Feelings Universal and Words Untranslateable

Almost twenty years ago when researching for the book I was to write on The World’s Most Extraordinary Words, it was inevitable that a category would appear devoted to ‘untranslatable words’ — namely, those that denote more often than not a feeling or sensation that highlights a characteristic or outlook belonging to one nation or part of the world but not elsewhere. Here, I’m sharing a few of my favorites.

Tall poppies

Sweden is a country that not only values the concept of a lack of extremes but even has a word for it – lagom. In this society, equality is everything, hierarchies are supposed to be non-existent, and it’s generally not thought to be good to stand out too much. Everything and everyone is supposed to be just lagom – which is not to say ‘boring,’ so much as ‘not too much and not too little,’ ‘not good and not bad,’ ‘ok,’ ‘just right,’ ‘so-so.’

Welsh blues

The Welsh for blue is ‘glas,’ as in the expression yng nglas y dydd, in the blue of the day (the early morning). But glas is a hard-working word. It’s also used in the expression gorau glas (‘blue best’), to mean to do one’s best, and, changing tack rather dramatically, it appears as glas wen (‘blue smile’), a smile that is insincere and mocking. In Welsh literature, glas is a colour that is somewhere between green, blue and grey; it also has poetic meanings of both youth and death.

Cozying up

Hygge is a Danish word used when owning a feeling or moment, whether alone or with friends, at home or out, ordinary or extraordinary as cosy, charming or special. For further nuances to evoke that cosy autumnal feeling we have cwtch (Welsh) meaning more than just a cuddle or hug, a place of sanctuary and safety;

gezelligheid (Dutch) for an often-shared experience with those you are close to, of feeling cosy, warm and intimate and peiskos (Norwegian) for the experience of sitting in front of a crackling fireplace enjoying the warmth.

Nostalgia

Weltshmerz is one of those untranslatable German words that broadly means world-weariness but carries with it both a sense of sorrow at the evils of the world and a yearning for something better. Aspects of it can be found in the Welsh hiraeth, a mingled feeling of sadness, somewhere between homesickness and nostalgia, and the Portuguese saudade the longing for things that were or might have been. Nostalgia lies at the heart of the Brazilian Portuguese word banzo, which describes a slave’s profound longing for his African homeland.

Father figures, sort of

Further afield the Western ideal of a monogamous husband and wife is not universal. There is, for example, no word for father in Mosuo (China). The nearest translation for a male parental figure is axia, which means friend or lover; and while a child will only have one mother, he or she might have a sequence of axia. An axia has a series of night-time trysts with a woman, after which he returns home to his mother. Any children resulting from these liaisons are raised in the woman’s household. There are no fathers, husbands or marriages in Mosuo society. Brothers take care of their sisters’ children and act as their fathers. Brothers and sisters live together all their lives in their mothers’ homes.