Toujours Tingo Read online

Page 7


  ibn al bat ‘awwam (Arabic) the son of a duck is a floater

  filho de peixe sabe nadar (Portuguese) a fish’s child knows how to swim

  de tal palo tal astilla (Spanish) from such stick comes such splinter

  hijo de tigre sale rayado (Central American Spanish) the son of the tiger turns out striped

  barewa tayi gudu danta ya yi rarrafe? (Hausa, Nigeria) how can the offspring of a gazelle crawl when its mother is a fast runner?

  * Obviously, not to be confused with hangouderen (Dutch), pensioners who have nothing to do but hang around in considerable numbers in shopping malls and hamburger bars (literally, hanging elderly)

  9.

  Body Beautiful

  kozla boysya speredi, konya – szadi, a likhogo cheloveka – so vsekh storon (Russian)

  beware of the goat from its front side, of the horse – from its back side, and the evil man – from any side

  Mugshot

  Our face is our fortune, they say, but some are undeniably more fortunate than others:

  chimmurui no kao (Japanese) a face that would stop a clock

  kwabbig (Dutch) flabby pendulous cheeks

  orilti (Anywa, Nilo-Saharan) wrinkles on the forehead

  papada (Spanish) a double chin

  boirg (Gaelic) a small screwed-up mouth

  busachd (Gaelic) the deformity of blubber-lips

  bemandromba (Malagasy, Madagascar) having a large and ill-looking head

  avoir un oeil qui joue au billard et l’autre qui compte les points (French) said of someone who is cross-eyed (literally, to have one eye that’s playing billiards while the other is off counting the points)

  False friends

  ache (Bashgali, India) an eye

  bonk (Dutch) bone

  flint (Swedish) bald head

  glad (Dutch) smooth, sleek

  groin (French) snout

  honk (Armenian) eyebrow

  mute (Latvian) mouth

  pea (Estonian) head

  pong (Khowar, Pakistan) foot

  Gobstruck

  Of course it’s all too easy to spoil the appearance of what we’ve been given…

  vaaye-nokke (Malayalam) to stare at somebody with your mouth open (literally, mouth-see)

  gaillseach (Gaelic) a large mouthful which makes the cheeks bulge out

  … especially if we’re putting it to good use:

  kecomak-kecamik (Indonesian) to move the mouth around when eating something or saying a prayer

  fújtat (Hungarian) to pant, puff and blow

  menggonggong (Malay) to carry something in your mouth

  ayapsun (Dakota, USA) to pull something out by the roots using the mouth

  raspakbivat’ varezhky (Russian) to drop one’s jaw in surprise or amazement (literally, to open someone’s mitten)

  Lippy

  With the fleshiest part of that useful opening, emotion can easily get the better of appearance:

  maiskuttaa (Finnish) to smack one’s lips

  bibidia (Swahili) to thrust out and turn down the lower lip as a sign of derision or contempt

  Tsk tsk

  In many parts of the world, the tongue is not used just for speaking or eating:

  tam-tac (Vietnamese) to smack the tongue as a sign of admiration

  mitimiti (Rapa Nui, Easter Island) to click one’s tongue as a sign of disagreement or of annoyance (tsk, tsk)

  auau (Bugotu, Solomon Islands) to stick the tongue out

  lamz (Persian) rolling the tongue about the mouth to pick the teeth

  imel-es (Ik, Nilo-Saharan) to move the tongue in and out like a snake

  Trouble gum

  Americans talk disparagingly of ‘English teeth’, but England is not the only country in the world where dental radiance could be improved:

  kasyápa (Sanskrit) having black teeth

  kadadat (Sinhala, Sri Lanka) possessing only half of your original teeth

  wahdatepa (Dakota, USA) to wear one’s own teeth short

  si gwa pau (Cantonese) someone with buck teeth (literally, watermelon shoveller)

