(Image: Gabriele Lopez/Millennium Images, UK)
OVER the last couple of months, my husband and I have been trying to move house. Four times now we鈥檝e fallen in love with a property, only to find ourselves mourning a future life we鈥檇 already come to adore when the sale fell through. And then I tell myself to snap out of it. Grief is what I鈥檇 feel if a member of my family died. Love is what I feel for my family, at a stretch my dog. Can a house really elicit the same emotions?
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At these moments, I grope for the vocabulary to express these feelings in a more nuanced way. Is there no word for the grief of losing an imaginary life you鈥檝e not even started? Is there a name for the love you can feel for a building and all that it promises? And perhaps more importantly, if there were, might I find the whole sorry business of moving house easier to deal with?
The idea that the way we speak about our feelings might influence how we feel them is hotly debated. Some evolutionary psychologists back the idea that all our feelings boil down to a handful of universal, basic emotions; gut responses which strike regardless of the culture we live in. Long before they learned to speak, our cave-dwelling ancestors would have felt the telltale physiological fear response 鈥� their hearts would hammer in their chest and their palms prickle with sweat if they watched a sabre-toothed tiger slope past. How else could they have been motivated to flee or fight? In this scheme of things, feelings came first, their names much later, as people learned to communicate. If so, disgust feels the same, whether you live in New York or Timbuktu.
But as a historian who studies how the meanings of our emotions have changed over the centuries, I struggle to accept this idea. Words aren鈥檛 just labels. They also provide a scaffold for complex networks of ideas and concepts, spiritual beliefs, medical theories, social mores and expectations. While researching a new book on the subject, I was often struck by the diversity of this cultural baggage. For example, these days we might celebrate happiness, but in the 16th century some self-help authors encouraged people to feel sad, which they viewed as the more humble response to life鈥檚 vicissitudes. Nowadays, sadness is often tinged with feelings of impatience or even shame. But declare yourself sad in the 16th century, and you might have had cause to feel a bit smug, too.
No words, no worries
Look more closely at the world鈥檚 languages, and the idea of universal emotions also takes a tumble. If disgust is a single primal emotion, why do Germans distinguish between two types of it 鈥� ekel (disgust that makes the gorge rise or stomach churn) and abscheu (usually translated as revulsion)? And that is nothing compared with the 15 kinds of fear that the Pintupi of Western Australia speak of. Some cultures identify feelings which have no obvious equivalent in English, like the Japanese amae or the Dutch gezelligheid (see definitions, overleaf). Equally, languages may lack words for emotions which English-speakers take for granted: the Machiguenga people of Peru have no term which precisely captures the meaning of 鈥渨orry鈥�, for instance. Could the fact that they don鈥檛 have a word to convey this emotion mean they don鈥檛 鈥� or can鈥檛 鈥� feel it either?
Science is now being brought to bear on such questions. Brain imaging studies, for example, show a strong link between language and emotions: when the parts of the brain linked to emotion are aroused, and language.
Some of these studies have shown what many of us know instinctively, , bringing coherence to internal turbulence. But other cognitive scientists have gone further, suggesting that words play an even deeper role in constructing our emotional lives, not only helping us manage feelings, but actually bringing them into being in the first place.
Earlier this year, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her colleagues found that our ability to understand the meaning of words such as 鈥渉appiness鈥� or 鈥渁nger鈥� appears to have a measurable effect on whether we can recognise those emotions in others. In one experiment, they asked a group of volunteers to say the word 鈥渁nger鈥� out loud 30 times, to create a familiar effect known as 鈥渟emantic satiation鈥�: words losing their meaning through repetition. Compared to a control group, these participants were at recognising pictures of scowling faces as representing anger.
The team also carried out tests on people diagnosed with semantic dementia, a neurodegenerative disorder which destroys the ability to recall the meaning of words. Both patients and a control group were asked to sort photographs representing six emotional states into separate piles. The healthy participants sorted the photographs into six groups. Those with semantic dementia often created only three piles: one for unpleasant feelings (anger, sadness, disgust, fear), one pleasant (happiness) and one neutral.
These tests suggest that telling the difference between an angry face and one grimacing in disgust is not as straightforward as we might think. Without the words we use to understand emotions, we might not even be able to register the faces as expressing different feelings at all. This suggests to me that when we identify even apparently basic emotions in other people, our language and culture will always influence what we see.
鈥淲ithout the right words, we might not be able to register emotions in the faces of other people鈥�
Lindquist鈥檚 team also thinks that the same processes may be at work in recognising our own feelings. Learn a word for an emotion, and it may act as a lightning rod, attracting all kinds of inchoate sensations and vague inklings. Once we learn to link that word to a particular network of sensations, our brains find it easier to seek out experiences which are consistent with it and filter out those which aren鈥檛.
Consider awumbuk, the inertia felt when a house guest leaves, a common emotion among the Baining of Papua New Guinea. Baining people believe awumbuk is caused by a heaviness in the atmosphere left by departing visitors, and they leave a bowl of water out overnight to absorb it, flinging the contents away the next morning.
If a guest leaves my house, I might feel sorry to see them go. But if I were a Baining, I might expect to feel awumbuk, and then all kinds of other expectations will come into play: that I ought to feel fuzzy-headed; that when I throw the water away, these feelings will disappear. These beliefs will bring some sensations to the forefront of my mind to create a coherent experience, and so will tangibly influence my emotions.
It works both ways. There are other feelings that go unnamed and so stay unnoticed. As far as the conscious mind is concerned, they are unfelt. It might even make sense to say that when a language lacks the name for an emotion, the feeling can fade into the background, unformed, even lost.
