Another of my ten words in Arabic.

[randomness]

واسْطة (wasta). It's kind of close to 关系 (guanxi), and kind of close to блат (blat).

That these languages all have a word for a similar and overlapping concept is significant, I think.

Comments

[beowabbit]

I looked wasta up when you mentioned it the other day, and that got me on a fun romp through Wikipedia.

It’s more specific, but there’s “the old-boy network” in English (and of course things like “pull” or “clout”, which are less specific).

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I also think it's interesting that English doesn't have a word that really expresses the same idea. As you said, we have a phrase that's more specific, or words that are less specific.