Mamihlapinatapai

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mamihlapinatapai (sometimes misspelled mamihlapinatapei) is a word from the Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego, listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as the "most succinct word", and is considered one of the hardest words to translate. It describes 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. This could perhaps be translated more succinctly as "eye-contact implying 'after you...'". A more literal approximation is "ending up mutually at a loss as to what to do about each other".

The word consists of prefix ma(m)- reflexive/passive (second m before roots beginning with a vowel), root ihlapi (hl as in welsh ll, though in Yahgan it has also been described as similar to sl) which means to be at a loss as to what to do next, followed by stative suffix -n- and achievement suffix -at(a), and finally dual -apai, which in composition with ma(m)- has a reciprocal sense.

It is also the title of a song by the American singer-songwriter Ronny Cox.

  • MATTHEWS, P. (ed.). 1992. The Guinness Book of Records 1993.
This page has been transwikied to Wiktionary.

Because this article has content useful to Wikipedia's sister project Wiktionary, it has been copied to there, and its dictionary counterpart can be found at either Wiktionary:Transwiki:Mamihlapinatapai or Wiktionary:Mamihlapinatapai. It should no longer appear in Category:Copy to Wiktionary and should not be re-added there.
Wikipedia is not a dictionary, and if this article cannot be expanded beyond a dictionary definition, it should be tagged for deletion. If it can be expanded into an article, please do so and remove this template.
Note that {{vocab-stub}} is deprecated. If {{vocab-stub}} was removed when this article was transwikied, and the article is deemed encyclopedic, there should be a more suitable category for it.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../m/a/m/Mamihlapinatapai.html"
Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.