If you’ve been with me for the previous two prompts, you’ve figured out that I’m a fan of language learning. When we learn words and phrases like mono no aware in Japanese or hiraeth in Welsh, we’re not just learning new words. We’re expanding the way we think, opening our minds to ideas that English has no direct language for. We can contemplate experiences like connection and nostalgia more deeply and expansively.
Today, write something that includes one word or phrase or line in a language that is not your native tongue. What does this phrase mean to you? What does it communicate in a way that is more effective than your own language? How does your poem contextualize its meaning? Does the reader need to know its meaning to understand your poem?
If you need inspiration, Google Translate is a language rabbit hole of fun. Type in whatever phrase appeals to you and choose a language. See what comes up. Try something in a language you know nothing about — this gets your brain working in new and imaginative ways.
I tried this with the English word isolation, a word I’m hearing often since I’m writing this during the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020. I’ve been home alone with my dog for weeks. I translated isolation into several languages that I’ve never studied, and was most intrigued by the Vietnamese counterpart: sự cô lập.
The English word isolation, an even four syllables, is full of vowels, smooth consonants including a soft ‘t,’ and flows easily. It carries an awareness that isolation can be comforting, even desirable, leaning toward the gentler word solitude.
But in reality, isolation can be harsh, cruel, even inhumane. When forced on someone, it is considered in some countries to be torture. If humans require connection to thrive, then isolation is the opposite, a breaking of the threads that bind us to others.
This is what I intuit in the Vietnamese word sự cô lập: three short syllables, not harsh exactly, but with a hard ‘c’ and clipped ‘p’ ending on lập. It strikes me as a complicated expression of being alone, perhaps being forced to be alone, as I am now, but I’m also comfortable with plenty to eat and my dog beside me. And I have Zoom. :-)
