Linguists (oh, God bless them) have determined
that the Congloese word Ilunga is, in fact, the hardest word in the world to translate. Ilunga, which means “a
person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time”,
beat out other brain-straining words as selathirupavar (see below). There are bonus points and a
yet-to-be-designed-and-printed Gadling.com T-shirt for the person who best uses it in a sentence.
The Linguists taking part in the poll were native speakers of languages ranging from English and French to Turkish,
Ukranian, Chinese, Dari, Farsi, Amharic, Pushto, Somali, Tamil and many others.
And of course, I know you’re wondering, so here are more results:
THE TEN FOREIGN WORDS THAT WERE VOTED HARDEST TO TRANSLATE
1 ilunga [Tshiluba word for a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time; to tolerate it a second
time; but never a third time. Note: Tshiluba is a Bantu language spoken in south-eastern Congo, and Zaire]
2 shlimazl [Yiddish for a chronically unlucky person]
3 radioukacz [Polish for a person who worked as a telegraphist for the resistance movements on the Soviet side of the
Iron Curtain]
4 naa [Japanese word only used in the Kansai area of Japan, to emphasise statements or agree with someone]
5 altahmam [Arabic for a kind of deep sadness]
6 gezellig [Dutch for cosy]
7 saudade [Portuguese for a certain type of longing]
8 selathirupavar [Tamil for a certain type of truancy]
9 pochemuchka [Russian for a person who asks a lot of questions]
10 klloshar [Albanian for loser] .