Languages Are Beautiful - Tumblr Posts

If you can speak more than three languages, I'm all yours.

In "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" Ocean tells how in Vietnamese the word for missing someone and remembering someone is same...So when his mother asked if he misses her, he flinched thinking she said "Do you remember me?"

I was just sitting and thinking about my own mother tongue. In Hindi too, the word for missing and remembering is the same "याद" (Yaad) the only difference is the change of verb and sentence formation and that's how we know if the speaker is talking about missing someone or remembering someone; "मुझे तुम्हारी याद आ रही है।" (literally meaning 'Your memory/remembrance is coming to me') "मैं तुम्हे याद कर रहा हूँ।" But the sentence is always talking about remembrance. Now that I see, there is no literal translation for "I miss you" because we don't have the word for "missing" someone, all we ever do is remember them and with the memories, they are never 'missing' they are with us through that remembrance. It's like saying "I am not sad thinking about how you are not here anymore but rather I'm remembering the times you were here and I wish things were the same." It makes sense how the word "याद" also refers to 'memories'. To say "I miss you" in Hindi is to say "Now that I feel your absence, your memories are coming to me, you are coming to me, I am remembering to remember you."