words not spoken

• ataraxia – calmness untroubled by mental or emotional disquiet (greek)

• psithurism – the sound of the wind rustling the leaves (greek)

• schlemiel- an awkward and unlucky person for whom things never turn out right (yiddish)

• mellifluous: a sound that is sweet and smooth, pleasing to hear (english)

• ineffable: too great to be expressed in words (english)

• hiraeth: a homesickness for a home you can't return to, or that never was. (welsh)

• serendipity: the natural ability of making desirable discoveries by accident (english)

• petrichor: the pleasant, earthy smell after rain (greek)

• denouement: the resolution of a narrative (english)

• vellichor: the strange wistfulness of used bookshops (english)

• sonder: the realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own (english)

• exulansis: the tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it (english)

• morii: the desire to capture a fleeting moment (italian)

• numinous: feeling both fearful and awed by what is in front of you (latin)

• dépaysement: the good or bad feeling that comes from being in a foreign country (french)

• trouvaille: a lucky find (french)

• acatalepsy: the impossibility to truly comprehend anything (greek)

• commuovere: to stir, to touch, to move to tears (italian)

• halassophile: someone who loves the sea (greek)

• eleutheromania: an irresistible yearning for freedom (greek)

• sehnsucht: an intense yearning for something far-off and indefinable (german)

• novaturient: a desire for powerful change in one’s life or situation (latin)

• waldeinsamkeit: the feeling of solitude in the woods (german)

• mångata: the reflection of the moon on the water (swedish)

• komorebi: the sunlight that filters though the trees (japanese)

• ukiyo: “the floating world”, living in the moment, detached from the bothers of life (japanese)

• yūgen: a profound, mysterious sense of the beauty of the universe that triggers a deep emotional response (japanese)

• dès vu: the awareness that this will become a memory (french)

• onism: the awareness of how little of the world you will experience (english)

• vemödalen: the frustration of photographing something amazing when thousands of identical photos already exist (english)

• absquatulate: to flee or leave abruptly without saying goodbye (english)

• cockaigne: an imaginary place of extreme luxury and ease (french/english)

• coddiwomple: to travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination (english)

• nemophilist: a person who is fond of forests or forest scenery (greek)

• boketto: the act of gazing vacantly into the distance without a thought (japanese)

The words in green are words that are nature related. Those in pink are words that make me feel warm and the ones in blue make me feel cold and scared.

I find it really interesting how certain languages have words for things other languages do not. To me, it is a startling reminder that language is really just our own invention.

sources:

this

and this

dictionary of obscure sorrows