Inspiration
20 untranslatable love words from around the world
Twenty untranslatable love words, each laid into an intimate scene. What English cannot quite say, another language named long ago.
You watch her sleep, and your sentence does not come. Something in the light on her cheek, something in your stomach, and English hands you three lukewarm words that say nothing.
It is not a lack of vocabulary. It is your language not having the tool. Other languages have placed a precise word on what you feel there, without noise. Twenty untranslatable love words, each laid into a scene, give back to you an emotion you were carrying without quite knowing what to call it.
Falling: the words of the first vertigo
1. Forelsket (Norwegian)
The pure euphoria of the very beginning, before the word "love" has even settled. It is that Sunday afternoon when you catch yourself smiling on the train, for no reason at all, except that she exists.
2. Koi no yokan (Japanese)
The certainty, at first glance, that the two of you are going to love each other. Not love at first sight (too loud): a slow, almost calm premonition, that knows before you do.
3. Kilig (Tagalog)
That shiver running through you when you replay what she said last night. It is what you feel at 11:47 p.m., under the blanket on the couch, when her hand brushes your knee and you hold your breath.
4. Mamihlapinatapai (Yagán)
That silence in the parked car, when you both know one of you has to speak first, and neither will. The radio off for three minutes, and no one daring to open the door.
5. Flechazo (Spanish)
Literally, the strike of an arrow. You look up from your glass, she looks up from her book, and a Tuesday evening goes straight through you without warning.
Waiting: when she or he is not here
6. Iktsuarpok (Inuit)
That soft restlessness that has you stepping onto the landing, glancing out the window, checking your phone. You are waiting for someone, and your body refuses to stay seated.
7. Viraha (Sanskrit)
In Indian poetry, the pain of being apart from the one you love. It is not a complaint, it is a form of love: distance does not suspend the feeling, it sharpens it.
8. Abschiedsschmerz (German)
The precise pain of the moment you part. Not the dread before, not the missing after: the very second your hand lets go of her shoulder on the platform.
9. Saudade (Portuguese)
It is Tuesday, 7 p.m., under the yellow kitchen light, when you cook pasta for one and catch yourself smiling because you could tell her exactly that tomorrow morning. Pessoa wrote it as a longing for the present: you can feel saudade for someone who is, in fact, still there.
A waiting you fill together
For the thirty mornings between you and her, day by day, surprise by surprise.
Build the countdown10. Hiraeth (Welsh)
The homesickness for a place you may never have returned to, may never have been. A dreamed-up house, a recomposed childhood, a former life you never lived but that you miss anyway.
Absence: the skin that remembers
11. Retrouvailles (French)
Yes, French: no other language has a word as precise for the moment you find each other again after a long absence (the others translate it as "reunion", which is cold). Borrow this one, keep it.
12. Ya'aburnee (Arabic)
Literally, "you will bury me". The quiet confession, slipped in without drama, that you would rather go first than learn how to live without the other (the tenderest of selfish wishes).
13. Dor (Romanian)
That precise tightening behind the breastbone, Wednesday 7:12 a.m., when you grab his jumper from the bathroom shelf and put it on before heading to work. Heavier than melancholy, softer than grief.
14. Toska (Russian)
Nabokov said no English word truly carries it: "a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a hunger with no name". It is what takes hold of you when you wake at four in the morning and have no idea what you are missing.
15. Onsra (Boro)
To love for the last time. That precise tenderness you hold for someone while already knowing it will end, the one that makes every gesture, every cup of coffee set in front of her, land a little more true.
Permanence: beyond the feeling
16. Jeong (Korean)
The attachment that gets woven through repeated small gestures (not passion, not friendship, something else). What remains between you after ten years, and what would make the thought of not seeing him, even for a month, unbearable.
17. Yuanfen (Chinese)
The quiet force that had you choose that carriage, that evening, that door. A thread you cannot see, but that had already tied you together long before the first word.
18. Bashert (Yiddish)
Your soulmate, in the religious and quiet sense of the word. The person who was meant for you before you were born, and whom you will recognise without noise the day she walks into the room.
19. Cwtch (Welsh)
The shelter-hug. Not a hello-hug, not a there-there-hug: the hug where your forehead finds its hollow in his neck, and you could stay there until the rain stops.
20. Douleur exquise (French)
French again: loving someone who cannot ever love you back. Barthes turned it into a fragment of his Lover's Discourse, and we had almost forgotten about it.
— Ludwig WittgensteinThe limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
The recap, for keeping close
| Word | Language | What it says, without an English word |
|---|---|---|
| Forelsket | Norwegian | The euphoria before the word "love" |
| Koi no yokan | Japanese | The premonition, at first glance, that this will happen |
| Kilig | Tagalog | The shiver at the memory of a sentence |
| Mamihlapinatapai | Yagán | The shared silence where each waits for the other |
| Flechazo | Spanish | The arrow strike, the Tuesday evening that goes through you |
| Iktsuarpok | Inuit | The restlessness of someone waiting |
| Viraha | Sanskrit | Separation as a form of love |
| Abschiedsschmerz | German | The precise pain of the moment of parting |
| Saudade | Portuguese | The longing for something still present |
| Hiraeth | Welsh | The ache for a house never lived in |
| Retrouvailles | French | The exact moment of finding each other again |
| Ya'aburnee | Arabic | "You will bury me", so as not to live without you |
| Dor | Romanian | The longing that lodges itself where the breath should be |
| Toska | Russian | The missing with no name, no cause, no object |
| Onsra | Boro | Loving while knowing it is the last time |
| Jeong | Korean | The attachment woven by repeated gestures |
| Yuanfen | Chinese | The thread that tied you together before the meeting |
| Bashert | Yiddish | The soulmate recognised under your breath |
| Cwtch | Welsh | The shelter-hug, forehead in the neck |
| Douleur exquise | French | Loving without a possible return |
These twenty words are not a stylistic exercise. They are twenty proofs that something lives in you, already named elsewhere, and that you were not the only one carrying it. Your language was missing, not you. You just arrived a little ahead of it.