16th July 2008
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I was reminded of this word recently (possibly by someone else’s tumblelog, but I don’t recall). It means “a look shared by two people with each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but which neither one wants to start” in Yaghan, one of the indigenous languages of Tierre del Fuego. It’s also listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as the “most succinct word”. I often find myself jealous of polysynthetic languages like Yaghan and the Inuit languages that have words with such prosaic definitions.
