Words, difficult to translate in english

English is so important a language and Gurbani is the GURU, we know. Many words in Gurbani appear to have no parrallel meaning in English. May be, english people have never experienced those realms of life and after life. (Some words are there, could be, in English, which are though less popular.) Can we have a collection of those Gurbani words, so that those could be best managed, at a later stage?

as a native english speaker, i come across these words a lot.

i have found a reasonable solution... mahan kosh has a good explanation of these words in punjabi. the punjabi description from mahan kosh (or from a teeka) can be translated into english, giving a good approximation of the word.

www.srigranth.org has the useful feature of each word being click-able, linked directly to mahan kosh and punjabi/english dictionaries.

one most common word that's difficult to translate directly into an english word is ਸਹਜ... i've seen it translated in so many ways, but it doesn't seem to have a direct meaning in english.

Very good topic MB Singh jeeo.

Indeed, there are many words in Gurbani that can't be translated in English. The first word, for some reason, that came into my mind is ਝੁੰਝਨੜਾ from the following Gurbani Pankiti:

ਰਣ ਝੁੰਝਨੜਾ ਗਾਉ ਸਖੀ ਹਰਿ ਏਕੁ ਧਿਆਵਹੁ ॥

Whenever I read this Pankiti, it gives a very different feeling to the mind. It is extremely sweet and loving. The strange thing is that this Chhant was not completed and left with just 2 Pankitis. Guru Sahib alone knows the reasons for this. Another such Shabad that is not complete in Gurbani is that of Bhagat Soordaas and goes as follows:

ਛਾਡਿ ਮਨ ਹਰਿ ਬਿਮੁਖਨ ਕੋ ਸੰਗੁ ॥

This Pankiti appears alone and the proceeding Shabad is that of Siri Guru Arjun Dev jee addressed to Bhagat Soordaas jee and explains the Pankiti of Bhagat jee. It is said that when Bhagat Soordaas got this Baani, he went into Samaadhi and could only say this much. What a great Hukam is stated in this Pankiti. The Pankiti clearly gives Hukam to give up company of those people who have turned away from Vaheguru i.e. are Bemukhs of Vaheguru.

Kulbir Singh

The hardest word to translate that I have found is the word jhooth because that concept does not exist in cultures outside of the Eastern cultures.

As Roop Kaur pointed out, Jooth indead is a hard word to translate in English. By the same token, Sucham too is hard to translate in exact terms because similar to jooth, Goray don't have a concept of religious Sucham either.

Kulbir Singh