There are words that cannot be translated with a single expression because they encompass entire cultural universes; they are often terms that describe emotions, sensations and concepts so profound that their equivalent cannot be found in other languages.
We at Finking have selected some of the most fascinating:
Fernweh, or ‘longing for faraway places’, comes from the German ‘Ferne’, distance, and ‘Weh’, pain, and is the feeling that expresses the desire to be in another place, or the desire to leave, travel and explore. These can be places where one has lived, but also places that one has never visited.
Wanderlust, that is the irrepressible desire to travel and discover the world. This too comes from the German language and includes the verb ‘wandern’ which means to walk and wander, and the word ‘Lust’ which means desire and wish.
Saudabe, from Portuguese, indicates a nostalgia that is a little sweet and a little melancholic, almost poetic, for something that may or may not be real, far away or lost and distant from the person.
Tsundoku, from Japanese, indicates a compulsive habit of buying books, but never reading them.
Bibliosmia, on the other hand, comes from Italian and is the pleasure you feel when you smell the scent of newly bought books.
Wabi-sabi, comes from Japanese and indicates the beauty of imperfection, that is, the charm you feel when you see things that show the signs of ageing. So it invites you to see beauty even where objectively it is not there.
So every language tells a different way of seeing and interpreting the world. Untranslatable words are not just linguistic curiosities, but small fragments of cultures that teach us to think in different ways. And who knows, maybe in each of us, even among us at Finking, there is a little bit of Fernweh, or Saudade, or even Wabi-Sabi.
