Geniusindeed! Mit bandwidthbittensaven und Nettenspeedgefastermaken, das Deutscherwonderkind Spacengedroppen, ein Brilliantischer Internettengeplanningwerken.
Oh dear, that is ages ago, but I made a whole webpage of this words that do not translate in English, German and Spanish: untrans.eu Nice showing off it was.
Yeah, had that too. Nice word indeed, and in 2014 the Spanish Academy accepted the loanword serendipia as cromulent Spanish. Felt vindicated. Nice feeling.
Nice site - looks like a lot of work went into this. Can you only view untranslatable words in your own language though? What I find most interesting is viewing what unique words other languages have.
I explained the words I chose in their respective language: English words in English, Spanish words in Spanish, German words in German. It was a lot of work, indeed, and if I had explained the words in the other languages - which is sensible, explaining them to those who do no have them and thus don’t understand them - it would have been three times the work. It was only a hobby, perhaps I should have done it that way, but not without a sponsor. And I never bothered to search for one.
ETA: But I am glad you liked it!
Google translate isn’t quite good enough to interpret your lovely writing style but as translation tech improves it will increasingly make it easier for parts of the internet, and for sites like yours, to be read across language barriers.
So Bored Panda claims that the English language has exactly “one million, twenty five thousand, one hundred and nine words.” I view that claim with extreme skepticism. I don’t think anybody knows how many words exist in English; besides, most estimates are somewhat lower.
I briefly dated a German boy in my teens, and he taught me the word “weltschmaltz.” But the definition I recall him giving me was adjacent to, but different from, what Google is telling me.
IIRC, he said it meant “nostalgia for something that never existed.” Google just translates it as “world-weariness” and melancholy.
To our German speakers, is there a different word in German that means “nostalgia for something that never existed”? Or perhaps weltschmaltz does mean what I thought he said, and my Googling is missing the nuances?
In any case, for decades I have been enchanted by the concept of nostalgia for something that never existed, so I hope there is a word for it. (Otherwise, I guess I have nostalgia for a word that never existed.)
Indeed. Try deepl.com, they are much better. Still not good enough, I hope.
Weltschmalz it isn’t, as it does not mean what you think it means, but it is very funny. Weltschmerz (literally: World Pain, the world hurts, and it hurts you) is world weariness and general melancholy, Weltschmalz means World Lard, or world-lardiness, if this makes sense (spoiler: not really, that is why I find it funny). As for the word you are looking for, anemoia comes close, but it is not quite what you mean. And it is not German, sounds Greek to me.
ETA: Somewhat ninja’d, he, Uniqueorn? I am too slow…
In English, at least (via Yiddish), “schmaltz” also means excessive and melodramatic sentimentality, particularly in fiction. I don’t know if it has this sense in German, but I almost wonder if the guy CairoCarol was dating might have made up the word “Weltschmalz” as a joke.
Yes, Schmaltz in German has that same connotation, an overtly sentimental movie or song is “schmaltzig”. I don’t know if Yiddish took that meaning from German or German back from Yiddish. There are quite a lot Yiddish loan-words (and Hebrew via Yiddish) in German.
In the Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache I find a reference that goes back to the 9th century, when what later would become German was a language linguists call today Althochdeutsch, so the direction seems to be from German to Yiddish. Makes sense to me, as Yiddish seems unlikely to linger long on words concerning pig’s rendered fat but could well take a German word about pigs and use it in a derisory manner.
Although the Japanese word Otaku has been loosely translated in America to mean a fan of anime, I feel that it doesn’t truly capture the Japanese meaning as the derogatory word for the nerdiest of nerds.
