The Welsh word hiraeth has no equivalent in English. It often translates as “homesickness,” but the actual concept is far more complex. It incorporates an aspect of impossibility: the pining for a home, a person, a figure, even a national history that may never have actually existed. To feel hiraeth is to experience a deep sense of incompleteness tinged with longing. The only living language with an exact equivalent is Portuguese, through the term saudade, which refers to an impossible longing for the unattainable. Other languages, however, hold terms that come close in meaning: dor in Romanian, Wehmut in German, kaiho in Finnish. In some cases, the term refers to issues of national history and identity. In Wales, for example,hiraeth is tied to the national loss of self-determination in 1282. In Portugal, saudadeemanates from the Age of Discovery, when Portuguese explorers set sail for the east and west, many never to return. Sometimes these sentiments are yoked to scientific discovery and the disorientations of modernity. In her book, Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light, Jane Brox notes that each technological step forward in erasing night’s darkness has carried a price—personal isolation, disruption of animals’ nocturnal rhythms, and other responses that have caused people to feel both gain and loss at the same time…a form of global hiraeth.
ORGANIZING FELLOW:
Marguerite Itamar Harrison, Spanish & Portuguese
Pamela Petro, English Language & Literature (via blackwoodandbrass)
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