In Marginal Revolution today Alex Tabarrok, has a fun post about words that are difficult to translate. My favorite:
pochemuchka [Russian for a person who asks a lot of questions]
Actually it’s a little cuter than that. It’s derived from the Russian word pochemu (pr. pah-chyi-MOO), “why”. Therefore it means literally somebody who’s constantly asking “why”. Imagine a six-year-old. That pretty much does it. I’d appreciate more information on any of the words in the list.
Towards the end of the post Mr. Tabarrok writes:
It’s rather common to hear that language determines thought and thus if a language has no words for a concept then that concept can’t really be understood by a speaker of that language.
That’s the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. The extreme version of the hypothesis in which thought is actually determined by language has been pretty much discredited but the weak version i.e. that language influences thought is widely accepted. My own notion is that language functions as “hooks” on which you can “hang” concepts. Doesn’t mean you can’t have the concepts. But it suggests that they’re a lot easier to work with.
