Fascination with words

Language is no doubt one of the best things that have happened to us. Language is indeed one of the widely understood ways of human expression, the chemistry between different individuals, helping them to connect with one another, the sense of being bonded.

Although there is a multitude of languages, every language has its own magical beauty. Even though or may be for the reason that I am into the translation and interpretation industry, I always feel that no word has its perfect equivalent in any other language – technically yes, but aesthetically no. I find all the words so artistic and I often feel that when you translate a particular word from its source language to the target language (or any other language), its charm is defeated. The translation makes perfect sense and is accepted far and wide. Now-a-days we do come across foreign words that have been incorporated in the English language (guru, mantra, pundit, kaput, et al) possibly due to this very reason.

I don’t know how successful I have been in trying to put my thoughts into words (wink) or translate my thoughts (wink wink) but I wasn’t able to resist myself from writing this.

Every single word has its own magic but there are a few special cases for me. There are a few words which always fascinate me, rather those I simply love – they portray the particular emotion or connotation so perfectly that I can’t think of any other alternative for them. Technically there obviously is at least one equivalent in different languages for a particular word in a particular language. I only know four languages so far and I already love so many words from these four languages! I’m sure there are many more such interesting words in all the other languages of the world. But my knowledge is limited to Marathi - my mother-tongue, English – the lingua franca, Hindi – our national language and German – my first love in foreign languages. I have very little acquaintance with Konkani, which can also be called my original mother tongue, and I have to admit that it is one of the sweetest languages ever. It will also be difficult to isolate specific words from French because it is an equally delicate language. Urdu is synonymous with aesthetics and comprises fabulous expressions, which make even an ordinary sentence or remark sound resplendently elegant.

Anyway, coming back to “words”, I want to bring up a few assorted words (from my never-ending list) which I find unparalleled and I always associate them (and no other translation of their implication) with their connotation:

• ‘Rusun basne’ – this particular Marathi verb can be explained with the English equivalent – ‘to sulk’. But the whole loveliness of ‘rusane’ is unfortuanely lost! Sulking somehow sounds crude, conflicting with the sweet flavor of the original Marathi word.
• Nothing can replace the word as well as the concept of ‘ukhana’.
• ‘Kushit shirne’ – ‘cuddle up’ or ‘curl up’ or ‘snuggle’ can be the best verbatim for this Marathi phrase. But I miss the warmth of the ‘kushi’ in these words.
• ‘Idiosyncrasy’ has always attracted my attention for no specific reason (may be because it reminds me of the two words that describe me - idiot and crazy – I really don’t have any explanation for this one).
• ‘Kleinigkeit’ – I always try to use this word somewhere in my German writings. It means ‘a small thing’, ‘trifle’ or ‘littleness’. I feel it best describes anything that is small or little – right from a snack to a gesture.
• ‘Ploetzlich – English translation ‘suddenly’. The pronunciation is quick and funny; the moment I read/say this word I can sense the suddenness from within ;)
• Desire, search, quest imply what ‘Justuju’ means, the beauty of the Hindi/Urdu word is absent in the English equivalents.
• ‘Hosh’ is such a quixotic, romantic Hindi word but when you translate it in English you have the rudimentary sounding option: mind or sense.

These are just a few examples illustrating my thoughts. I’m sure everyone is fascinated by some word (/phrase) or the other in different languages and sometimes the fascination with something is beyond explanation.