  Smiling, squirting, stripping

  The Italians say, ‘Teeth placed before the tongue give good advice’; and whatever your gnashers look like, you can always put them to good use:

  gigil (Tagalog, Philippines) the gritting of the teeth when controlling emotion

  n’wayin’wayi (Tsonga, South Africa) to smile showing the teeth

  ntseka (Tsonga, South Africa) to squirt forcibly through the teeth

  ki’it (Manobo, Philippines) to bite off something with the front teeth (as when eating corn on the cob)

  yigul-a (Yamana, Chile) to pull out stitches with the teeth

  eeti (Rapanui, Easter Island) to strip off bark or hard skin with the teeth

  dona (Yamana, Chile) to take out lice from a person’s head and squash them between one’s teeth

  dentilegus (Latin) one who picks up his teeth after they have been knocked out

  Long teeth

  When the French talk of aiming for the impossible, they say they are trying to prendre la lune avec les dents, literally, to seize the moon with one’s teeth; to be very ambitious, likewise, is avoir les dents qui rayent le parquet, to have teeth that scratch the floor. For the Finns, to do something unwillingly is pitkin hampain, with long teeth; while for the Spanish, andar con el diente largo, walking around with long teeth, means to be very hungry.

  Copping an eyeful

  ‘The eyes are the mirror of the soul,’ say the Japanese, echoing an English saying. But often it’s the more mundane aspects of these organs that people worry about:

  xitsavatsava (Tsonga, South Africa) the involuntary twitching of an eyelid or eyebrow

  bitlisisa (Setswana, Botswana) a sore eye that has been rubbed

  kuseng (Manobo, Philippines) to rub one’s eyes with the back of the hand

  rabun ayam (Malay) poor eyesight, especially during sunset

  Bewitching

  As with the teeth, our peepers are at their best when they’re put to use:

  gwilgat (Breton, France) to watch from the corner of one’s eye

  langut (Malay) to look upwards longingly

  pangangalumbabà (Tagalog, Philippines) a pensive look (with the head supported by the palm)

  ingikaranawá (Sinhala, Sri Lanka) to wink significantly

  vekaveka (Luvale, Zambia) the shiftiness of eyes, looking here and there with madness or evil intent

  temuna (Luvale, Zambia) to pull down an eyelid in mockery

  embila (Maguindanaon, Philippines) to pretend to be cross-eyed

  Cyrano

  The French say that ‘a big nose never spoiled a handsome face’, a charitable judgement, perhaps influenced by the many fine probosci to be found in that country. But others have more serious problems than mere size:

  khuranásá (Sinhala, Sri Lanka) one having a nose like a horse’s hoof

  tapíl (Tagalog, Philippines) flat-nosed

  bapp-nose (Scots) a nose threatening to meet the chin

  ngongò (Tagalog, Philippines) one who talks with a twang due to a nasal disorder

  patināsikā (Pali, India) a false nose

  Lughole

  Big or small, flat or sticky-out, our final external organs on the head are also closely observed by our worldwide languages:

  anak telinga (Malay) the external gristly portion of the ear

  budálu (Telugu, India) the place where the top of the ear meets the head

  ukkanna (Pali, India) having the ears erect

  n’wii (Tsonga, South Africa) to have buzzing in the ears, as when under water

  parece Volkswagen con las puertas abiertas (Latin American Spanish) big-eared (literally, he looks like a Volkswagen with the doors open)

  Grass belong head

  In the Tok Pisin language of Papua New Guinea, they call hair gras bilong het. Such grass may take different forms, quite apart from appearing in all the wrong places:

  kesuir (Malay) hai
ry nostrils

  gejigeji-mayuge (Japanese) bushy eyebrows (literally, centipede eyebrows)

  giri-giri (Hawaiian Pidgin) the place where two or three hairs stick up no matter what

  mas (Hindi) soft hair appearing above a lad’s upper lip, heralding the imminent advent of youth

  kapúcchala (Sanskrit) a tuft of hair on the hind part of the head (hanging down like a tail)

  pédevádu (Telugu, India) a man upon whose face hair does not grow

  Octopus monk

  For many men age brings a related and inescapable problem:

  katok (Russian) a bald patch (literally, a skating rink)

  baakoodo hage Japanese) said of a man with receding hair who combs what remains at the sides over the top of his head (literally, barcode bald, due to how it looks viewed from above)

  hlohlwe (Tsonga, South Africa) a forehead with corners devoid of hair (applied to a person whose hair is receding)

  tako-nyudo (Japanese) a baldy (literally, octopus monk)

