TRADUCTION

It was Rudyard Kipling who said that words are the most powerful drug of mankind. But unlike more conventional drugs, certain words have no use once they cross the border. Cultures make language in their image, and sometimes there are linguistic “reflections” in one language that simply don’t find their partner in another. Enter these fantastic words, each of which encompasses feelings and emotions that the English language can only use entire phrases to define. Toska , Russian Though the word can roughly be translated as sadness or melancholy, author Vladmir Nabokov had much more distinct description of the endearing term: “No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be ...

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