Ren Allen

I just saw this over at UD and thought it was really cool, in light or
our recent round on "Buts":

Posted by JJrossed:
A new word book we just discovered is "The Meaning of Tingo and Other
Extraordinary Words from around the World" by former BBC researcher and
traveler Adam de Boinod- not quite etymology or vocabulary, more like
culture roots in words we never heard before, like Sherlock Holmes and
the dog that didn't bark. It's interesting to see what words and
meanings our language doesn't have, that other cultures do.

For example, "areodjarekput" in Inuit means "to exchange wives for a
few days only." The Japanese word bakku-shan applies to "a woman who
seems pretty when seen from behind but not from the front."
(bakku-shan) And tingo from the title is an Easter Island word meaning
"to take all the objects one desires from the house of a friend, one at
a time, by borrowing them."

I'm tempted to set up a new unschooling group for all us "neko-nekos"
(Indonesian for someone whose creative ideas are blamed for making
things worse.) Not to be confused with - but combined perhaps? - the
Yiddish nakhes, which means the pleasure and pride a parent enjoys from
her child. Pam S. might know something about the Persian word for
producing "ingenious, witty children" - izraf.

The back jacket flap says English has long plundered foreign cultures
for new words and here are some we missed, arranged by theme the better
to compare attitudes on universals like food, the human body, love and
sex -- a feast of meaning "for word lovers, laughter lovers and wisdom
seekers."

JJ
http://www.culturekitchen.com/jj_ross/blog