  Oeuf-tête

  The French, in particular, have a fine range of expressions for this challenging condition:

  avoir le melon déplumé to have a plucked melon

  avoir une boule de billard to have a billiard ball

  ne plus avoir de cresson sur la cafetière no longer to have watercress on the coffeepot

  ne plus avoir de gazon sur la platebande no longer to have a lawn on the flowerbed

  avoir la casquette en peau de fesses to have a cap made out of buck skin

  être chauve comme un genou to be as bald as a knee

  avoir un vélodrome à mouches to have a velodrome for flies

  Well-armed

  We have upper and lower arms and elbows, but the Swedes have a word for the opposite side of the arm from the elbow – armveck. Other useful words stress the practical uses of these appendages:

  kwapatira (Chichewa, Malawi) to carry something tucked under the arm

  cholat (Malay) to dig with the elbow or the hand

  athevotho (Bugotu, Solomon Islands) to swing the arms, wave or clear away smoke

  Japanese birthdays

  In the West, the birthdays that are particularly celebrated are those of coming of age: 18 and 21. In Japan, the older you get the more solemnly your birthday (sanga) is celebrated. The birthdays of especial importance are:

  40: shoro, the beginning of old age, since Confucius said: ‘When I was forty I did not wander.’

  61: kanreki, the completion of the sixty-year cycle; the celebrant wears a red cap and a red kimono and is congratulated by everybody for having become ‘a newborn baby once more’

  70: koki, rare age, so called because the poet Tu Fu said that it was a privilege for a person to reach the age of seventy

  77: kiju, long and happy life

  88: beiju, the rice birthday

  These last two birthdays gain their names from the similarity of the Japanese ideograms for ‘joy’ and ‘rice’ to those for the numbers 77 and 88 respectively.

  Handy

  In the Tsonga language of South Africa they have the expressive word vunyiriri, the stiffness of hands and feet felt on cold wintry mornings; while the Telugu language of India describes kamikili, the hand held with fingers bent and separated. However they’ repositioned, their uses are manifold:

  apphoteti (Pali, India) to clap the hands as a sign of pleasure

  aupiupiu (Mailu, Papua New Guinea) to flick an insect off the body

  ka-cha-to-re (Car, Nicobar Islands) to hang down by one’s hands

  duiri (Buli, Ghana) to pass one’s hands over skin so that the hairs stand up

  pamamaywáng (Tagalog, Philippines) placing the hands on one’s hips

  geu (Bugotu, Solomon Islands) to thrust one’s hand into a bag

  And two are even better than one:

  raup (Malay) to scoop up with both hands

  anjali (Hindi) the cup-shaped hollow formed by joining the two palms together

  chal (Car, Nicobar Islands) to lift up something heavy using both hands

  kaf faksara (Rotuman, South Pacific) to clap the hands with one finger bent inwards to make a hollow sound

  Digital

  ‘Without fingers,’ say the Moroccans, ‘the hand would be a spoon.’ And where indeed would we be without our essential digits?

  gamaza (Arabic) to take with the fingertips

  gutόl (Tagalog, Philippines) snipping with the fingernails

  menonjolkan (Malay) to push one’s fingers into someone’s face

  tstumi-oidagana (Yamana, Chile) to offer one’s finger or any part of oneself to be bitten

  sena (Sinhala, Sri Lanka) the time that elapses while snapping the thumb and forefinger ten times

  Doigt de seigneur

  In French, starting from the one nearest the thumb, you have index; majeur – biggest finger; annulaire – ring finger; and, last but not least, aurlculaire – literally, the ear finger, because it’s the only one small enough to stick in your ear. But if your digits don’t stop there, you have to go to the Luvale language of Zambia for the sambwilo, the sixth finger or toe.

