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Words and gaps
Nov. 26th, 2014 02:33 pmApparently one's nephews and nieces can be referred to, collectively, as one's niblings (by analogy with siblings but more endearing). I like this word. I don't know who invented it, or when, but it's always good when someone comes up with a word we didn't have and genuinely needed. Another such, I fear, is the unkind but forensically accurate Japanese neologism "bakkushan", a weird macaronic mix of English "back" and German "schön", meaning someone who looks gorgeous from behind but proves a fearful disappointment on turning round. That is very much a thing. So is someone who was once a parent but now is one no longer (and no, "bereaved parent" will not do; it needs a proper dedicated word, like widow or orphan, not just a definition).
Although I don't know a word for that in any language, one advantage of being a linguist is that you get to assemble a collection of these handy, ultra-specific words, which may not exist in your own tongue but do in others. When I hear people moaning because times have changed and they can no longer smoke indoors, drive half-drunk or catcall young women unchallenged, I think of them as "buivshi", the word Soviet Russia sometimes used to characterise people whose thought processes were stuck in pre-revolutionary times. It means "the former people", or "people of former times", and in that is reminiscent of our own "has-beens", but the meaning is different. Has-beens are people who were once noted, even famous, at what they did, but are now either out of style or past their best - an eighties pop star or an ageing boxer might be a has-been. Buivshi are people who belong in the past, who can't adapt to change. The closest in English might be "dinosaur", but apart from being a shade metaphorical, that connotes not just extinction but power, something that in its time was awesome, and doesn't quite convey the contempt in "buivshi".
Blumenkaffee, coffee so weak you can see the pattern of flowers on the inside of an old-fashioned china cup, is my favourite German contribution to this eccentric collection. Languages rich in compound words are especially good at coining new ones, but all languages have these words that are so particular and apposite, you can't think how your own tongue has done without them. They don't all catch on, or stay in the language. Blumenkaffee seems to have survived the demise of pretty cups with patterns inside, but the English "maffick", meaning to celebrate in the streets, came into use after the street celebrations of victory at Mafeking and soon died out again, though street celebrations did not. I hope niblings will survive.
Although I don't know a word for that in any language, one advantage of being a linguist is that you get to assemble a collection of these handy, ultra-specific words, which may not exist in your own tongue but do in others. When I hear people moaning because times have changed and they can no longer smoke indoors, drive half-drunk or catcall young women unchallenged, I think of them as "buivshi", the word Soviet Russia sometimes used to characterise people whose thought processes were stuck in pre-revolutionary times. It means "the former people", or "people of former times", and in that is reminiscent of our own "has-beens", but the meaning is different. Has-beens are people who were once noted, even famous, at what they did, but are now either out of style or past their best - an eighties pop star or an ageing boxer might be a has-been. Buivshi are people who belong in the past, who can't adapt to change. The closest in English might be "dinosaur", but apart from being a shade metaphorical, that connotes not just extinction but power, something that in its time was awesome, and doesn't quite convey the contempt in "buivshi".
Blumenkaffee, coffee so weak you can see the pattern of flowers on the inside of an old-fashioned china cup, is my favourite German contribution to this eccentric collection. Languages rich in compound words are especially good at coining new ones, but all languages have these words that are so particular and apposite, you can't think how your own tongue has done without them. They don't all catch on, or stay in the language. Blumenkaffee seems to have survived the demise of pretty cups with patterns inside, but the English "maffick", meaning to celebrate in the streets, came into use after the street celebrations of victory at Mafeking and soon died out again, though street celebrations did not. I hope niblings will survive.
