When there are no words...

A couple weeks ago at an internal strategy meeting at Madura we were talking about the connotations of the word ‘transformation’. Transformation meant change that was dramatic and rapid, not slow and gradual. To transform, we agreed, required taking bold risks, a leap of faith. How do we say this in Tamil? I asked. We work largely in the South Indian State of Tamil Nadu and the room had at least 25 native Tamil speakers. There was a moment of silence and then arguments erupted, online dictionaries were consulted. There was no equivalent word in Tamil for transformation. No equivalent word for risk. No comparable idiom to a leap of faith. It took several sentences to explain each word.