Toska

[fidgetspin.livejournal.com]

Continuing the untranslatable theme...
Toska noun /ˈtō-skə/
Russian word roughly translated as sadness, melancholia, lugubriousness.

Best described by Vladimir Nabokov:
“No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.”

Comments

[cacasanka.livejournal.com]

why roughly? it's melancholia + ennui. simple :)
is the first syllable is stressed?

[autumns-drop.livejournal.com]

to'ska

[noonakitty.livejournal.com]

Approves of the word..

[winterryoneko.livejournal.com]

I love this word. A lot.

[fidgetspin.livejournal.com]

Yes, I believe so.

[fidgetspin.livejournal.com]

Thank you; I was having trouble finding a pronunciation.

[cacasanka.livejournal.com]

that's strange. in russian it's the second.

[hillando.livejournal.com]

Ah, so that's where the Finnish word "tuska" comes from. Loaned from Russian!
I've always had a hard time explaining it to foreigners, this description is spot-on!

[fidgetspin.livejournal.com]

I mentioned in a different comment that I had trouble finding pronunciation so that's awesome if you know for certain. How is it phonetically pronounced, then?

[cacasanka.livejournal.com]

oh, sorry, didn't notice that :)
it's like /təs-'ka/
basically it's pronounced that way in russian but according to the rules of stressing english nouns, the first syllable can be stressed, i suppose.