Culture & Technology

11 Words Explained In Beautiful Illustrations

The act of tenderly running fingers through someone's hair
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Undeniably a sacred language of our ancestors is extremely beautiful and rich. But even though we know with a handful of letters we can say everything, in some cases, we need a little more than that.

And when words are not enough, starts talking art. Mary…is an artist-Illustrator who creates drawings, describing those foreign words that are missing in our speech. A series of illustrations is called “Untranslatable words”, and some of them we present here:

 

1. Cafuné (Portuguese) – The act of tenderly running fingers through someone’s hair.

The act of tenderly running fingers through someone's hair

 

 

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2. Gufra (Arabic) – The amount of water that can be held in a hand.

Charming-Series-of-Illustrations-Depict-What-Words-Fail-to-Capture-Gufra-The-amount-of-water-that-can-be-held-in-a-hand

 

 

3. Duende (Spanish) – The mysterious power that a work of art hag to deeply move a person.

cute-illustrations-untranslatable-words-marija-tiurina Duende

 

 

4. L’appel Duvide (French) – “The call of the void” is this expression’s literal translation, but more significantly it’s used to describe the instinctive urge to jump from a high place.

Series-of-Illustrations-Depict-What-Words-Fail-to-Capture-L’appel-Duvide

 

 

5. Palegg (Norwegian) – Anything and everything that you can put on a slice of bread.

Charming-Series-of-Illustrations-Depict-What-Words-Fail-to-Capture--Palegg

 

 

6. Baku-shan (Japanese) – А beautiful girl – as long as she is being viewed from behind.

Series-of-Illustrations-Depict-What-Words-Fail-to-Capture1-Baku-shan

 

 

7. Age-Otori (Japanese) – To look worse after a haircut.

cute-illustrations-untranslatable-words-marija-tiurina Age-Otori

 

 

8. Kyoikumama (Japanese) – A mother who relentlessly pushes her children toward academic achievement.

cute-illustrations-untranslatable-words-marija-tiurina Kyoikumama

 

 

9. Tretar (Swedish) – On its own, “tar” means ”a cup of coffee” and ”patar” is the refill of said cup of coffee. A tretar is a second refill or “threefill”.

Charming-Series-of-Illustrations-Depict-What-Words-Fail-to-Capture-Tretar

 

 

10. Tingo (pascuense; local language of inhabitants of Easter Island) – The act of taking objects one desires from the house of a friend by gradually borrowing all of them.

cute-illustrations-untranslatable-words-marija-tiurina

 

 

11. Torschlusspanik (German) – ”Gate-closing panic”, or the fear of diminishing opportunities as one ages.

Charming-Series-of-Illustrations-Depict-What-Words-Fail-to-Capture-Torchlusspanik

 

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