that pesky virus

Sweet little animation made by a Mr. Alan Becker.

oh that L’esprit de escalier

English is my native language, but I guess I never thought about how there's not always a word for everything. . . Here's a few words that don't exist in the English language:

L’esprit de escalier: (French) The feeling you get after leaving a conversation, when you think of all the things you should have said. Translated it means “the spirit of the staircase.”
Waldeinsamkeit: (German) The feeling of being alone in the woods.
Meraki: (Greek) Doing something with soul, creativity, or love.
Forelsket: (Norwegian) The euphoria you experience when you are first falling in love.
Gheegle: (Filipino) The urge to pinch or squeeze something that is unbearably cute.
Pochemuchka: (Russian) A person who asks a lot of questions.
Pena ajena: (Mexican Spanish) The embarrassment you feel watching someone else’s humiliation.
Cualacino: (Italian) The mark left on a table by a cold glass.
Ilunga: (Tshiluba, Congo) A person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time.
Pochemuchka (Russian) - A person who asks a lot of questions.
Chantepleurer (French) - Singing and crying at the same time.

In some ways, finding this made me feel quite uncultured and like I should become a linguist or anthropologist or something and actually learn about other people outside my own happy little bubble college town. But finding this made me wonder what other similarities and differences my language has to others around the world and whether there are words unique to English.

Waaait. I can claim a tiny bit of culturedness! I learned some sign language this past year, which was a really fun and interesting experience and showed me that there are so many different ways to communicate similar things. Sign language is particularly captivating because it's so physical. Sometimes, hearing-people talk quite boringly, but ASL users are always telling a story and always so animated. It's often like watching a performance.

Anyway, I just think it's cool that different cultures are creative in different ways. Am I going to adopt at least one of the words in the above list into my everyday vocab? Duh. (Slowly, but surely y'all, I'm gonna triumph over the whole uncultured thing.)

Click to view larger. (Photos from foreignlanguageexchange.com and bab.la)