I came across a bunch of words, unfathomable at first, and none of them were English. These words had meanings dug from the deep crevices of our emotions. Undoubtedly, we would all have felt emotions gather like bubbles in water, which often lead us to drown in a sea of thoughts. While I was looking up the meaning of these words, I also began to wonder if there is a dearth of vocabulary in English. Has the language become so porous that it absorbs words from different languages?
This search for vocabulary led me to string together a series of connected memories. As someone who has always been curious about what home means to people, the word hiraeth (a Welsh word) stuck in my mind. Not because the word was new, but it felt like the scattered feelings and questions about this intense longing for something intangible had finally found a name. It means a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, or a home that maybe never was. While I was discussing the discovery of words for complex emotions with a friend, she said she experiences joy when she can name her feelings. This self-taught person says, “These little discoveries bring me joy.” I began to wonder what the word for this joy of finding phrases for our amorphous emotions would be.
This longing, to name the unnamed, reminded me of another memory — My college friend was so fascinated by the concept of Wabi Sabi that she ended up doing a thesis on it. While there is no single English word that captures the subtleties of Wabi Sabi, we have adopted this Japanese philosophy, which translates into finding beauty in impermanence, imperfections, and transience. Despite being borrowed from a different cultural context, we now imagine the concept in many situations in life.
This fluid movement of words across cultures finds an echo in linguists as well. Language enthusiasts share their perspectives on this fluidity of languages. K Samuel Moses Srinivas, assistant professor of English, believes that language is cultural. “The place of origin and the community play an important role. Any language that grows has to accommodate and accumulate what it takes from different communities.” While describing evolution, he shares another vantage point. Many scholars believe that a language dies in the process. “While many classic languages like Sanskrit, Latin, and Old Greek have manifested into different languages, they don’t just die; they move on to different languages,” he explains. Accommodation, he adds, is key to growth. “It’s a necessity for any language to live on and spread to different spaces.”
This idea of accommodation also means loss. English has roots in languages like Greek and Latin, and if we look at its evolution, we see that many words have become archaic. In the process of borrowing and discarding, many words are added to the vocabulary, while others fade away. There are words like fuzzle, which translates to intoxicate or confuse; curlglaff, which means the shock while plunging into cold water; and bedlam, which means extreme confusion or disorder, that have become obsolete and forgotten. Bedlam originated from a mental asylum in London and was often used as a derogatory term. As Professor Samuel says, words have evolved and been discarded, often because of political reasons and the meanings attached to them.
No one English
The contemporary shape of English continues to shift. Christina Abigail, a training and content specialist, says, “English is currently still evolving, a very growing language. If you see English from a literary point of view, like any other language, the old texts are not accessible to the public anymore in terms of understanding. English is a language that has words added to it every year, not by the neighbouring country’s language alone, but through the global languages it comes in touch with.” For Christina, who speaks seven languages, language is just a means to convey that particular culture.
Emulating sounds Samuel says that onomatopoeia (words mimicking natural sounds) come into play in the development of a language. Hiss, splash, whack, boom, crackle, and many more. He further explains how the word galata, which has roots in Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, and Telugu, is commonly used in English, too. In Urdu and Hindi, the word means galat or incorrect; in Tamil, it refers to commotion or ruckus. The word is now gaining prominence beyond its origins.
“Modern English has roots in multiple languages, and the British no longer own the language,” shares Christina. Elaborating with an example, she adds that words like curry and chai exist in English today. They were not there earlier because English perhaps did not have curry in its culture, and thus, took the word as it is from the Indian subcontinent. Similarly, she mentions words like deja vu, which literally means already seen. Today, we use this borrowed word, which entered the English vocabulary in the 1900s, to describe the feeling of having already experienced the present situation.
Christina opines that English is often seen as a professional language, which could be the reason the emotional quotient in it feels limited. Adding a layer of explanation, Lathikaa S, a freelance writer, says English is not her first language, and she has often stumbled because she feels “there are no words for mixed emotions. I don’t think in any language. There are times when I watch a movie or read a poem and get overwhelmed, but also feel really happy to come across such a feeling in art.” For her, it is not always words, even a piece of art can give her feelings a name. Yet she believes some feelings remain indescribable.
It is for such unfathomable emotions that metaphors exist, Lathikaa says. “To be able to explain the feeling by parallely drawing a comparison to another scenario. It doesn’t have to always be poetic or philosophical; it can be democratic and accessible.” She substantiates this by mentioning the word deja vu, which she says she uses repeatedly, not just because she learnt it, but because no other word accurately captures the experience. She recalls the Malayalam short story ‘Uthuppante Kinnar’, which “did a great job in teaching us to translate our emotions into words.” She adds that Fyodor Dostoevsky does that too, but “the problem is that it becomes elaborate. It doesn’t condense to a word or two.”
A personal note
The discussion finally returns to personal. Words, especially in our mother tongues, are so personal that many native speakers and writers argue that English can never capture the essence of their world entirely or accurately. Samuel says many postcolonial writers have kept certain words untouched in their texts because they feel translation would uproot them from their emotional depth and context. As he says, “When you translate a book, it becomes a different text altogether.” Indian writers have consciously dissented from translating to retain authenticity.
Slightly deviating from the serious discussions of etymology, authenticity, and emotional depth, Lathikaa adds a humorous hue. She says words are tied to memories and people. She recalls, “A friend once told me that ‘jhilmil’ describes the cooling sensation after drinking cold water following a Vicks lozenge, and now that word always reminds me of her. Another friend practised ikebana, and ikebana became a nickname filled with affection.”
This intertwining of words and memory resonates with me. I was introduced to a new word by a friend who commented ‘saudade’ on one of my Instagram stories — a photo of an azure blue sky and shimmery sand joining the blue daylight sea, with a caption conveying an intense longing to go back in time, to that moment when the beach looked blue in the brightest evening hour. The word ‘saudade’ reminds me of her.
Here are some words that cannot be translated into English:
Sudade (Portuguese): A deep melancholic longing for something absent, loved, or lost
Toska (Russian): A profound spiritual anguish, a yearning for something unknown or without a specific cause
Forelsket (Norwegian): The euphoric feeling of beginning to fall in love
Sobremesa (Spanish): People spend a little more time at the table after eating, to chat, drink coffee, and pass time leisurely
Ya’aburnee’ (Lebanon): The literal translation is “ you bury me”. This conveys the desire that the loved ones outlives you so that you don’t have to live without them
Gezelligheid (Dutch): The comfort of being at home with friends, or family, or general togetherness
Lykke (Danish): An ultimate happiness or feeling that everything is perfect in life
Fernweh (German): Longing for far-off places, especially places that you have never seen before
Ma (Japanese): Meanings live in the pause. The silence, the gap, the breath: treated as presence and not emptiness