What is another word for untranslatable?

Pronunciation: [ʌntɹanslˈe͡ɪtəbə͡l] (IPA)

The word "untranslatable" is often used to describe words or concepts that are difficult or impossible to translate into another language without losing their original meaning. However, there are several synonyms that can be used to convey this idea in different ways. For example, "inexpressible" suggests that the word or concept cannot be adequately described in words, while "indefinable" indicates that it cannot be precisely defined. "Unutterable" and "unspeakable" both imply that the word or concept is too profound or emotional to put into words. Regardless of the specific synonym used, they all seek to capture the idea of something that cannot be fully understood or conveyed through language.

Synonyms for Untranslatable:

What are the hypernyms for Untranslatable?

A hypernym is a word with a broad meaning that encompasses more specific words called hyponyms.
  • Other hypernyms:

    idiom, figurative expression, Idiomatic phrase, Inexpressible concept, Interlinguistic expression, Language-specific term, Lexicalism, Non-translatable term.

What are the opposite words for untranslatable?

The word "untranslatable" refers to something that cannot be translated or expressed in another language or form. Its antonyms are words that indicate that something can be translated or expressed, such as translatable, understandable, communicable, clear, comprehensible, relatable, and interpretable. These terms imply that something can be successfully conveyed or interpreted, whether it's a feeling, concept, or text, into another language or form. By using these antonyms, we acknowledge the power of language to transcend borders and enable communication across cultures, while recognizing that some things may still elude translation due to cultural, linguistic, or historical differences.

What are the antonyms for Untranslatable?

Usage examples for Untranslatable

Seeing on the shelves an edition of Holberg, I asked him if he had ever considered the question why Holberg's comedies, so delightful in the original, appeared to be totally untranslatable into English.
"America To-day, Observations and Reflections"
William Archer
Her pleasure in everything makes everything interesting, and in displaying her feeling without art or disguise she succeeds in giving what we may call a literary expression to personal charm-that quality which is almost untranslatable into written words.
"Afoot in England"
W.H. Hudson
And to the great majority of Europeans and Americans, mysticism is a most convenient noun, applicable to anything which may seem reasonable yet wholly untranslatable in terms of their own individual experience; and mysticism usually means something quite the reverse of scientific simply because we have by usage unwisely limited the meaning of the word science to a knowledge of things material and visible, whereas it really means a knowing or a knowledge of everything which exists.
"The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries"
W. Y. Evans Wentz

Famous quotes with Untranslatable

  • Since music is a language with some meaning at least for the immense majority of mankind, although only a tiny minority of people are capable of formulating a meaning in it, and since it is the only language with the contradictory attributes of being at once intelligible and untranslatable, the musical creator is a being comparable to the gods, and music itself the supreme mystery of the science of man, a mystery that all the various disciplines come up against and which holds the key to their progress.
    Claude Lévi-Strauss
  • Music is arguably the most affecting of the arts; intelligible to all people yet untranslatable into any other idiom. To Schopenhauer it was a direct expression of the ‘world will’... and was good when he had guests over.
    Derren Brown
  • It is a commonplace that Racine is untranslatable. This is not because his verse is difficult, but because it is not.
    Kenneth Rexroth
  • Do not place the words of gurus, ministers, priests, scientists, psychologists, friends -- or my words --higher than the feelings of your own being. You can learn much from others, but the deepest knowledge must come from within yourself. Your own consciousness is embarked upon a reality that basically can be experienced by no other, that is unique and untranslatable, with its own meaning, following its own path of becoming.
    Jane Roberts
  • Shakespearean language is a bizarre super-tongue, alien and plastic, twisting, turning, and forever escaping. It is untranslatable, since it knocks Anglo-Saxon root words against Norman and Greco-Roman importations sweetly or harshly, kicking us up and down rhetorical levels with witty abruptness. No one in real life ever spoke like Shakespeare's characters. His language does not "make sense," especially in the greatest plays. Anywhere from a third to a half of every Shakespearean play, I conservatively estimate, will always remain under an interpretive cloud. Unfortunately, this fact is obscured by the encrustations of footnotes in modern texts, which imply to the poor cowed student that if only he knew what the savants do, all would be as clear as day. Every time I open Hamlet, I am stunned by its hostile virtuosity, its elusiveness and impenetrability. Shakespeare uses language to darken. He suspends the traditional compass points of rhetoric, still quite firm in Marlowe, normally regarded as Shakespeare's main influence. Shakespeare's words have "aura." This he got from Spenser, not Marlowe.
    William Shakespeare

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