Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

I mean, technically you can do this in English as well. English is a Germanic language and compound words are fully legitimate in the language. The following don't exist in the colloquialisms or formal records of the language, but are grammatically correct:

  Wehmot -> sorecourage
  Einsam -> onepeace
  Stimmung -> innervoice
  Lebensmut -> lifegrit
  Liebenswürdig -> loveworthy
And, despite the author's claims, many do have direct equivalent words in English:

  Ursprung -> outspring
  Aufrichtigkeit -> uprightness
  Entwicklung -> unwrapping
  Entschuldigen -> unguilt
All of which could be used in the manner described in the article. As well as having accurate one-word synonyms:

  outspring: origin / original
  uprightness: compunction
  unwrapping: developing, delving, growth
  unguilt: unburden
The main difference in the languages is that modern English (especially 20th century on) has relied more on loanwords (another compound word) and hyphenations to augment. Love-worthy, for instance:

https://www.wordnik.com/words/love-worthy

It's hard to count compound words as "words that don't exist in other languages", honestly. Meanwhile, there are perfectly acceptable (compound or not) words that actually give voice to something hard to describe in other languages. Which is a far more interesting (IMHO) concept; such as "schadenfreude" or, going the other way for many languages, "irony".




Interestingly here, "loanword" is a calque from the German "lehnwort", which reminds me of my favourite language fact: "loanword" is a calque, and "calque" is a loanword.


I am not convinced that Wehmut translates to sorecourage. The -mut ending appears in other emotions as well, Sanftmut, Schwermut for example. I think it relates to words like "Gemüt" and corresponds to "mood".

So

Soremood Softmood Heavymood


I took some liberties on a couple to try and capture the meaning of the German word; "einsam" for instance would better translate into "onesome".

I'm also not a native speaker, so I could be completely off.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: