Doosra baffles linguists

Aug 26, 2010 |

London, Aug. 25: That cricket has a language all of its own is something that has long been acknowledged. But now a survey has concluded that ‘Doosra’ is the single most untranslatable term in cricket, after topping the poll of more than 300 language specialists with 21 per cent of the vote.

It’s not hard to see why. That single word describes a delivery bowled by an off-spin bowler that turns the opposite way from a conventional off-break in that it goes from leg to off, rather than off to leg and so spins away from a right-handed batsman.

For cricket fans, that all makes perfect sense. Whatever others make of it is anyone’s guess.

“Doosra” outscored second-placed “googly” and third-placed “mullygrubber” in a survey of linguists conducted by Today Translations, a London-based language firm with a global network of 2,600 linguists.

Jurga Zilinskiene, Today Translations’s managing director, said: “Cricket is not just a sport but also a language in its own right. Indeed, it is perhaps the world’s most untranslatable language.” He added translation is often as much about translating culture as words.

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