PopSci.com has an interesting article on emotions for which there are no English words.
The article delves into the insightful fact that certain languages do not attach words to some emotions. Therefore, emotions and language seem to be culturally entangled.
An example that the article provides is the lack of an English word for the emotional, painful, bittersweet, wistful feeling you get when you’re driving at night and hear a song from your past on the radio. However, the Japanese language does have a word that is specific to that emotional state.
Therefore, it seems that for an emotion to receive a word specific to that feeling it must be culturally acknowledged and widely accepted to be worthy enough to put into language “words”.
View the Chart below to see some of the interesting findings:
