"A delightful treasure house, literally a thesaurus, of linguistic marvels." —from the foreword by bestselling author Simon Winchester
A colorfully
illustrated collection of more than ninety untranslatable words and phrases and the unique insights they offer into the cultures they come from.
Ever racked your brain for a word you're convinced should exist, yet is inexplicably absent from the dictionary? All languages have their limitations-should English fall short, the expression may lie elsewhere. That's where this book comes in: a quirky, international lexicon of linguistic gems that capture cultural untranslatables with satisfying precision.
Take for example the Japanese
yoko meshi
, “a meal eaten sideways,” describing the experience of trying to communicate in an alien tongue, or
mono-no-aware
, the appreciation of life's sadness. From the distinctive coziness of the Danish
hygge
, to the unrestrained dis of the Mayan
bol
(“in-laws” and “stupidity”), to the profound collectivism of the Zulu concept of
ubuntu
(roughly, “I AM because WE ARE"), these
mots justes
are grouped according to language and prefaced with insightful overviews of the relevant cultures by linguist Christopher J. Moore.
Embellished with 20 entertaining new untranslatable words and phrases and 90 characterful color illustrations by Lan Truong, and with a foreword by Simon Winchester,
In Other Words
is amusing, profound, and unputdownable—a gorgeously packaged gift book to entertain even the most well-versed polyglot with marvels of language from around the world.