Weird and wonderful vocabulary from around the world

How come only German has a word for 'a person who leaves without paying the bill' (Zechpreller) or that Albanians need 27 words for moustache? A compelling new book uncovers the globe's most weird, wonderful - and meaningful - words. John Walsh picks his favourites

Learning a foreign language is, of course, the surest and fastest track to becoming familiar with another culture. But the words themselves offer hundreds of revealing clues to the preoccupations of that culture. Everyone knows that Inuit-speaking races can call on 30-odd words for snow. Adam Jacot de Boinod first became entranced by language when he discovered 27 words for "moustache" in an Albanian dictionary - and another 27 for "eyebrows". A world of bushy machismo and stolid dignity sprang to life before his eyes. He began hanging out in second-hand bookshops, looking for foreign dictionaries and the tiny revelations contained therein. He made lists of his favourite "words with no equivalent in the English language" - like, say, tsuji-giri, a Japanese word from samurai days meaning, "to try out a new sword on a passer-by" (thanks a bunch, Toshiro), or the stoic German term Torschlusspanik, meaning "the fear of diminishing opportunities as one gets older".

His book is destined to be the Eats, Shoots & Leaves of the autumn. Where else could you discover the gradations of bowing in Japan, from eshaku (a slight bow of about 15 degrees) to pekopeko, "bowing one's head repeatedly in a fawning or grovelling manner"? Or find that there are 18 words for "you" in Vietnamese, depending on whether you're addressing one person or several, young or old, formally or informally? Or learn that the French invented the word ordinateur in order not to have to say "computer", because con is slang for vagina and pute slang for whore, the combination of which is literally unspeakable in haunts of the chivalrous.

Most intriguing of all, however, are the words whose meanings seem ludicrously over-precise - like the Persian word nakhur which means "a camel that won't give milk until her nostrils have been tickled", or the meaning of tingo itself.

These are more than funny foreign vocabularies; they are tiny windows into the way other people live, and the obsessions that drive them. We may be amused by their lexicon of everyday words - but we can be certain they'd be equally amused by our vocabulary of "multi-tasking" and "sound-bite" and "over-sharing". By our unguarded linguistic displays shall we be known.

'Agobilles' to 'zhengrong' and lots in between

THE BODY

MATA EGO Rapa Nui, Easter Island

Eyes that reveal that someone has been crying.

NYLENTIK Indonesian

To flick someone with the middle finger on the ear.

KUCIR Indonesian

A tuft of hair left to grow on top of an otherwise bald head.

DIDIS Indonesian

To search and pick up lice from one's own hair, usually when in bed at night.

PANA PO'O Hawaiian

To scratch your head in order to help you to remember something you've forgotten.

NGAOBERA Pascuense, Easter Island

A slight inflammation of the throat caused by screaming too much.

O KA LA NOKONOKO Hawaiian

A day spent in nervous anticipation of a coughing spell.

ANGUSHTI ZA'ID Russian

Someone with six fingers.

PAPAKATA Cook Islands Maori

To have one leg shorter than the other.

AKA'AKA'A Hawaiian

Skin peeling or falling off after either sunburn or heavy drinking.

KARELU Tulu Indian

The mark left on the skin by wearing anything tight.

LOVE AND BEAUTY

MAHJ Persian

Looking beautiful after having a disease.

ZHENGRONG Chinese

To improve one's looks by plastic surgery.

BAKKU-SHAN Japanese

A girl who looks as though she might be pretty when seen from behind, but isn't when seen from the front.

MAMIHLAPINATAPEI Fuengian language, Chile

A shared look of longing between parties who are both interested yet neither is willing to make the first move.

POMICIONE Italian

A man who seizes any chance of being in close physical contact with a woman.

QUEESTING Dutch

Allowing a lover access to one's bed, under the covers, for a chit-chat.

GHALIDAN Persian

Wallowing, tumbling or rolling from side to side as lovers do.

NARACHASTRA PRAYOGA Sanskrit

Men who worship their own sexual organs.

