The Meaning of Tingo: and Other Extraordinary Words from Around the WorldDid you know that people in Indonesia have a word that means 'to take off your clothes in order to dance'? Or how many words the Albanians have for eyebrows and moustaches? Or that the Dutch word for skimming stones is plimpplamppletteren? Drawing on the collective wisdom of over 154 languages, this intriguing book is arranged by theme so you can compare attitudes all over the world to such subjects as food, the human body and the battle of the sexes. Here you can find not only those words for which there is no direct counterpart in English (such as the Japanese age-otori which means looking less attractive after a haircut), but also a frank discussion of exactly how many 'Eskimo' terms there are for snow, and a vast array of information exploring the wonderful and often downright strange world of words. Oh, and tingo means 'to take all the objects one desires from the house of a friend, one at a time, by asking to borrow them'. |
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The Meaning of Tingo and Other Extraordinary Words from Around the World Adam Jacot de Boinod No preview available - 2006 |
Common terms and phrases
Africa Afrikaans Albanian Ancient Greek animal Arabic Australia banana Bemba blue Brazil Brazilian Portuguese camel Caribbean Spanish cats Central America Chinese clothes colours Congo and Zambia consecutive vowels Cook Islands Maori Czech Danish drink Dutch ears Easter Island English Estonian evocative example expression fall False friends father feeling finger Finnish fish French German green hair Hausa Hawaiian Hindi hopping horse Hungarian husband Icelandic India Indonesian Indonesian word Inuit Italian Japanese Khakas Korean languages Latin legs lips literally means Malay metaphors Mexico moon mother's moustache Nahuatl Nicaragua Nigeria night noise Norwegian nose one's oneself Papua New Guinea Persian person Peru Quechuan rain Rapa Nui reflection Romanian Russian Scottish Gaelic Siberia sleep sneeze snow someone sound spoken Swedish talk Thai things thumb Tulu Turkish Ulwa verb vocabulary Wagiman walk Welsh wife woman yellow Yiddish Zarma