Words from everywhere

I have collected some knowledge about people from different countries and cultures over the time period that I have lived in Berlin. One thing that I find myself paying particular attention to these days is how words are constructed in different languages and how some words exist in one language and not in another. Following is a list of words (mostly English sadly) which I think are quite unique.


Weltschmerzen (German)

The beauty in German is that it combines words to form longer words (an "agglutinative" language since we are on the subject of words). So koepf in German means head and schmerzen means ache/pain. So Keopfschmerzen is headache. In much the same way, Welt is world and Weltschmerzen is "the pain of the world".
What it really means is that if you could imagine worrying about everythig in the world, say from hunger and politics to stars and insects to facebook to cars, if you could hypothetically worry about everything, and how temperoary everything is and how meangingful the persuit of happiness is, THEN you truely have Weltscherzen. In essence it the pain associated with just existing and just being alive.


Wanderlust (Loanword from German, now English)

Here we have, something that many young adolescents might associate themselves with. Wanderlust is the desire, the urge, the wish the hope and the lust for travelling to a place, somewhere, anywhere that one has never been to before. It symbolises breaking free from the hustle bustle of mundane life. It is for people who want to seek out "new life and new civilizations"


Alexithemia ( English)


I love words which have a sense of humour about them, and I think alexythemia is one such. This word ( which I am not sure even native speakers of English would even know. I am sure the Americans wouldnt know that , the Brits and others might:p) describes the condition one has when one cant describe emotions in a verbal manner. So they actually have a word, and quite a difficult one at that, for when you cant describe your emotions in a verbal manner. :(



Flaneur ( there is an umlaut on the letter "a" and yes it is a french word)

This word describes a person who wanders around aimlessly BUT enjoyably through life while observing everything that life has in store. All of us have it so some extent I suppose.

Baraye Meharbani ( Urdu)

What do we say when we want someone to do something for us? We say please. this is the Urdu word for please which is made up of two words Baraye ( meaning for the sake of / in order to ) and Meharbani( thankfulness)

So when you combine these two words you have something that would translate in English to "please do something after which I will thank you for doing it)

So if you meet a native speaker of Urdu (like myself) and he/she says please to you. You should picture in your head the following sentence "please do something after which I can thank you"

Adoxography ( English)

and finally I end this blog entry by mentioning a word that means "an elaborate writing on a subject of little or no use whatever" which is quite in itself the description of my blog and this post.