Dear friend,
During the time when I was studying in Secondary School, there were no classes teaching “foreign” languages other than English. Now happily there are schools and institutions teaching a variety of languages such as Arabic, French, Japanese, etc.
I once thought of learning a new language - such as Spanish or Portuguese because millions of people speak these two languages - as then I would gain a totally new perspective, outlook, and worldview of that particular people and their society. It would amount to experiencing a whole new world of another human civilization.
However, when it came to actually choosing which language to learn, I could not come to a decision because there are literally hundreds of languages such that we cannot hope to learn in our short lifetime. Simply put, I could not decide which culture to experience out of all the existing cultures.
But one good thing is that I finally saw the sense in improving my English instead, as all the important literature, documents, and research (including scientific research) of the world have, and are been, translated into English.
Hence, I am now of the view that I will not miss out on anything important, but rather, in fact, get a better insight into the world around us if I concentrate on improving my English skills and vocabulary.
Sincerely yours,
XX
Every new word you learn is an idea. Specifically I am very fascinated to learn about words that describe beautiful ideas that I can’t put to words in my native language Dhivehi.
ReplyDeleteLike there’s this Japanese word komorebi that I learned only after I started hiking . It’s beautiful. I thought only the Japanese have such a finely refined sense of aesthetics and appreciation of nature to have a special word to describe the surreal interplay between the sun's rays and the leaves. I googled up the word and came to know it’s actually made up of three particles - the first kanji 木 meaning ‘tree’, the second one 漏 denoting 'escape’ and the last one 日 meaning ‘light /‘sun‘. How a single world could so succinctly capture the essence of something so surreal is just incredible.
Coming across the word ‘Umami’ was another Aha moment. It was like a word that I’ve always wanted to describe, a subtleness that has a bit of sweetness, sourness, bitterness, and saltiness all at the same time. .
Shinrinyoku is the other word. Ever since I came across this I've been so much captivated by the beauty the word so succinctly encapsulates. I dont know Japanese but my gut feeling is that the English equivalent of the word 'forest-bathing' grossly desecrates the essence of the idea .
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There’s a certain kind of happiness that comes with learning a foreign word that has in it so many feelings and ideas that you can’t put into words in your own language. Some of these words are ideas that cannot be translated to other languages. Forest walking got me into developing a special kind of liking for many new English words like ‘petrichor (the pleasant earthy smell after rains), pluviophile (a lover of rain), ‘selenophile’ (a person who loves the moon).
Some people think Dhivehi is a poor language, especially when they find it difficult or even impossible to translate research papers or describe things from other languages. But we have to keep in mind that languages develop and evolve depending on the needs of their respective societies. In Maldives, we have all these unique names to describe "coconuts" in their varying stages of development - just as cold countries have many names to describe "snow".
DeleteAs for learning foreign languages, I guess, as the sender of the above letter says, we may have to choose which languages to learn, from among a choice of so many languages available. One way to decide on a choice may be to do some research to decide what kind of experiences one seeks from that language - aesthetic beauty included. In your case, it seems you are, among other things, very fascinated by the environmental sensitivities of the Japanese people which are reflected in their language :)