Obviously I jumped straight down to Welsh, and I do like cwtch, which is apparently literally the space between someone's arms when they're hugging you, and extends idiomatically to any space that feels the same way. Makes me wish Dafydd had kept using Welsh; then I'd have an excuse to use it. And amusingly, it looks like it also exists in Portugese, as colo. Go go gadget Indo-European?

Skimming up the list, we have Huron orenda, glossed as 'the power of the human will to change the world in the face of powerful forces'. That's a cool word which is particularly relevant to fiction writers.

A bit further up, we have the most PPCish word: wanderlust. (Anyone else remember that J&A returned to FF.N as that?) And then right at the top we have the actual most PPCish word: Balinese ramé, 'something at once chaotic and joyful'. Yup, that's the PPC all right.

Thanks, Nesh!

hS

Kukelure is my personal favorite. It means 'To just sit there and think about things while doing nothing at all.' Aware in Japanese is also nice.

They don't get many cyclones or tornadoes in the Netherlands, do they?

loan words from Hebrew.

One of them, amusingly enough, is actually in the Hebrew list as well.

Nachus: pride in someone else's actions. (Yiddish)
Nachat (נחת) - Contented pride in your progeny's or student's accomplishment. (Hebrew)

Same word, different pronunciation. Same spelling, too, not that it's in there. It's just being pronounced Ashkenazi Hebrew style instead of Sephardi Hebrew style, as one does in Yiddish (when one isn't also mangling the sounds together). Nachus as used in English today also has basically the same meaning as given for the Hebrew term--satisfaction/contented pride from (usually) your progeny's actions.

As for the others...

Gemilut hasadim: loving-kindness. (Yiddish)

Yeah, also Hebrew. It's from...I think Pirkei Avot? From a verse of a teaching that translates to: "On three things the world stands: on the Torah, on the avodah (lit: work, in this context, worship), and on g'milut chasadim". It's also a song. The pronunciation is only correct to Hebrew, by the way; my dictionary says it's "gmiles-khsodim". Hurray for Uriel Weinreich's dictionary! And, er...he translates it as "loan[s] without interest". Sorry, word list makers.

Hachnasat orchim: ‘welcoming the stranger,’ offering hospitality and respect to strangers. (Yiddish)

Yeahhh, also Hebrew! The translation is correct (though Weinreich adds that it refers to "the commandment of hospitality to guests, esp. on the Sabbath and holidays"); the pronunciation is also correct...to Hebrew. In Yiddish, according to the dictionary I checked, it should be "Hachnoses orchim". Same words, different emphasis, and a soft tav (something that Sephardi Hebrew doesn't use, hence half the differences I've been pointing out.

Tzedaka: generosity, required righteous giving. (Yiddish)

Yup, Hebrew word. Same spelling in Yiddish, but pronounced "tzdoke". Meaning is the same, though I'd put it differently; namely, it's charity, generosity, and, yes, a mitzvah (there are even different levels of charity, the highest of which according to...Maimonides?? Someone in the Talmud? I don't remember) is giving anonymously.

Fargin: to glow with pride and happiness at the successes of others. (Yiddish)

I have no clue. If it has this meaning, it's not in Weinreich. He has Fargeyn in there (no Fargn, which is the other thing Fargin could be spelled as), but it means "pass (away); (sun) set" and then has some variations. It could just not be in here, though, or come from a different language and not be something Weinreich encountered.

Kvell: to feel pride and joy in someone else's accomplishment.

A bit more elaborate than Weinreich's definition, but sure, that's basically it. (Weinreich says "beam (at), be delighted (with), revel in".) The verb form is kvellen.

Menschlichkeit: being a good human being in its fullest sense.

...or "humanity (humaneness)" according to Weinreich, but, well, that's pretty similar too.

Well! That just about sums it up. Only one thing left, and that is the following:

Since the actual spelling of the Yiddish isn't given, I'm going to provide it!

G'milut chasadim/gmiles khsodim: גמילות חסדים
Hachnasat orchim/hakhnoses orkhim: הכנסת אורחים
Tzedaka/tzdoke: צדקה
Fargin: probably פֿאַרגן. Fargeyn, which I gave, is: פֿאַרגײן (and is a verb)
Kvell, kvellen: קװעל, קװעלן
Menschlichkeit: מענטשלעכקײט

So. Not that this isn't pretty cool, but...honestly, the Yiddish feels like it's lacking. Four out of seven words are from Hebrew--and transliterated as they would be from Hebrew, apart from nachus (pronounced nakhis, not nakhoos, by the way). They also are given only in transliteration, although I do note that some of the other languages receive the same treatment.

I...suppose I should write him a version of this, shouldn't I? I see he's requested help in improving the definitions. I'll put it on my list of things to do.

/scuttles back towards essay sources research/

/scuttles back/ Thanks for posting this, by the way! Even just this much--the analyzing--was pretty fun. I'm looking forward to reading through some of the words from the other languages.

(Also, it's pretty great that Yiddish is on here. That I'm pleased with. I wasn't sure it'd come up when I searched it.)

/scuttles away again/

~DF

Using too many words, however, is another problem entirely...

My favorites are the Norwegian word 'Gjensynsglede' (the joy of meeting someone you haven't seen in a long time) and the French word 'Retrouvailles' (the joy people feel after meeting loved ones again after a long time apart).

Interestingly, both of them are from the same section of the website. That likely says something about me.

I took a particular liking to cafune, which is Portuguese, and means "to tenderly run one's fingers through the hair of a lover." Famn, in Swedish, which is "the space between the arms in an embrace," was another favourite of mine. Mbuki-mvuki, which is Bantu, cracked me up, because it means "to shed clothes so one can dance uninhibited."
Speaking of words that have no English translation, I could have sworn I knew a Spanish one that meant, "a surprise attack in the little of the night." However, I can't remember it for the life of me at the moment. Hm...