What a Wonderful Word by Nicola Edwards and Luisa Uribe

In our Sydney Morning Herald newspaper columnist David Astle often talks about new words, invented words and words from other languages. This week he talked about a word for a plank that slides over your takeaway coffee across a counter needed in this time of social distancing. People sent in all sort of funny and insightful words such as cafeuplt; telescoffe; and jenga dispenser.

Sometimes in English we need a lot of words to explain a simple concept while other languages might have developed one, often quite powerful word, for the same thing.

Here is a sentence I created using words from What a Wonderful Word and below is a translation:

I was so happy to gokötta today. Of course it is winter here so I knew it was a gluggavedur day. I was thinking about the lady I met yesterday because my tartle was awkward. She has such pretty hair but in this time of COVID-19 I guess no one in her family can cafuné. Anyway it was so good to see my friends yesterday. After all the weeks of lock down I felt retrouvailles.

gokötta - to wake up early in the morning so you can go outside and hear the birds singing SWEDISH
gluggavedur - weather that looks beautiful while you're inside but is much too cold when you step outside ICELANDIC
tartle - to hesitate because you have forgotten someone's name SCOTS
cafuné - the act of running one's fingers through someones hair - PORTUGUESE
retrouvailles - the happiness of being reunited with someone after a long time apart. FRENCH

It's nice to know that other people have given a name to a feeling you've had: whether you've tartled at a party (hesitated when you forget a person's name) or had abbiocco because your eyes were bigger than your stomach (drowsiness after eating a big meal).  Book Trust

I am very sad to report that this book - What a Wonderful Word - appears to be out of print. It was only published in 2018. I am shaking my head that a book as wonderful as this one has had such a short life in print and therefore in bookshops - thank goodness for great libraries! In this book you will marvel at the words from around the world and you are sure to enjoy all the extra 'facts' provided on each page. I was thrilled to see one of my favourite words included - gobbledygook! And to learn about the power of simply holding hands.

Here are some other books I treasure on this topic. I especially love the book Words Borrowed from other languages. It is a large format or big book which you can share with a whole class. I often made use of it in my former school library.