being past one’s prime
kahala (Arabic) to be an old fogey at the height of one’s life
Torschlusspanik (German) the fear of diminishing opportunities as one gets older (literally, gate-closing panic); this word is often applied to women worried about being too old to have children
Getting older Hawaiian-style
The Hawaiians have a highly specific vocabulary to describe the effects of what the Germans call Lebensabend, the twilight of life:
’aua a woman beginning to become wrinkled
ku’olo an old man with sagging cheeks
kani ko’o an aged man who needs to carry a cane
kani mo’opuna the state of old age when one has many grandchildren
hakalunu extreme old age, as when one is no longer able to walk
ka’i koko bedridden; so old one needs to be carried in a net
pala lau hala the advanced loss of hair; the last stage of life
Kicking the bucket
Other languages have highly inventive euphemisms for the tricky subject of passing on:
nolikt karoti (Latvian) to put down the spoon
colgar los guantes (Spanish, Central America) to hang up the gloves
het hoek omgaan (Dutch) to go around the corner
bater a bota/esticar a perna (Portuguese) to hit the boot or to stretch the leg
avaler son bulletin de naissance (French) to swallow one’s birth certificate
The final reckoning
adjal (Indonesian) the predestined hour of one’s death
Liebestod (German) dying for love or because of a romantic tragedy
pagezuar (Albanian) the state of dying before enjoying the happiness that comes with being married or seeing one’s children married
Chinese whispers
Chinese has a rich vocabulary when it comes to the last moments of life:
huiguang fanzhao the momentary recovery of someone who is dying
yiyan a person’s last words
yiyuan a person’s last or unfulfilled wish
mingmu to die with one’s eyes closed, to die without regret
txiv xaiv a funeral singer whose songs bring helpful, didactic messages from the dead person to the survivors
Last rites
In the end the inevitable takes its course:
talkin (Indonesian) to whisper to the dying (i.e. words read at the end of a funeral to remind the dead person of what to say to the angels of death)
farjam-gah (Persian) the final home (grave)
tunillattukkuuq (Inuit) the act of eating at a cemetery
akika (Swahili) a domestic feast held either for a child’s first haircut or for its burial
On reflection
The long of it
Among languages that build up very long words for both simple and complex concepts are those defined as ‘polysynthetic’, and many of them are found in Australia or Papua New Guinea. The Aboriginal Mayali tongue of Western Arnhem Land is an example, forming highly complex verbs able to express a complete sentence, such as: ngabanmarneyawoyhwarrgahganjginjeng, meaning ‘I cooked the wrong meat for them again’. (This breaks down into nga: I, ban: them, marne: for, yawoyh: again, warrgah: wrongly directed action, ganj: meat, ginje: cook, ng: past tense.) In the Australian language known as Western Desert, palyamunurringkutjamu-nurtu means ‘he or she definitely did not become bad’.
Germans are not the only ones who like to create complex compound words as nouns. Arbejdsløsheds-understøttelse is Danish for unemployment benefit, while tilpasningsvanskeligheder means ‘adjustment difficulties’. Precipitevolissimevolmente is Italian for ‘as fast as possible’. And in the Tupi-Guarani Apiaká language of Brazil, tapa-há-ho-huegeuvá means rubber.
But maybe the laurels should go to the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes who devised the word lopado-temacho-selacho-galeo-kranio-leipsano-drim-hu-potrimmato-silphio-karabo-melito-katakechumeno-kichl-epikossuphophatto-perister-alektruon-opto-kephallio-kigklo-peleio-lagoio-siraio-baphe-tragano-pterugon, a dish compounded of all kinds of dainties, fish, fowl and sauces.
Otherworldly
zig then ma che; dam choe ma ha
(Dzongkha, Bhutan)
do not start your worldly life too late; do not
start your religious life too early
Beyond the veil
So what lies beyond the beauties of life, in sight, sound and smell? Do we live for ever? And if so, can any of us ever return?
