The Concept That Doesn’t Exist in My Language
How It Changes Everything
Words are powerful tools, not only for communication but also for shaping your own reality.
The words you use create your consciousness, your way of thinking, your way of expressing yourself, your habits, and over time, they become your reality.
Words are agreements to express ideas or feelings.
The meaning of words is not absolute; it’s always a personal interpretation. Many words together under the same rules form a language. Languages are also agreements among a group of people to express themselves and communicate with each other.
Some concepts represented by words are easy to understand, like table, chair, house. We have preconceptions in our minds of what the object described by the word in question is. That’s simple and leaves little room for misinterpretation.
However, words like these change their meaning slightly depending on the culture in which the human lives. For example, children from different parts of the world draw a house differently. Although it’s a well-defined tangible concept, the basic interpretations are always different.
It’s inevitable, as everyone has a different language and culture.
This influences the mental creation of concepts, even tangible ones.
With intangible concepts, this interpretation problem is basically infinite. I imagine it this way: A human being has an infinite mind and an infinite soul. The scale of sensations and feelings is also infinite because each human being’s inner universe is infinite.
So, when choosing a word to express what one feels, you’re pigeonholing something from your infinite being to frame it and express it to another person.
This is where two problems in communication arise.
The first is the initial framing or definition. This is always based on personal life experience.
The second problem is exactly the same, but on the receiver’s side, who also translates this concept according to their own experiences.
For instance, if you had an abusive mother all your life, you’ll have a different mental conception of the concept of maternal love than someone who had a present and dedicated mother.
Even if you explain it dozens of times, they would never understand it at the level of the second person, because that person tries to reason how that sensation would be, while the second person experiences this sensation and has it well defined.
Personal experience is linked to the sense and meaning we give to words. It’s really impossible to understand 100% what a person defines with their words.
It’s always an interpretation.
This concept interference is so normal that we don’t even notice it. This inconsistency becomes much greater when two people grew up in different countries. Even if they speak the same language, different cultures give nuances or variations to the meaning. And this is in the same language.
When one translates these words to another language, although the dictionary translates them correctly, there’s always cultural interpretation.
There are immaterial concepts in one language that simply don’t exist in others. There are concepts that are fundamental and basic in one group of languages that have no translation to another language.
I’m fascinated by this difference because it makes you understand a lot about the concepts created by humans who use a language, which simply another language will never understand.
A concept that is fascinating, and explains a lot about my culture, or about cultures in general, is the explanation of a word and concept that in my language, Dutch, doesn’t exist.
The word or concept of “faith”. It doesn’t exist, we don’t have it.
That is, having certainty and believing in something that doesn’t exist, just because you believe it yourself, is not defined with a word.
Obviously, we do have “belief” but that’s another concept, you believe something that may be right or wrong, but you’re not sure.
With “faith”, you believe something and you’re sure of it without any evidence outside your own belief.
There aren’t many people who speak Dutch, which means we watch all foreign movies, series, and TV shows in their original languages. It’s not worth dubbing them. We’re used to subtitles and always hearing them in other languages.
I think that also helps a lot for all Dutch people to speak several languages, as we get free practice while watching TV.
When in a movie or series they talk about “faith”, it’s translated as “blind trust” or “blind belief”. As you can imagine, that’s not a good method for doing things or making decisions.
If we say “I have faith that it will turn out well”, for us it would be “I have blind confidence that it will turn out well”. It’s not a good method, for us, of making decisions.
A decision made without the blind part of trust is always much more accurate.
You can investigate the blind part of faith! It’s that simple.
If you have blind trust in something, it means you don’t know.
This way you generate confidence in knowing, you generate a reasoned attitude based on what you know and can know. But also on what you can’t know.
You’re always aware of it. It’s very logical, rational reasoning, based on knowing and not knowing. Obviously, we also sometimes make decisions without being 100% sure, but it’s always a reasoned calculation.
The knowledge I want to share is that many problems that exist in English, or Spanish, don’t exist in other languages.
To us, it looks like they’re discussing intangible concepts, which is impossible to know for sure, and they spend their time debating who is right, without ever being able to reach a conclusion or agreement simply because it’s impossible to know.
A total waste of time, where everyone is entitled to their opinion.
Sometimes it happens to me too, I get carried away by the passion of the moment, but then I realize it made no sense.
I didn’t learn anything, I didn’t teach anything.
And you, what do you think? Do you get carried away in endless discussions, or do you prefer to leave those discussions aside and use your time in more useful debates?
Thanks for reading! And if you feel it, share these thoughts with your friends.
Subscribe to Philosophy Odyssey Sundays Newsletter
