If you want a single word that describes wandering around the house wearing a shirt and no trousers, ask a Hungarian

Endlessly encyclopaedic as it seems, there are times our beloved English language fails us.

Ironically, there are various terms for wordiness: loquacious, garrulous, verbose, voluble, prolix. But when we want our language to be economical and summarise a relatively complex concept in a single word, it can be restrictive. Which, believe me, is frustrating when you have word counts to stay within.

The literary giants must have shared similar frustrations, given their fondness for neologism (inventing words). Take Milton. Mark Forsyth writes in The Etymologicon: “Milton adored inventing words. When he couldn’t find the right term he just made one up: fragrance, debauchery, disregard, damp, criticise, exhilarating, awe-struck, stunning, terrific. All Milton’s.” He also credits Milton with loquacious, which suggests the neology was sometimes indulgence over necessity, given the synonyms available.

Or Jane Austen. In Mansfield Park, speaking about her attachment to Edmund, Mary Crawford asks: “Is there not something wanted, Miss Price, in our language – a something between compliments and – and love – to suit the sort of friendly acquaintance we have had together?” Her hesitance to commit to the L-bomb is an unresolved linguistic problem. No doubt if Mary Crawford were alive today, her Facebook relationship status would be listed as: “It’s complicated.”

Or Shakespeare. His neology is notorious: 1,700 words are first recorded in his works, meaning he either coined them, or popularised them.

When neologism won’t do – and, as the depressingly solipsistic “selfie” was 2013’s word of the year, I wouldn’t always advise it – we can continue English’s audacious theft from other languages. They can be so much more succinct, expressing in one word what English clumsily defines in 10. And if French gives us the best idioms, German has the best one-word answers. We adopt some of them so regularly that they now feel part of our language: schadenfreude; zeitgeist; doppelgänger. For the League of Gentlemen’s Herr Lipp, alles klar became the catch-all phrase he used when the words ran out: “In London, Justin, you have the Queen, whereas in Duisberg … alles klar.”

Mark Rice-Oxley highlighted the “strangely fascinating” thing he loved about learning German on this blog: “a word that went on and on until you ran out of breath or got totally lost in the middle” and its knack of rendering “complex ideas … in one deliciously singular word”.

One of the most entertaining language-themed books of 2013, Ben Schott’s Schottenfreude, begins with the proposition that “the German language is sufficiently copious and productive to furnish native words for any idea that can be expressed at all” and ends with Mark Twain’s witticism: “These things are not words, they are alphabetical processions.” In the middle, there are some real gems.

Schott’s words are made up – often by forming portmanteau-portmanteaus. So, the false sensation of movement when, looking out from a stationary train, you see another train depart is lesenbahnscheinbewegung (literally: railway-illusion-motion). The exhausting trudge up a stationary escalator is rollschleppe. Stepping down heavily on a non-existent stair is leertretung (void-stepping).

Socially awkward situations are given the perfect precis. Pretending you haven’t been spat on in conversation is speichelgleichmut (saliva-stoicism). Dielennystagmus means “repeatedly catching and avoiding people’s gazes when, say, approaching them down a long corridor”. Plauschplage is “prattle-plague” – the pressure to make bantering small talk with people you interact with daily.

Schott’s examples of clashsyndrom – moments of etiquette perplexity when there’s no polite solution – are hilariously recognisable. They include “whether to wait for a single penny in change (miserly cheapness) or leave without it (Duke-like condescension)” and “whether to ask someone to repeat something for a third time (unthinkable) or pretend you understand (absurd)”.

As a cack-hander, I’m very well acquainted with ludwigssyndrom (discovering an indecipherable note in your own handwriting). And, as a Gary, there have been times I’ve felt ligennamenhass (being embarrassed by, bored with, or otherwise disliking your name).

Chances are, if you’re reading this blog, you’ll be suffering from horchkommakrankheit – “a (banal) obsession with (or general confusion about) (the deployment of) apostrophes”. And, as Guardian readers, if a friend confides they read the Daily Mail, don’t pretend you don’t feel a hint of zeitungsdünkel (consternation that people read a newspaper you disapprove of). The despair may lead to abgrundsanziehung – the (non-suicidal) idea of jumping from a height.

Ausbremsungsangst, however, does have a more succinct English translation. It means fear of missing out and, for that, Generation Y has given us the acronym Fomo. There are several scenarios that I feel warrant a single-word explanation in English. For example, the phantom feeling that an insect has crawled over you shortly after seeing one.

German doesn’t have the monopoly on concision. A few letters of other languages can unlock a world of rich imagery. Russian gives us toska – a more complex ennui where the soul aches; a longing with nothing to long for and a vague restlessness. Razbliuto is Russian for the sentimental feeling you have about someone you once loved but no longer do. Indonesian gives us jayus – a joke so poorly told that one cannot help but laugh.

It says a lot about different cultures that Japanese gives us kroikumama – a mum who relentlessly pushes her children toward academic achievement. (In the US, the achievement would be sporting and she’d be a hockey mom.) Komorebi is Japanese for the sunlight that filters through the leaves of trees. In Swedish, mångata is the road-like reflection of the moon on water. Calling a mobile phone and letting it ring once so the other person calls back, saving the first caller money, is a prozvonit in Czech. In Southwest Congo, you’re an ilunga if you’ll forgive and forget any first abuse, tolerate it on the second time, but never forgive nor tolerate on the third. Phew.

In Portugese, tingo is the act of taking objects one desires from the house of a friend by gradually borrowing all of them. Ya’aburnee (you bury me) in Arabic expresses a sweet but morbid hope that you’ll die before your lover because life would be unbearable without them.

Donaldkacsászás – Hungarian for “Donald Ducking” – captures a wonderfully anti-Disney scene: wandering around one’s own house wearing a shirt and no trousers.

Some terms have pages of definitions, such is their nuance and nifty shades of wordplay. You automatically think of Nelson Mandela whenever the old African (Zulu/Xhosa) word ubuntu is mentioned but what does it mean without this personification? It incorporates compassion, humanity, symbiosis, kindness and the universal bond that connects all humans.

In short, it’s complicated.

Gary Nunn is a regular contributor to Mind your language. His posts will appear on the last Friday of every month. Twitter: @GaryNunn1

Media: Mind your language | theguardian.com http://ift.tt/1kivsm8