11 untranslatable words
In 1983, the writers Douglas Adams and John Lloyd compiled The Meaning of Liff, “a dictionary of things that there aren't any words for yet”. It included such words as ‘ahenny’, meaning ‘the way people stand when examining other people's bookshelves’. Similarly, designer Anjana Iyer illustrates words that describe emotions and situations so precisely they summon a smile of recognition.
There is one clear difference, though: Iyer has not invented them. The definitions she illustrates – 60 so far, from 30 different languages – match The Meaning of Liff for absurdity, but all of them are real. There is komorebi, Japanese for ‘the sort of scattered dappled light effect that happens when sunlight shines in through trees’; or rire dans sa barbe, a French expression meaning ‘to laugh in your beard quietly while thinking about something that happened in the past’.
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