The Untranslatable Words and Their Influence on Thought

Sydney, Dec 5 (The Conversation) If you're fluent in a language other than English, you've likely noticed that some concepts are nearly impossible to translate precisely. A Japanese designer might admire an object’s shibui, a kind of simple yet timeless elegance, yet find it challenging to accurately convey this notion in English. Similarly, hygge, a Danish word encapsulating a unique feeling of coziness, has inspired entire books to explain its meaning. Portuguese speakers grapple with expressing saudade, a blend of yearning, wistfulness, and melancholy, while Welsh speakers face even greater difficulty translating hiraeth, which includes a longing for one’s Celtic heritage and traditions.

The Influence of Language The distinct words in different languages can shape and organize their speakers' thoughts and experiences, supporting the theory of "linguistic relativity." Also referred to as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, this theory partly stems from American linguist Edward Sapir's 1929 assertion that languages reference their speakers’ cultural patterns. If Danish speakers feel hygge, they have a word to express it; if English speakers don't, we don't have the equivalent term. Sapir further proposed that language users are significantly influenced by their languages, suggesting that English speakers might be constrained by their linguistic framework, unable to fully experience hygge, unlike Danes. According to this view of "linguistic determinism," the absence of a word implies a void in our experiential world.

Debate and Discussion This theory remains contentious. Sapir's student, Benjamin Lee Whorf, famously suggested in 1940 that the Hopi language's lack of verb tenses signified a unique "psychic experience" of time and the universe compared to Western physicists. A subsequent study, however, detailed nearly 400 pages on time-related language in Hopi, including terms like "today," "January," and references to present, past, and future actions. Ever heard of "50 Inuit words for snow?" That notion originated with Whorf's claims. Although he cited a number closer to seven, the figure was argued to be both excessive and insufficient. (It depends on the definition of a "word.") More recently, anthropological linguist Dan Everett suggested that the Amazonian Pirahã language lacks "recursion," the ability to embed one sentence within another, as seen in complex sentence structures.

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