Ode to the Romanian Language

 

I will not start this article leading with the Romanian word ‘dor’ (translated into English as longing) that seems not to have quite the exact equivalent in other languages. I was lucky that this life taught me that there are more angles to a geometric figure than meets the eye, and I can no longer accept the idea that ‘is either black or white/ you are with us or against us’.

Every language has its own features that can hardly be put into another one. And I think we should be OK with that. Why do we desperately cling to the idea that we should translate everything? Sure, the meaning is important. And those loyal to it understand the Sisyphus task that is to translate a text.

But thinking about the Romanian language, another thing comes to mind than words difficult to translate. In my opinion, there are other things mostly impossible to transmit, for example the sensation one has when uttering a word. It is thus very understandable that Proust wrote about madeleines (My God, the frustration that they cast upon me during so many French lessons! And here am I, referring to them. What was that saying about karma?!). How could one put into words the smell of something one loves?

And how to accurately narrate the way the mind races back to the past and hugs words like pie, hot pepper, cantaloupe, acacia flower, plow, modelling clay, bon-bon, blotting paper, ink pot, fringe, windmill? All of these can be translated into other languages; some of them easily. But the smell, the taste, that sensation of closeness to them cannot be transposed into words.

It seems to me that there is a certain connection one has to one’s mother tongue. A connection that cannot sometimes be even put into the words of that language. And all we got is this: to cherish the abundancy of that language and to honor its contents.