KORO Japanese

The hysterical belief that one's penis is shrinking into one's body.

SENZURI Japanese

Male masturbation (literally "a hundred rubs"). "Shiko shiko manzuri" is the female version (literally "ten thousand rubs").

SACANAGEM Brazilian Portuguese

Openly seeking sexual pleasure with one or more partners other than one's primary partner during Mardi Gras.

ALGHUNJAR Persian

Feigned anger of a mistress.

WORKING LIFE

KUALANAPUHI Hawaiian

An officer who keeps the flies off the sleeping king by waving a feather brush.

KOSHATNIK Russian

A dealer in stolen cats.

BUZ-BAZ Ancient Persian

A showman who makes a goat and monkey dance together.

CAPOCLAQUE Italian

Someone who co-ordinates a group of clappers.

FYRASSISTENT Danish

An assistant lighthouse keeper.

LOMILOMI Hawaiian

The chief's masseur, whose duty it was to take care of his spittle and excrement.

FUCHA Portuguese

To use company time and resources for one's own purposes.

PAUKIKAPE Ancient Greek

The collar worn by slaves while grinding corn, in order to stop them eating it.

QIANG JINGTOU Chinese

The fight by a cameraman to get a better vantage point.

GRILAGEM Brazilian Portuguese

The practice of putting a live cricket into a box of newly faked documents, until the insect's excrement makes the paper look convincingly old.

DHURNA Anglo-Indian

Extorting payment from someone by sitting at their front door and staying there without food, threatening violence, until you get paid.

SOKAIYA Japanese

A man with a few shares in several companies who extorts money by threatening to come to the shareholders' meetings and cause trouble.

ZECHPRELLER German

A person who leaves a restaurant without paying.

SEIGNEUR-TERRASSE French

Someone who spends time, but not money, at a café.

TINGO Pascuense language, Easter Island

Borrowing things from a friend's house, one by one, until he has nothing left.

CRIME

PUKAU Malay

A charm used by burglars to make people fall asleep.

AGOBILLES German

A burglar's tools.

SMONTA Italian

A theft carried out on a bus or train, from which the perpetrator descends as quickly as possible.

REJAM Malay

To execute by pressing into mud.

WAR NAM NIHADAN Persian

To murder somebody, bury their body, then grow some flowers over the grave in order to conceal it.

SQUADRETTA Italian

A group of prison guards who specialise in beating up inmates.

JIEYU Chinese

To break into jail in order to rescue a prisoner.

CHAT

LATAH Indonesian

Uncontrollable habit of saying embarrassing things.

CHENYIN Chinese

Muttering to oneself.

'A'AMA Hawaiian

Someone who speaks rapidly, hiding their meaning from one person while communicating it to another.

HEARING THINGS

YUYURUNGUL Yindiny, Australia

The noise of a snake sliding through grass.

XIAOXIAO Chinese

The whistling and pattering of rain or wind.

GULUGULU Tulu, India

The sound of a pitcher filling with water.

CALACALA Tulu, India

The action of children wading through water as they play.

NING-NONG Indonesia

The ringing of a doorbell.

DESUS Indonesia

The quiet, smooth sound of somebody farting but not very loudly.

KUSUKUSU Japanese

The suppressed giggling and tittering of a group of women.

DESIR Malay

The sound of sand driven by the wind.

FAAMITI Samoan

To make a squeaking noise by sucking air past the lips in order to gain the attention of a dog or a child.

GHIQQ Persian

The sound made by a boiling kettle.

KERTEK Malay

The sound of dry leaves or twigs being trodden underfoot.

YUYIN Chinese

The remnants of sound that stay in the ears of the hearer

Extracted from 'The Meaning of Tingo' by Adam Jacot de Boinod, published by Penguin Press (www.penguin.co.uk) at £10. ©Adam Jacot de Boinod, 2005. To order 'The Meaning of Tingo' for the special price of £9 (with free p&p), call Independent Books Direct on 08700 798 897