More recent terms from South Asian languages that have found their way into English have not all had the same fate. Unlike the previous examples, terms such as ‘pundit, ‘mantra’, ‘karma’ and ‘guru’ are culturally nuanced and have specific meanings within their religio-cultural contexts, which are not identical with the ways in which they are used outside of these settings. Take ‘pundit’, for example, which is commonly used of sports or technology commentators. While the general sense of a learned person is retained, the degree of reverence bestowed in the original is not carried over in translation. A similar diminishment is seen in the ways in which ‘mantra’ and ‘guru’ have been appropriated by the world of business, where the spiritual connotations present in the original use have been diluted in favour of a broadening out. Their use raises the question of the ethics of taking words from one cultural context to another, especially when the relationship between the two cultures involves an imbalance of power.
An interesting phenomenon within the cultural exchange of language is the ‘untranslatable’ word, which refers to terms from different languages that don’t correspond with any one term in English but that convey experiences, emotions or sensations that are highly suggestive. ‘Untranslatable’ words are experiences that speakers outside the respective cultures may well be able to relate to and that expand the repertoire of emotional experiences but that haven’t been conceptualised within other language systems. Take the Welsh term ‘hiraeth’, a noun that refers to ‘a homesickness for somewhere you cannot return to, the nostalgia and the grief for the lost places of your past, places that never were’. Although contextualised with reference to the homesickness that the Welsh feel for the Wales of the past, it is an experience to which many in the global world can relate within their own cultural contexts, perhaps heightened for migrants, who carry a collective sense of memory about their homeland that does not correspond to its reality in the contemporary. To take another example, the term ‘kilig’ in Tagalog refers to ‘the feeling of butterflies in your stomach, caused by a romantic or exciting experience’. From the Tagalog, an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by the ethnic Tagalog people, who make up a quarter of the population of the Philippines, the term articulates a feeling that resonate with many, but for which most other languages may not have one word for.
The gift of these words is the activation of the conceptual frameworks that they give rise to in the capturing of meaning, which involves uncovering and at times recovering experiences that may not have been verbalised. The practice of translation itself is elucidating because it builds a picture about how we convert meaning from one context to another, allowing for cultural differences. It shows how these terms express concepts that are richer than their translated meanings. Given the choice between using the term ‘hiraeth’ or referring to it in translation, as ‘a homesickness for somewhere you cannot return to, the nostalgia and the grief for the lost places of your past, places that never were’, the power of the concept reigns, conveying something about the integral ways in which language constructs meaning within cultures. And while there are clear benefits in drawing from different languages to enhance communication and expression, the ethics of responsible cultural exchange need to be considered, especially if the culture being taken from is a minority culture.
These were some of the reflections I had in mind when thinking about the company Human Material Loop’s selection of the Sanskrit term ‘ādara’ to refer to their latest material. Their invitation to write a blog piece took me back to the first meeting, a discussion about the use of the Sanskrit term for an innovation in the development of the brand. For a company so committed to the highest order of ethical thinking about sustainable solutions to waste, ‘Ādara’ is highly apposite. At a fundamental level it means respectfully but closer engagement with its linguistic roots elicits much more, capturing a sense of heightened or intense attention, by extension: to attend to respectfully. The company chose this term based on their adherence to the notion of honouring the environment and drawing from natural resources without disruption. Their latest material, for which they chose the term ‘Ādara’ embodied this ethos fully, and so seemed an ideal fit. In commenting on the legitimacy of using terms from minority cultures, it felt like a tribute to one of the oldest languages in the world and to a notion integral to the philosophy of the coexistence with nature.
What loanwords, untranslatable terms and the adoption of terms from other languages teach us is about the practice of translation and its role in communication between cultures. Globalisation increases the volume of words that enters our lexicon and consciousness, and words shape our experience of the world. The respectful engagement and exchange of terms is a way of expanding our horizons in favour of a more inclusive world, which involves respecting that each language has its own history and cultural contexts that inform the ways in which people comprehend and express the world around them.
