Hi, I wanted to ask for some help to make things easier for me as a writer. It’s easier to help if you speak both English and Portuguese, but even if you only speak English, it should still work.
There is a specific word that basically only exists in my language. I already somewhat knew it was a uniquely Portuguese word, but I had never really stopped to think deeply about it until I found myself needing to translate it into English in its fullest sense, and realized that it is actually something quite difficult to explain.
Outside of its shallow everyday usage, it is a word with a very strong philosophical and emotional weight, one that is difficult to describe because we simply grow up already accustomed to having a word that reflects all of this. I know there is probably no single word that is 100% equivalent to it, but I would accept a small set of words that together convey the same meaning.
The word in question is “saudade”.
It is often translated as “missing something” or “missing someone”, and this is not a misunderstanding exclusive to foreigners. Sometimes we really do use it in place of saying “I miss”, especially in casual daily life, and many times we blend both meanings into this one single word.
However, the meaning of saudade is completely distinct, even if it is not exactly “wrong” to use it in place of “missing”, since Brazilian Portuguese is extremely receptive to adopting whatever popular meanings words end up gaining over time. But what I need is the original and deeper meaning of the word.
Basically: missing something is noticing the absence of something and wanting it back. It can be an object, a period of life, a relationship, and so on. You had it, you were used to having it, and then you no longer did. You noticed the absence and wished to have it back again, even if only for a moment.
Saudade is a nostalgic emotional reaction to something or someone that has already passed. It does not necessarily mean something bad, nor necessarily something good, and much less does it mean you want it back.
For example, you may remember your childhood and feel saudade, even if your childhood was the worst period of your life and you are infinitely happier now.
Saudade is the strange, somber weight of accessing a memory and, when comparing it to the present, realizing that they are different. Not better, not worse, simply different.
It is a nostalgic aftertaste born from our incredible ability to preserve memories, because hidden somewhere in the corners of our minds we carry memories not merely as images, but as mirrors reflecting another version of the world and of ourselves.
Saudade is when you remember what you used to think and the way you once perceived the world, and then bring that former worldview directly face to face with your present mind. It is the collision between those two versions of yourself.
Saudade is loving someone so deeply that, even while being happy to see them leave toward a better destiny far away from your chest, and even without missing the relationship itself, you begin to live with this constant melancholy.
Not because you are selfish. Not because you want the person back. But because you loved so genuinely that the person became part of your very being, and now, without them, you are someone different, and feel nostalgia for that former version of yourself with every beat of your heart.
Saudade is a memory that comes not from the mind, but from the chest.
@solsticeocean @applesaucesims @unknown-guesses @lilacgatorsims @lilaccatholic @yuriyurisims. @anachrosims @vampire-plays-sims
I do not know what the equivalent of this would be in English. I would deeply appreciate any help.
