That’s because we’ve got hu-ga! Okay I have no idea how to spell it I heard it on the telly earlier. It’s Danish and apparently has no literal translation, the closest is a mixture of community, cosiness, friends, family, fun, enjoyment.
I love words like that that. I remember teasing a Welsh surveyor I used to work for who, although still living Wales, wasn’t a Welsh speaker (other than for a few essentials like asking for a chip barm because he felt he got more) by saying that while I was waiting for a film to start on Channel 4 Wales I saw the end of the previous programme which was quite naturally in Welsh and which appeared to my English ear to be about peoples’ opinions on sex. I arrived at this conclusion because although the age group of people on it ranged from probably late teens to 80s one of the words I could definitely make out and which was used a fair bit was, well, sex! However one of the other words I recognised was exciting and I told him it was so sad that there was no Welsh word for exciting. He informed me in no uncertain terms that the Welsh had a word which could not uneven be defined in English and which left exciting standing. The best he could do was say that the word meant a sense of belonging. I wonder if this was the sort of word that was graffited onto burnt out holiday cottages. Anyhoo, moving swiftly on…
Ages ago now, a couple of months at least, so long that I think she has probably thought I forgot all about it I asked Pamela Buchanan if I could do a link from here to her appearance on the BBC news in Northern Ireland.
So here for your hu-ga is Pamela (don’t you just love the accent)
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