namaste everyone.
Speaking of English words, here is a gem from KAnchi ParamAchArya:
inimai is the equivalent Tamil for madhuraM. Colloquially, we use the term thitthippu; the literary word is inimai. Some words are distinctively beautiful in Tamil. In those words, the sound is set to match the meaning. inimai is one such word. Of the three letters that occur in the word, every letter is soft, none being harsh.
They term madhuraM is 'sweet' in English. Although the beginning with 'swee' is soft, the 't' sits at the end in the form of a 'takara' as a harsh sound. As somebody said jocularly, when the line 'kuzhalinithu, yazhinithu', which sounds sweet and soft in speech, is translated as 'flute sweet, lute sweet' with the lottu, lottu sound... (without finishing the sentence, Paramacharya gracefully gestures and closes his ears with his palms!)
Even in Sanskrit, when we say madhuraM that 'dhu' sounds a bit harsh. There is another, softer word svAdu. The 'du' here is not the hard 'dhu' that occurs in madhuraM, but a softer 'du'.
The English (term) 'sweet' came only from svAdu, changing the lighter 'du' into a harder 't'.
There are many words in English that are beautiful. With distinctions of sound and meaning, and with different words to indictate subtle variations of a common thing or object, that language also has a lot to talk about. As dRSTAnta, to take the word pani (ice): if the wet leakage of 'moisure' becomes a chill drop of water, it becomes 'dew'; if it is misty, it is 'fog'; and then the 'smog' that is the mixture of 'smoke' and 'fog'! If the dew drop solidifies it is 'frost'; if it freezes from previously being water, it is 'ice'; if the steam becomes ice straight from the atmosphere, it is 'snow'. If that steam condenses and while falling as rain hardens, (we call it Alangatti) it is 'hail'. Like these, there are many words that indicate the many shades of the same thing. What we say with a single word uNarcchi, they classify into two as 'felling' and 'emotion'.
Except that in the discussion of madhuraM as sweetness, the speech digressed a little and I said something amadhuraM, I did not proceed to make comparisons of the greatness or smallness of any language.
--from the book Sollin Selvar Sri Kanchi Munivar by RA.GaNapati