Losable in translation

Ilunga is the most untranslatable word in the world, according to a survey of professional translators.

From the Bantu language of Tshiluba, ilunga means a person ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time.

It topped the list compiled with the help of 1000 translators, narrowly beating shlimazl, Yiddish for a chronically unlucky person, and radioukacz, Polish for a person who worked as a telegraphist for the resistance movements on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain.

From the Australian, reprinted from the Times of London (both of which managed to misspell shlimazl as "hlimazl" -- our corrected text appears above).

Posted by David on June 22, 2004 7:06 PM