  Expansive

  In the Malay language, they use the space between the fingers for a series of useful measurements:

  jengkal the span between thumb and finger

  jengkul the span between thumb and index finger

  telunjok the span between thumb and the joint of the bent index finger

  ketengkeng the span between thumb and little finger

  Classified

  Further down the body, one reaches those parts generally described as private. In Southern Africa, they appear to have thought more than most about keeping it that way:

  phindzela (Tsonga, South Africa) to cover one’s private parts carefully

  tswi (Tsonga, South Africa) to expose one’s private parts by bending forward

  ikokomela (Setswana, Botswana) to look at one’s own private parts

  Peppers and Parasols

  The Japanese have a memorable vocabulary to describe their (male) genitalia:

  imo a potato, a penis that is short and fat

  tōgarashi a red pepper, a penis that is small and pink

  gobō a burdock, a penis that is large and tubular

  kenke small, tight testicles (literally pickles)

  karakasa a paper parasol, a penis that is unusually top-heavy

  Map of the world

  French slang uses even more elaborate metaphors. A penis is either une anguille de calecif, an underwear eel, or un cigare à moustache, a cigar with a moustache. In similarly fanciful fashion, breasts are described as une mappemonde, literally, a map of the world (spread across two hemispheres).

  Bum deal

  Round the back, it seems, we are free to be frank, especially in East Africa and the Philippines:

  shuri (Swahili) a person whose buttocks stick out more than those of the average person

  tuwad (Maguindanaon, Philippines) to make one’s buttocks project

  egklsu-kisu (Maguindanaon, Philippines) to move the buttocks little by little

  pinginyika (Swahili) to move the buttocks with a circular motion when walking or dancing

  Milk bottles

  When it comes to the legs, English has no word to describe the back of the knee. Irish Gaelic calls it the ioscaid, the Swedes knäveck, while the Native American Dakota language calls it hunyoka-khmin. Other languages are similarly descriptive about both the appearance and the movement of our lower half:

  euischios (Ancient Greek) with beautiful hips

  melkflessen (Dutch) bare legs which have not been suntanned (literally, milk bottles)

  kerchiholl (Albanian) having thin lower legs

  anyula (Tsonga, South Africa) to open one’s legs indecently

  hiza ga warau (Japanese) the wobbly feeling you have in your legs after dashing up several flights of stairs (literally, my knees are laughing)

  Thin as a rake

  When it comes to the whole package, ther
e are differences of opinion about how substantial you should be. In general, the modern world applauds the skinny, even as our languages hark back to a less prosperous age in their comparisons:

  ser magro como um palito (Portuguese) to be as thin as a toothpick

  zo mager als een lat zijn (Dutch) to be as thin as a wooden latch

  po ru zhu (Mandarin) thin as paper

  flaco como un güin (Cuban Spanish) thin as a sugar-cane flower

  kostur slab (Macedonian) thin as a skeleton

  loksh (Yiddish) a noodle, a tall thin person

  Bacon buoy

  While fatties come in for all kinds of criticism:

  vuthlkithlki (Tsonga, South Africa) body fat which shakes at every step

  juyaku-bara (Japanese) a paunch (literally, company director’s stomach)

  tivili (Sinhala, Sri Lanka) a person with three dents in his belly (from fatness)

  foca (Spanish) a very fat woman (literally, a seal)

  yongzhong (Chinese) too fat and clumsy to move

  gordo como una buoya (Cuban Spanish) fat as a buoy

  abspecken (German) losing weight (literally, de-baconing)

  fai prima a saltargli sopra die girargli intorno (Italian) it’s faster to jump on him than go round him (because he’s so fat)

  Illusory

  Not, of course, that you can always judge from appearances:

  Sitzriese (German) someone who is actually quite short but looks tall when they’re sitting down (literally, sitting giant)