A reason to study languages

One of the great joys of the modern world is the ease with which we can explore other cultures.  It’s not unusual to spend the morning reading Rumi or Neruda, the afternoon enjoying Miyazaki or Morel. 

But this practice has also brought one issue into stark relief: translation.  As much as we would like to pretend differently translation isn’t a zero-sum game where words are inputted into a dictionary on one side and come out seamlessly translated on the other side (otherwise online translators wouldn’t be as hysterical as they are).

But why not?  What is the differences between one language and another that make certain words or ideas untranslatable?  Is it simply a difference in culture?  Something one can learn with time and trial and error?

Or does language itself affect how people think?

This idea has fascinated scholars for ages.  Early in the 20th century Benjamin Whorf argued that language did indeed affect  cognition (often called the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis). Some scholars have even argued that until a language has a word for an idea it is impossible for that culture to fully understand said idea. 

More recently Lera Boroditsky, a psychologist at Standford University has gone on to research how the structure of the language affects speakers.  As one of her studies she set out to explore whether the use of gendered nouns affects how language speakers see inanimate objects. Anyone who has ever studied a Romance language has struggled with gendered nouns, the seemingly inexplicable nature of languages like Spanish or French (as well as some other branches of language like German) to attribute masculinity or femininity to objects.

She noted that when German speakers were asked to describe a bridge they used feminine adjectives like “elegant” while French speakers used words like “immense” to describe the same bridge. Coincidentally, the German noun for bridge is feminine, Brücke, while the French Pont is masculine. The same reactions were seen for keys, chairs and other objects. 

Boroditsky also explored how people whose language has specific names for varying colors were better at remembering and differentiating those colors later. She also found that the Kuuk Thaayorre, from Aboriginal Australia, were more skilled than other speakers at dead reckoning, as their language uses “compass directions for every spatial cue rather than right or left.”

The early idea of linguistics scholars is is a bit silly, as it is difficult to expect that since a word doesn’t exist in a language the idea that word portrays doesn’t exist either. Just because English doesn’t have an equivalent to the Hebrew Firgun does that mean that people here don’t do nice things for others just to make them feel good? Or do we not get together to catch up and socialize over coffee and pastries just because we don’t use the Swedish Fika?

At the same time, when words exist in one language but not another it is perfectly normal to ask why that is. Why do the Japanese have a special word to describe the anniversary of someone’s death (Meinichi)? Is there anything culturally different between the Germans that thought of Schadenfreude (glee at someone else’s misfortune) and the Mexicans that thought of Pena Ajena (embarrassment at someone else’s embarrassment)? Is seeing a woman who stands on her doorstep yelling obscenities at her kids so common in Denmark that they really needed a word for it (Kaelling)?

There are ideas embedded within the words we use that show us something about the culture that created them. It’s difficult to look at Japanese words, for example, without understanding the developed sense of place in society that the Japanese have. We can try to translate these words to the English equivalent of shame, but it just doesn’t quite mean the same thing.

But when it comes down to it one of the most interesting things about studying other languages is that feeling that comes over you when you discover a foreign word that exactly encapsulates an emotion you’ve never quite been able to describe. Here are three that are particularly poignant:

Ya’aburnee (Arabic) Literally “you bury me” it is essentially a term of endearment that tells the other person that they are so wonderful you hope that they will always be in your life.

Toska (Russian) According to Nabokov: “No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.”

Belum (Indonesian) This is essentially the English equivalent of “No, I haven’t yet” but with a much more positive bent. It encapsulates the idea that while you haven’t yet done something that doesn’t mean that you never will.

Understanding these words, and others like them, may not change the way we think but- by giving us a tool with which we can explain more of the emotions that tug at our soul- they do change the way we communicate with and understand the world around us.

For further exploration check out: