Use your words

Sometimes I think English is the richest of languages: a murder of crows, a sleuth of bears, an exaltation of larks. I mean, really, it doesn’t get much better than that.

But it does.

It turns out that other languages have emotionally enriching words that are sadly lacking in English. A University of East London researcher is investigating non-English words for positive emotions and concepts that have no direct translation in English. Although certainly one can feel an emotion without having a name for it, having a name captures the emotion, shines a light on it, preserves it, makes it sharable. What Tim Lomas, the researcher, says is that if you don’t have a way of identifying a specific feeling it “becomes just another unconceptualized ripple in the ongoing flux of subjective experience.”

I don’t know about you, but I am not partial to unconceptualized ripples.

So here is a sampling of what Lomas has found so far. You may want to boost your vocabulary with these words:

Gula (Spanish) the desire to eat simply for the taste
Mbukimvuki (Bantu) “to shuck off one’s clothes in order to dance”
Schnapsidee (German) coming up with an ingenious plan when drunk
Volta (Greek) leisurely strolling the streets
Gokotta (Swedish) waking up early to listen to bird song
Gumusservi (Turkish) the glimmer that moonlight makes on water
Gigil (Philippine Tagalog) the irresistible urge to pinch or squeeze someone because you love them so much
Firgun (Hebrew) saying nice things to someone simply to make them feel good
Sprezzatura (Italian) when all art and effort are concealed beneath a “studied carelessness”

I think there ought to be word for how muscles feel when they are toasty and pliant and well-used.

I think there ought to a word for the wave of well-er-than-well feeling that floods the body during a brisk walk on a bright February morning.

I think there ought to be a word for that rush of surprise and pleasure when discovering a bag of last summer’s hand-picked blueberries at the back of the freezer.

Because those are the words I would use to describe this morning.