iwang wayaka (Ulwa, Nicaragua) a spirit that comes out after a person dies, makes noises and yet is never seen
tarniqsuqtuq (Inuit) a communication with a spirit that is unable to ascend
raskh (Persian) the transmigration of the human soul into a plant or tree
hrendi thenok (Sherpa, Nepal) to get in touch with the soul of a dead person
bodach (Scottish Gaelic) the ghost of an old man that comes down the chimney to terrorize children who have been naughty
Spooked in Sumatra
The Indonesians have a particularly varied vocabulary to describe the inhabitants of the spirit world and their attempts to menace the living:
wewe an ugly female ghost with drooping breasts
keblak a ghost cockerel which frightens people at night with the sound of its flapping wings
kuntilanak a ghost masquerading as a beautiful woman to seduce men who are then horrified to find that she actually has a large hole in her back
Looking into the future
A cynical old Chinese proverb offers the thought ruo xin bu, maile wu; mai gua kou, mei liang dou: ‘if you believe in divination you will end up selling your house to pay the diviners’. But attempting to see into the future has been a constant in all societies for thousands of years:
aayyaf (Arabic) predicting the future by observing the flight of birds
ustukhwan-tarashi (Persian) divination using the shoulder-blade of a sheep
haruspex (Latin) a priest who practised divination by examining the entrails of animals
kilo lani (Hawaiian) an augury who can read the clouds
sortes (Latin) the seeking of guidance by the chance selection of a passage in a book
mandal (Arabic) prophesying while staring into a mirror-like surface
Hide away
Scottish Highlanders formerly had an unusual way of divining the future, known as taghairm. This involved wrapping a man in the hide of a freshly butchered bullock and leaving him alone by a waterfall, under a cliff-face, or in some other wild and deserted place. Here he would think about his problem; and whatever answer he came up with was supposed to have been given to him by the spirits who dwelt in such forbidding spots.
False friends
monaco (Italian) monk
fish (Arabic) Easter, Passover
alone (Italian) halo
fall (Breton) bad
lav (Armenian) good
bog (Russian) god
God willing
The French have a term, bondieuserie, which means ostentatious piety. But for many the solace of prayer and faith is both necessary and private:
saruz-ram (Persian) the first light breaking upon one committed to a contemplative life
rasf (Persian) the joining together of the feet in prayer (also the joining of stones in pavements)
thondrol (Dzongkha, Bhutan) the removal of sins through the contemplation of a large religious picture
kuoha (Hawaiian) a prayer used to bring a wife to love her husband and a husband to love his wife
tekbir (Arabic) to proclaim the greatness of God, by repeating allahu akkbar, ‘Allah is great’
pasrah (Indonesian) to leave a problem to God
The short of it
Among single letter words to be found among the world’s languages are the following:
u (Samoan) an enlarged land snail
u (Xeta, Brazil) to eat animal meat
u (Burmese) a male over forty-five (literally,
uncle)
I (Korean) a tooth
M (Yakut, Siberia) a bear; an ancestral spirit
All Creatures Great and Small
meglio è esser capo di lucertola
che coda di dragone (Italian)
better be the head of a lizard than the tail
of a dragon
Animal crackers
‘Every dog has his day’; ‘you can take a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink’; ‘a cat may look at a king’. Animals crop up left, right and centre in English sayings and phrases, and in those of other languages too:
leben wie die Made im Speck (German) to live like a maggot in bacon (life of Riley)
van een kale kip kan je geen veren plukken (Dutch) you can’t pluck feathers from a bald hen (get blood out of a stone)
olla ketunhäntä kainalossa (Finnish) to have a foxtail under your armpits (ulterior motives)
estar durmiendo con la mona (Spanish) to be sleeping with the monkey (be drunk)
eine Kröte schlucken (German) to swallow a toad (make a concession grudgingly)
bhains ke age bansuri bajana (Hindi) to play a flute in front of a buffalo (cast pearls before swine)
vot gde sobaka zaryta (Russian) that’s where the dog is buried (the crux of the matter)
avaler des couleuvres (French) to swallow grass snakes (endure humiliation)
karincalanmak (Turkish) to be crawling with ants (have pins and needles)
Dragon’s head
The Japanese are particularly fond of animal metaphors:
itachigokko weasels’ play (a vicious circle)
gyuho an ox’s walk (a snail’s pace)
neko no hitai a cat’s forehead (a very small area)
yabuhebi ni naru to poke at a bush and get a snake (to backfire
ryuto dabi ni owaru to start with a dragon’s head and end with a snake’s tail (to peter out)
dasoku snake legs (excessive or superfluous)
tora ni naru to become a tiger (to get roaring drunk)
