Gaining Perspective Through Untranslatable Words

This matters, because language is a form of power. It creates categories that help us interpret the world, and that which is not easily available in language is often ignored in thought itself. A shared vocabulary makes ideas more accessible while a lack of language can render an experience illegible. It can isolate.

Our language choices change how we use our time and energy. For every word we use to describe where we want to go, there's another word that we're walking away from.

many would rather not be captured in print and pinned down to a particular moment of thought, preferring to dwell privately in the generative cultural practice of yarning.

I think back to a quote from the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein that I came across in college: “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”