Untranslatable Telugu Words

Wittgenstein, in his philosophy of language lays out his firm belief in the idea that there is no translatable phrase. Even from one person to another, we speak only in common referents, but the embodied encoding within us is very different. We can never truly be “understood” by the other. There are words and embodied feelings that can never meet. Yes, you may believe you convey the force and meaning of a word, but it’s not exactly the same, it is a fundamental limit of language.

Nevertheless, we persist and create shared meaning and bridges both physical and metaphorical despite the provable impossibility of doing so. The difference between philosophy and engineering. We supplement verbal language with body language, relying on mirror neurons to carry over embodied sensation where words fail, which is often in the online medium, as this excerpt from How to Do Nothing points out:

“In the environment of our online platforms, “that which cannot be verbalized” is figured as excess or incompatible, although every in-person encounter teaches us the importance of nonverbal expressions of the body, not to mention the very matter-of-fact presence of the body in front of me.”

Excerpt From: Jenny Odell. “How to Do Nothing.” Apple Books.

There are some Telugu words that are embodied for me in this manner that I have never been able to fully convert into their English meaning. I don’t think I’ve embodied them in front of non-Telugu speakers either. What follows is an attempt for me to do so, inspired by the feelings wheel of popular psychology right now:

Jila (జిల) - a sense of irritating energy that something is left unfinished or undone.

Verri (వెర్రి) - an unexpected manic sense of hyper energy, usually arriving after a particularly good meal or good sleep

Chikaaku (చికాకు ) - irritation that feels like a blanket, such as that caused by heat

Visuku (విసుకు ) - irritation that’s closer to being fed up, tired of the same old shit.

Thikka (తిక్క ) - a state of irritation, somewhat equivalent to waking up on the wrong side of the bed

Kopam (కోపం ) - good old fashioned straightforward anger

Kasuru (కసురు ) - to scold someone, often impassioned, making a warped, demonic face

Thittu (తిట్టు ) - to scold someone ocurse r something, in a dispassionate manner

Hopefully this helps me understand my own nervous system responses to people saying dumb shit.