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Toujours Tingo: More Extraordinary Words to Change the Way We See the World
by Adam Jacot de Boinod
Penguin, HK$181
In Italy, they have a word for an attractive mustachioed woman -   baffona.   Khan'wetela, a Tsonga word from South Africa, means to rock the child on your back to sleep by nudging it with your elbows.
Wise old Swahili women exchange proverbs such as   siku utakayokwenda uchi ndiyo siku utakayokutana na mkweo - the day you decide to leave your house naked is the day you run into your in-laws.
Toujours Tingo is a wittily written and skilfully assembled collection of sayings like these from around the world.
There are words that have no equivalent in English,  such as the Danish   kaelling, a woman who stands on the steps of her house yelling obscenities at her children; foreign versions of English maxims - apparently for 'once bitten, twice shy' the Portuguese say 'cao picado por cobra, tem modo de linguica', 'a dog that has been bitten by a snake fears sausages'; and all manner of other linguistic curiosities.
The painstakingly gathered phrases do more than just raise a titter. As the book's subtitle promises they give an insight into alien cultures and peoples.
Some stereotypes are reinforced; who but the Italians would quip  'non si puo avere la botte piena e la moglie ubriaca' - 'you can't have a full cask of wine and a drunk wife'? But others are contested; both the Germans and Japanese emerge  with a strong sense of humour. It seems the correct riposte to a German woman talking rubbish is  'ich verstehe nur Wortsalat' - I  can't understand a word you're saying, or literally, 'all I hear is  the word salad'.
Some of the words are evocative of the past - the French talk of   une querelle d'Allemand, literally a German argument, used to describe a quarrel started for no good reason. Many depict a brave new world: kondoumukeikaku is a Japanese expression that describes women older than 35 having sex with strangers to become pregnant. It seems the characteristics of a nation both shape and are shaped by its language.
It would have been fascinating to learn which English words have no foreign parallel.
In the world of publishing, best-seller is everybody's favourite word. But publishers are like diamond miners: most of the time they  come home with empty pockets. When they do find a sparkler  they dig and dig until nothing  of value remains.
If a book exceeds expectations - as the best-selling The Meaning of Tingo,  the predecessor to this book, must have done for Penguin - the publishers will press the author to come up with a sequel, even a  series. For example, Michael Palin trudging endlessly round the  world and Jamie Oliver gorging  on pukka fish pies.
Adam Jacot de Boinod must  have wondered how on Earth he  was going to fill 300-odd pages  the second time round. But, impressively, in Toujours Tingo  he doesn't appear to be short of material.



Toujours Tingo: More Extraordinary Words to Change the Way We See the World