Laura Romig, Brown University Language Ambassador, Class of 2025
Translation is something like a bridge between languages; we can use it to share ideas in multiple languages, to communicate with people from different parts of the world, and more. But are there areas where translation might inevitably fall short? Language learners often have a certain fascination with the idea of untranslatable words, which cannot attain the same level of meaning outside the language where they originated.
But what about when translations overlap, or conflict? The language of emotions is a place where translation can often fall short or even be misleading - perhaps because the use of an emotion word is dependent on an internal conceptualization of the emotion rather than an external fact. Research by Batja Mesquita and Lisa Barrett Feldman seeks to understand what role culture plays in forming our emotions.
Our common knowledge belief seems to be that the same set of core emotions exist for everyone, for example, fear, anger, happiness, and sadness, and languages simply identify them. But what about when it comes to more complex emotions, like shame, or guilt? The feeling we associate with these words is rooted in their cultural meaning. Not every culture associates the same behaviors with shame, so a "translation" of the word into another language might refer to a different internal emotion altogether, or a combination of multiple emotions from the original language. Mesquita points out that the Bedouin word hasham means a combination of shame, modesty, and shyness; so just 'shame' is an ineffective translation into English. And in the African language Luganda, the same word is used for anger and sadness - so which one might a translator pick as a 'translation' into a language with two separate words for these feelings?
While it might be externally comforting to believe that all humans experience the same emotions (and that language simply allows us to refer to these universal feelings), linguistic data tells us this simply isn't true. But at the same time, the inability to produce a satisfactory word-for-word translation doesn't mean that if we don't speak a language, we can never experience those emotions.
First and foremost, we can always attempt to learn a new language and, especially through the practice of reading in the language and listening to native speakers, come to understand what an emotion word might mean. And even before that, many languages might simply adopt the "untranslatable" emotion word into their own set of words. Schadenfreude, the German word for experiencing some sort of satisfaction from someone else's misfortune, has been adopted as an English word you might see in high school vocabulary lists.
Lastly, as always, gaining an intercultural understanding of the world, including of other languages, includes working to develop empathy for other people's cultural experiences. Mesquita adds that we shouldn't necessarily try to box other people's emotional experiences into our own language, especially if they speak a different one. Instead, we should ask about their experiences, and listen with empathy. We might learn something new along the way.
For more, check out the entire article in the New Yorker on this topic, with many great examples, more discussion from Mesquita here, and Feldman Barrett's paper on language's role in perceiving others' emotions.