I think axiom should fit, but according to its official definition, an axiom is a statement that is taken to be true, and as far as I know, a word can’t make an statement by its own.
I think axiom should fit, but according to its official definition, an axiom is a statement that is taken to be true, and as far as I know, a word can’t make an statement by its own.
What about words like “happiness” or “love”?
There are many, MANY words that do not have a 1 to 1 relationship between languages. Love is actually one of the more basic concepts most all languages have a word for.
The areas languages gets really interesting are in the idioms. THOSE are the expressions that generally take many words to explain.
Which is why if you want to write easily translatable text, never use idioms.
As far as I understand, we were not speaking about struggles with translating from one language to another, but about explaining a word within the original language.
German is a great example of having words that mean a whole phrase in English, Schadenfreude (humor at someone’s expense) for one