unagi no nedoko an eel’s bed (a long narrow place)
mushi no idokoro ga warui the location of the worm is bad (in a bad mood)
kirinji a giraffe child (prodigy)
kumo no ko o chirasu yo ni like scattering baby spiders (in all directions)
inu to saru a dog and a monkey (to be on bad terms)
Ships of the desert
As you might expect, the more important an animal is to a particular culture, the more words there are for it. The cattle-herding Masai of Kenya and Tanzania, for example, have seventeen distinct words for cattle; the jungle-based Baniwa tribe of Brazil has twenty-nine for ant (with a range that includes the edible); while in Somali there are no fewer than forty-three words relating to camels of every possible variety. Here are a few:
qoorqab an uncastrated male camel
gurgurshaa a docile pack-camel suitable for carrying delicate items
sidig one of two female camels suckling the same baby camel
guran a herd of camels no longer producing milk that is kept away from dwelling areas
baatir a mature female camel that has had no offspring
gulguuluc the low bellow of a camel when it is sick or thirsty cayuun camel spit
u maqaarsaar to put the skin of a dead baby camel on top of a living one in order to induce its mother to give milk
uusmiiro to extract drinking water from the stomach of a camel to drink during a period of drought
guree to make room for a person to sit on a loaded camel
tulud one’s one and only camel
Persian also has its own detailed camel vocabulary that suggests an even more recalcitrant beast:
nakhur a camel that will not give milk until her nostrils are tickled
wakhd a camel that throws out its feet in the manner of an ostrich
munqamih a camel that raises its head and refuses to drink any more
zirad a rope tied round a camel’s neck to prevent it from vomiting on its rider
Horses for courses
Many languages have very specific words to describe not only types of horse but also its activities and attributes. In the Quechuan language of Peru, tharmiy is a horse that stands on its hind legs and kicks out with its forelegs. The Bulgar lungur is an unfit horse, while the Malay kuda padi is a short-legged horse for riding. Dasparan, from the Khowan language of Pakistan, describes the mating of horses and the Russian nochoe means the pasturing of horses for the night. Persian has an extravagance of equine vocabulary:
zaru a horse that travels nimbly with long steps
mirjam a horse that makes the dirt fly when running
raji a horse returning tired from a journey only to be immediately dispatched upon another
rakl to strike a horse with the heel to make it gallop
zau’ shaking the horse’s rein to quicken the pace
shiyar riding a horse backwards and forwards to show it off to a buyer
safin a horse standing on three legs and touching the ground with the tip of its fourth hoof
Man’s best friend
The Indians of Guatemala have a word, nagual, which describes an animal, chosen at birth, whose fate is believed to have a direct effect on the prosperity of its owner.
Hopping mad
The Kunwinjku of Australia use a range of words to describe the way in which kangaroos hop; in part this is because, from a distance, the easiest way to identify a particular type of kangaroo is by the way it moves. Thus kanjedjme is the hopping of a wallaroo, kamawudme is the hopping of a male Antilopine wallaroo, and kadjalwahme is the hopping of the female. Kamurlbardme is the hopping of a black wallaroo and kalurlhlurlme is the hopping of an agile wallaby.
False friends
ape (Italian) bee
anz (Arabic) wasp
bum (Arabic) owl
medusa (Spanish) jellyfish
slurp (Afrikaans) elephant’s trunk
ukelele (Tongan) jumping flea
Shoo!
The Latin American sape, the German husch and the Pashto (of Afghanistan and Pakistan) tsheghe tsheghe are among the many similar-sounding words that mean ‘shoo’. Other animal commands refer to particular creatures: Pashto pishte pishte is said when chasing cats away; gja gja is the Bulgar driving call to horses; kur is the Indonesian call to chickens to come to be fed; and belekisi ontu (Aukan, Suriname) is an insult hurled at a dog. The Malays are even more specific, with song, the command to an elephant to lift one leg, and soh, the cry to a buffalo to turn left.
Peacocks’ tails
Many languages identify specific parts or attributes of animals for which there is no direct English equivalent. Kauhaga moa is the word used by Easter Islanders to designate the first and shortest claw of a chicken, while candraka in Tulu (India) is the eye pattern that appears on the feathers of a peacock’s tail and kannu is the star in the feather. In several languages there are particular words for different types of animal excrement: monkey urine in the Guajá language (Brazil) is kalukaluk-kaí; the liquid part of chicken excrement in Ulwa (Nicaragua) is daraba; while in Persian the little bit of sweat and dung attached to a sheep’s groin and tail is called wazahat.