In Boston, there are reports of people pronouncing the letter “r.” Down in Tennessee, people are noticing a lack of a Southern drawl. And Texans have long worried about losing their distinctive twang.
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Hygge and 7 other global wellness terms
Hygge and 7 other global wellness terms
The idea that a word is untranslatable is a bit of a misnomer. There are, however, many words in other languages that encompass a meaning that takes several words in English to convey. Because of differing cultural contexts, it is sometimes difficult to capture the nuance or exact meaning of words through translation, which is a big reason why the English language has adopted so many words from other languages without translating them. Words like klutz, wanderlust, avant-garde, and emoji have become ubiquitous in English despite originating in Yiddish, German, French, and Japanese, respectively.
Many words in other languages are imbued with cultural specificity, yet aspects of their meaning are universal, resonating with people all over the world by identifying some small but relatable part of the human experience. Translators can endlessly debate the meaning of words from one language to another, but in general, people don’t think about how these words are translated. In most cases, there are good reasons for why the words and phrases were chosen.
Sunday Citizen consulted international dictionaries and cross-cultural websites to identify words in other languages related to wellness that don’t directly translate to English.
Waldeinsamkeit (German)
- Meaning: Feeling of being alone in the woods
Waldeinsamkeit (pronounced veid-ein-zahm-kite) literally translates to “forest loneliness,” and has been an integral part of German culture for centuries. Waldeinsamkeit comes from a long tradition of roaming German forests alone to experience the feeling of enlightenment and inspiration that comes from communing with nature.
In Germany, walking through the forest has historically been treated as a way to maintain wellness and alleviate stress, with some officials even making it a part of public health policy. Today, some German health insurers pay for it as a form of therapy for stressed-out workers. Germans are far from the only ones who seek waldeinsamkeit and its health benefits, however. The Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku, or “forest bathing,” similarly recognizes the benefits of taking in the forest atmosphere for the body and mind.
Sisu (Finnish)
- Meaning: Willpower and resilience
The word sisu (pronounced see-soo) is derived from “sisus,” which means “guts or intestines” in Finnish. Centuries ago, guts were thought to be where strong emotions came from in the body. The word came to be held up as a core trait of Finnish people after Finland gained its independence from Russia in 1917.
Emilia Lahti, a Finnish researcher who studies the phenomenon of sisu, calls it embodied fortitude. Sisu is the hidden inner strength only accessed in times of adversity, when one is at the end of emotional and physical rope, but presses on anyway. Lahti points out that sisu is not so much something that can be consciously willed into existence, but is instead connected to a more visceral and experiential need to endure, which pushes the mind and body to continue.
This story originally appeared on Sunday Citizen and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.
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