Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #510247 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 128 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Translation is tricky, especially when the language belongs to a people whose culture is very different from one's own. In this short but enthusiastic book, Moore, a linguist, selects from languages across the world words and phrases that are impossible to translate neatly into English. In many cases, the difficulty arises because our culture simply doesn't share the same experiences as others. For instance, the Cantonese word gagung literally means "bare sticks," but represents the growing group of men who will not be able to find a wife because China's one-child policy, and desire for sons, has reduced the proportion of women. Other untranslatable words are those used for a feeling or situation that English only describes in a roundabout way, such as the indigenous word from Tierra del Fuego, mamihlapinatapei, which connotes "an expressive and meaningful silence," romantic or otherwise. Moore ranges through 10 different groups of languages (ancient and classical, indigenous, Nordic and African among them) and breaks a few into individual tongues. He introduces each with a few entertaining anecdotes and literary quotes to provide context, and his style in the definitions is equally witty and accessible. Strangely, the entries are not alphabetized, and some have meanings that are more familiar than he implies, particularly those found in the section on Sanskrit, which is made up entirely of words that have already entered the English vocabulary, such as guru and mantra. Overall, this book will fascinate anyone who loves linguistic oddities or has ever felt "lost in translation."
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Review
`A lexicon of words that capture a notion but defy translation' Arts Telegraph

About the Author

Customer Reviews

author comment
As the author of In Other Words, I am grateful to Michael for his interest in my book and his reflections on language in general. My aim was to celebrate variety among nations and to see what might be learnt from our differences. My approach is therefore cultural and is not dictionary-bound. Where for instance he suggests that Arabic has a perfectly good word "tawfiq" for compromise, this may be so in narrow dictionary terms. But as one who has spent many years living in Arab countries, I can assure him that the idea of compromise does not exist culturally in the same way as it might in Britain or the United States. Similarly in Chinese, we may translate guanxi in a dictionary context as "connection" but my interest is how the social and cultural reality of being connected works in China, or say in Italy, Poland, Saudi Arabia or Spain. Each place has its own "meaning" for connectedness. Meaning arises out of culture not out of books, and language is a living and dynamic phenomenon which will not be pinned down. This is something to enjoy and explore, the very thing I have tried to do and convey to others in my book.
CJMoore

Inaccurate, but...
"In Other Words," by Christopher Moore is touted as a compendium of words which are unique to a certain language or group of languages. A book of this kind comes out every few years and usually makes for fun reading -- showcasing all the subtleties of foreign vocabulary. Unfortunately, they are not usually very accurate or well researched, and this is sadly the case with "In Other Words."

A couple examples: In the Arabic section, Moore repeats the myth that Arabic has no word for "compromise." In fact, their word for compromise is "tawfiq" (spelled tey-waw-fey-yey-qoph, if you want to check it up), and it covers very exactly the meaning of our own English word. Then in the Chinese section, Moore -- like others before him -- tries to sell the idea that "guanxi" is an untranslatable term that looks deeply into Chinese culture. Really, I think the English word "connection" covers "guanxi" just fine, both in the literal and figurative meaning. (The Chinese "Gen zhege mei you guanxi" meaning "(It) has no connection with this," while "Ta you hen duo de guanxi" means "She has a lot of connections" or "She is well connected.")

Some of the terms are coinages from literature, like the famous "esprit de l'escalier," invented by Diderot to describe thinking up a witty remark after it's too late. But I don't agree with the thesis that such a term gives us special insight into French people. Or maybe it does. Maybe the equally made-up word "shart" from the movie "Along Came Polly" says something deep about us Americans?

As someone who has devoted much of his life to learning foreign languages, I am a little bothered by people who try to present other cultures as inscrutable and existing on a different plane from our own. But that said, "In Other Words" might be an enjoyable read, so long as we don't take it too seriously. It offers a nice taste of world languages. And certainly the words in Moore's book are real foreign terms, even if he does tend to read too much into them.

Beyond the Phrasebook...the Unintentional Barriers of Language
When I grew up around my Japanese-speaking mother, she often used the phrase "yoko meshi" when she would get particularly frustrated about having to speak English. Only in hindsight do I see that she was using a particularly Japanese expression of linguistic frustration. This is one of the 250-plus words and phrases that language expert Christopher J. Moore has compiled from around the world that do not have a simple translation in English. Yet what they do convey are life experiences with which we Americans can relate.

Words that originate within one culture might as easily have been produced by another at any time. But often one culture may recognize a more immediate need for a word to express an emotion or situation. Consequently there are inconsistencies in how we describe commonalties we have in the human experience. And then there are the cases of words and phrases he introduces that seem specific to their native cultures such as the Czech word, litost, which is a state of torment only experienced by Czechs where they have the sudden sight of their own misery. Bottom line, languages develop in response to a culture's needs and interests. Moore has provided a nice, light tome that clearly expresses our cultural differences through words that truly get lost in translation. It's a great way to get a smidgen of what another culture may be like.