English is a strange language. We don't really follow the rules of most other languages, and while it makes it unique, there are somethings the English language skips out on. Sure, we have words like petrichor (The earthy scent of soil that has been moistened, usually by rain) and defenestration (To throw something or someone out of a window), but there are words that the English language cannot capture, which is why in this post, I'm talking about words we can't define.
I got onto this topic on June 30, 2015 with the release of the X Ambassadors album VHS. VHS features the song "Litost", titled after a word of Czech origin (which Google was happy to define for me when I couldn't place it in English) roughly translating to mean "a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one's own misery." Upon discovering this, I decided a second Google search was in order, and typed "Untranslatable Words" into the search bar. I was not prepared for how many articles and web pages came up. After reading a few, I recommend this one and this one.. I think that the way that certain languages have changed over time is very interesting. Latin based languages dominated Europe because of the Greek and Roman empires, but in Asia and Africa and the Americas, this was not the case. These languages spread with colonialism and suddenly words like "cafe" and "pizza" are everyday terms. With the technology age, slang becomes more global and suddenly everyone is sharing pictures, culture and language, which is, incidentally, how I came across my topic in the first place. I think as a world culture the ability to understand and adapt is important, but the moments of appreciation for our cultural differences is just as important, which is why I think that breaking the language constraints is universally beneficial. Allowing us to learn about other languages helps us to bring about a worldly understanding.
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