People end up bragging that the word saudade exists only in the Portuguese language. But in reality this word came from the Latin language and is present in several other languages. Even languages that do not have exactly one word with the same meaning of longing, have several others to express this feeling. In this article we will see how to say nostalgia in several other languages.
Before we begin, we must understand that homesickness is simply a feeling of lack, or melancholy feeling due to the withdrawal of a person, thing or place, or the absence of pleasant experiences already lived. In some languages like Spanish, there is literally the word derived from saudade, but its meaning is used more to refer to the nostalgia and loneliness that has everything related to the meaning of missing or missing. Saudade is a kind of nostalgic memory, a loving memory of a special good that is absent, accompanied by a desire to review it or possess it.
The word saudade came from the Latin solitas, solitatis, through the archaic forms soedade, soidade and suidade, under the influence of health and salute. Solitas, in Latin, means loneliness, helplessness, abandonment and abandonment.
Missing in other languages
The fact that there is not a single word to demonstrate the feeling of missing someone does not mean that that feeling is expressed. Even though the word saudade does not exist, other languages have several words to demonstrate this feeling. We must remember that people who speak other languages see a different world from ours, it may seem strange to us to use different words in addition to longing to define a feeling of lack on some occasions, but for them it is common in their culture and language.
Another interesting factor is that most of the time we use to miss instead of the traditional longing, even though knowing that missing is something more punctual while longing refers more to the past, people end up using it on the same occasions. Now let's see how to express that feeling in other languages:
Saudade in Portuguese and English
We use the expression miss you to say that we miss you, miss you or need someone. With the word miss it is possible to demonstrate several expressions related to missing and missing.
In English we use the expression homesick and homesickness to say that we miss home, our country or somewhere, this expression is used to indicate that you are away from home or somewhere. There are also other expressions like long for something to say that we crave something and several other expressions like missing, nostalgia, longing, yearning which should be studied in a separate English article.
Saudade in other languages
- In German they use the word sehnsucht.
- In Polish they use the word tesknota.
- In Arabic it says alistiyáqu ”ilal watani.
- In German Fernweh it means missing a place you’ve never been.
- In most other languages, expression miss.
- In some other languages, expressions such as I want to see you, lonely and nostalgic to demonstrate a feeling of longing.
If we stop to think, of course that all languages have ways to express the feeling of longing, be more specific with one or 2 words or even a complete sentence. The only exclusivity of Portuguese is to say this in just a single word for all occasions, for me this is called laziness xD. This is strange because Portuguese tends to exaggerate when it comes to unnecessary word numbers.
I already wrote an article talking about missing you in Japanese, you can read by clicking here.
