“tingo”的意思

The Meaning Of Tingo

By Chris Rose

I recently found a book by the writer Adam Jacot de Boinod called The Meaning Of Tingo.  As a native speaker of English, I was a bit confused. I had never heard of this word “tingo”, and was curious about the title of the book.

　　As I soon found out, even if you are not a native speaker, then going to your dictionary and looking up the word “tingo” will not help. In fact, you probably won’t find the word “tingo” there at all, and not least because of the fact that “tingo” is not an English word. “Tingo”, it seems, is one of very many words which cannot be translated into English – or at least one of those words which are very difficult to try and translate into English, or even into your own native language.

　　The book The Meaning of Tingo is a kind of dictionary, but perhaps a dictionary you will not find useful in the same way that your usual dictionary is. The Meaning of Tingo is a list of words from languages all over the world which have very specific, not to say very unusual, meanings.

　　English is a language that has always been omnivorous¹, taking words from other languages to enrich² its own vocabulary. English has taken the words pyjamas³ from Hindi to describe the loose clothes you may wear when you go to bed, croissant from French to describe a particular kind of sweet bread roll, or catastrophe⁴ from Greek to describe a particularly bad event, or angst from German to describe a particular mixture of fear and anger. And these are just a few of the many examples of words that English has made its own.

　　However, it is interesting to look at words that even a greedy language such as English has not (at least yet) made its own.

　　Japanese, for example, may have given us manga to describe a particular style of comic book, but the English have not yet adopted the useful expression katahara itai  - laughing so much that your stomach hurts. The Japanese, it seems, have many such useful words – another one for example, is bakku-shan - a girl who appears pretty from behind but not from the front. Have you ever wanted to say that in merely one word? Now you can.

　　As well as Japanese, it seems that German is also a useful language. German often makes “compound words” – one or more words joined together to make a new word. Putzfimmel, for example, is a mania⁵ for cleaning while Backpfeifengesicht apparently⁶ describes the kind of face that people want to hit.

　　Jacot de Boinod’s book is not only amusing⁷, but, he claims, shows that way in which a language is inextricably linked to the culture in which it is spoken. Is it really true, then, that in Germany there are a lot of people who have faces which other people want to punch? Or that Japan has more than its share of of bakku-shan? The reader may not at first be convinced by this, but when you read that Hawaiians have 108 words for sweet potato, 65 for fishing nets and 47 for banana (simply because in Hawaii there are indeed 108 different kinds of sweet potato, 65 fishing nets and 47 different types of banana), it makes more sense. Albanians are famous for their moustaches – and indeed the Albanian language contains 27 different words for “moustache”-  madh, for example, is a bushy moustache, posht is a moustache hanging down at the ends while a fshes is a long moustache with short hairs. People from Holland and Belgium appear to be more fun-loving. Dutch has a word uitwaaien - “walking in windy weather for fun”, while people in the Netherlands apparently often go to plimpplampplettere. What are they doing? Just think about the sound – they are skimming stones on water.

　　More evidence of this link between language and culture can be seen in the words which different languages have for jobs which exist only in their cultures. Some of these jobs are pretty unusual: a koshatnik in Russian is a dealer⁸ in stolen cats, while Spanish speakers in central America often have to work with an aviador - a government employee who only shows up on payday.

　　So, what exactly does “tingo” mean then? Well, to find that out, you’ll just have to find the book. No, not really! It's from the Pascuense language of Easter Island, meaning "to borrow objects from a friend's house, one by one, until there's nothing left".

　　POSTSCRIPT⁹

Some reviewers of the book have said that it contains a number of mistakes. For example, the etymology¹⁰, or explanation of where words come from. They have also said that many definitions lack explanation, which suggests that his research is really quite superficial¹¹. Perhaps most importantly, one reviewer noted¹² that de Boinod writes that the word “papa” is used to mean “father” in 70% of all languages in the world. This seems interesting, but then the reveiwer points out that seeing as there are more than 6 000 langauges in the world (a fact which de Boinod includes), this means that he must have looked at around 4,200 languages – when he says that he looked at only 270 dictionaries!

1 omnivorous   

adj.杂食的

参考例句：

• Brown bears are omnivorous,eating anything that they can get their paws on.棕熊是杂食性动物，抓到什么吃什么。
• Man is an omnivorous animal.人是肉类与蔬菜均食用的动物。

2 enrich   

vt.充实，使丰富，使富裕，使富有

参考例句：

• Some cream will enrich the sauce.在调味汁里加一些奶油会使其味道更加丰富。
• Music can enrich your life.音乐能丰富你的生活。

3 pyjamas   

n.（宽大的）睡衣裤

参考例句：

• This pyjamas has many repairs.这件睡衣有许多修补过的地方。
• Martin was in his pyjamas.马丁穿着睡衣。

4 catastrophe   

n.大灾难，大祸

参考例句：

• I owe it to you that I survived the catastrophe.亏得你我才大难不死。
• This is a catastrophe beyond human control.这是一场人类无法控制的灾难。

5 mania   

n.疯狂；躁狂症，狂热，癖好

参考例句：

• Football mania is sweeping the country.足球热正风靡全国。
• Collecting small items can easily become a mania.收藏零星物品往往容易变成一种癖好。

6 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

7 amusing   

adj.有有趣的，好玩的

参考例句：

• The girl was amusing herself with a doll.那女孩在玩洋娃娃自娱。
• He related some amusing stories in his childhood to his children.他向孩子们述说了他少年时代的一些趣事。

8 dealer   

n.商人，贩子

参考例句：

• The dealer spent hours bargaining for the painting.那个商人为购买那幅画花了几个小时讨价还价。
• The dealer reduced the price for cash down.这家商店对付现金的人减价优惠。

9 postscript   

n.附言，又及；(正文后的)补充说明

参考例句：

• There was the usual romantic postscript at the end of his letter.他的信末又是一贯的浪漫附言。
• She mentioned in a postscript to her letter that the parcel had arrived.她在信末附笔中说包裹已寄到。

10 etymology   

n.语源；字源学

参考例句：

• The hippies' etymology is contentious.关于嬉皮士的语源是有争议的。
• The origin of OK became the Holy Grail of etymology.OK的出典成了词源学梦寐以求的圣杯。

11 superficial   

adj.肤浅的，浅薄的，表面的

参考例句：

• He has a superficial knowledge of this subject.他对这门学科略知皮毛。
• A superficial injury is not serious.表面的伤不太严重。

12 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。