Mamihlapinatapai
Mamihlapinatapai is a word from the Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego, listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as the “most succinct word,” and is considered one of the hardest words to translate. It describes a look shared by two people with each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but which neither one wants to start. This could perhaps be translated more succinctly as “eye-contact implying ‘after you…’”. A more literal approximation is “ending up mutually at a loss as to what to do about each other.”
English fails for not having a word like this.
This entry was posted on Monday, July 14th, 2008 at 10:28 am and is filed under language, words. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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