If true, this finding has important therapeutic consequences. Last year Jordi Quoidbach at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain, and his colleagues found that 鈥渆modiversity鈥� 鈥� experiencing an abundance and wide range of emotions 鈥� is .
So if you want to bring some variety into your emotional life, try familiarising yourself with greng jai, iktsuarpok, 鈥渉omefulness鈥� or amae, and you might just notice yourself experiencing new feelings as a result in your daily life too. Just beware of basorexia 鈥� the sudden urge to kiss someone.
Emotional language from around the world
(Image: Lena Mirisola/Getty)
Awumbuk
There is an emptiness after visitors depart. The walls echo; the space which felt so cramped while they were around now seems weirdly large. And though there is often relief as well, we can be left feeling as if everything seems rather pointless.
The Baining people who live in the mountains of Papua New Guinea are so familiar with this that they call it awumbuk. They believe that departing visitors shed a kind of heaviness into the air, so as to travel lightly (see main story). This oppressive mist lingers for three days, creating a feeling of distraction and inertia and interfering with the hosts鈥� ability to tend to their home and crops. To dispel it, the family fills a bowl with water and leaves it overnight to absorb the festering air. The next day, they rise very early and ceremonially fling the water into the trees, whereupon normal life resumes.
Greng jai
In Thailand, greng jai is the feeling of being reluctant to accept another鈥檚 offer of help because of the bother it would cause them.
Iktsuarpok
When visitors are due to arrive, a fidgety feeling sprouts up. We might keep glancing out of the window or pause mid-sentence, thinking we鈥檝e heard the sound of a car. Among the Inuit, this antsy anticipation, causing them to scan the frozen Arctic plains for approaching sledges, is called iktsuarpok. Might the restless checking of our phones, waiting for an expected response to a text or comment on a status update, be a type of iktsuarpok? Constantly refreshing the screen to see if a hoped-for email has arrived can feel like one of the most distracting aspects of contemporary life. Perhaps it鈥檚 not the technology, however, as much as our desire for human contact in an isolating world, which is to blame. (See also awumbuk).
Amae
Most of us have on some occasion felt the urge to crumple into the arms of a loved one to be coddled and comforted. It鈥檚 important and reviving, this sensation of temporary surrender in perfect safety. The concept is not easily captured in English, but Japanese people know it as amae, the feeling of being able to depend on another鈥檚 love and help with no obligation to be grateful in return. It helps relationships to flourish and is an emblem of the deepest trust.
In the 1970s, Western anthropologists became very excited about amae, claiming that it was evidence that even our most intimate emotions are shaped by the societies in which we live. They argued that Japan鈥檚 traditional collectivist culture had allowed amae to flourish.
So one wonders why those of us who grew up speaking English often fumble when trying to articulate a similar experience. Perhaps this lacuna in English speaks volumes about how hard it can be to accept other people鈥檚 support.
Homefulness
In 1841, the poet John Clare escaped from High Beech asylum to get home to his beloved. For three and a half days he walked with broken shoes, sleeping in porches and eating grass from the roadside. In a letter he wrote describing the journey, he tells of the feeling when, exhausted and foot-sore, he reached a crossroad pointing to home and was suddenly restored: 鈥淚 felt myself in home鈥檚 way鈥�.
The writer Iain Sinclair, who retraced Clare鈥檚 journey, used the little-known word 鈥渉omefulness鈥� to describe Clare鈥檚 feeling at this point. He became full with the feeling of home.
The feeling of 鈥渉omefulness鈥� surges up at the end of a long journey, but after less-arduous travels too: it鈥檚 there when we step off the plane after a holiday or turn into our road with shopping bags bulging. It spreads through us with its combination of relief, belonging and the satisfaction of a long journey鈥檚 end.
Cyberchondria
Anxiety about the symptoms of a supposed illness, fuelled by online research.
A formal feeling
Sometimes life鈥檚 most painful experiences can leave us eerily cold. The poet Emily Dickinson described it as 鈥渁 formal feeling鈥濃��. The heart seems stiff and detached, our feelings 鈥渃eremonious鈥�; 鈥淭his is the Hour of Lead,鈥� she wrote. But, she reassures us, it will pass.
Gezelligheid
It鈥檚 no surprise that so many of northern Europe鈥檚 languages have a particular word for feeling cosy (from the Gaelic cosag, a small hole you can creep into). It鈥檚 when it鈥檚 drizzling and the damp rises from the canals that we yearn for the feeling the Dutch call gezelligheid. Gezelligheid describes both the physical state of being in a homely place surrounded by good friends (it鈥檚 impossible to be gezelligheid alone), and the emotional state of feeling 鈥渉eld鈥� and comforted. The Danes and Finns also have similar words. Riffle through the languages of the sunny Mediterranean, however, and the equivalent combination of physical snugness and emotional comfort is much harder to find.
Ringxiety
A phone trills in a crowded train carriage and you frantically rummage for yours. Out on a country walk you whip out your phone like a gun from a holster, convinced you鈥檝e felt it vibrate, only to discover a pathetically blank screen. According to the psychologist David Laramie, who coined the term, ringxiety is a feeling of low-level anxiety causing us to think we鈥檝e heard our phones ring, even when they haven鈥檛. Its existence is evidence听鈥� if we needed it听鈥� that in this age of instant communication, being in a state of readiness for human contact is fast becoming a default setting. See also iktsuarpok.
听
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淏uzz words鈥�
