What is Love?
A Valentine's Day adventure into linguistics
Happy Valentine’s Day, Everyone!
Today is a day when people all over the world are talking about love. But what is that? I’ve heard many things about love, such as its qualities of purity and visual impairment, but we don’t generally have a grasp on what it is. It’s a universal experience with potentially eight billion definitions, but today we’re going to discuss specific conceptions of it from around the world.
I thought it would be nice to do something quicker and lighter than usual, as I’ve been getting a bit too serious lately (and soon will be again).
Hebrew: Ahavah (אהבה)
The etymology of love in Hebrew just goes back to the concept itself; however, Jewish teachings often state that the Hebrew word for love comes from the etymology of “give,” which better reflects Jewish views. To love is to bear responsibility, to provide, and to share. Love is selfless duty. My fellow Jews and Israelis will possibly recognize this—a culture of strong, aggressive acts of caring with very few words to sugarcoat the brunt of affection.
“Love is a verb. Love is a doing word.”
—Elizabeth Fraser
Persian: Eshgh (عشق)
With possible etymology from the Arabic word for the growing embrace of vines, the Persian perception of love is the most intense on the list. The Persian view of love is a force so powerful and passionate that it annihilates the boundary between the lover and beloved. Those who read Rumi’s poetry will find this familiar and religious, but it’s applicable to other forms of love as well. To love, at least in the land of the Sun and Lion, is to dissolve into the object of your heart’s passion.
“If you die in this love, your soul will be renewed.”
—Rumi
Tibetan: Jampa (བྱམས་པ)
With a strong Buddhist influence, the Tibetan word for love came from Sanskrit, with a meaning of loving-kindness. To the Tibetans, love is about how happy you can make another person, even if there’s no space for you to participate in it. It’s a non-attached relation, not a possessive one. The important thing in Tibetan love is that other people are truly happy. Love is, above all else, benevolent intention.
“Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.”
—Attributed to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama
Portuguese: Saudade
To many Brazilians, there are multiple forms of love, and the greatest form comes from the Latin etymology of “solitude.” The purest, most intense type of love comes not from having another, but from missing them. As Lacan would say: desire comes from lack. The most you could ever desire another is by never having them, thus figuratively populating every moment with their ghost. For a Brazilian, you’ll never share your life more passionately than with those left in the past.
“My love is as a fever, longing still.”
—William Shakespeare
Spanish (Mexican dialect): Querencia
Tracing back to the Latin for “to seek” and working its way into the place where bulls return to after a fight, love found its way into Mexican Spanish with connotations of refuge. To be in love is to find home and safety in the storm of being.
“Home is wherever I’m with you.”
—Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes
Korean: Jeong (정)
Korean love literally means “feeling.” In Korean culture, love is understood as something cultivated over time. It isn’t that summer fling with hot and heavy passion, but rather the two elderly grandparents enjoying a quiet afternoon. Love, to the Koreans, is the flowers that bloom after a lifetime of gardening.
“It was the life they had lived together that gave them the authority to persist in love.”
—Gabriel García Márquez
Nguni (Zulu/Xhosa): Ubuntu
To the Nguni peoples of South Africa, love means “humanness.” It is a belief about what it means to be: that we exist in our interconnectedness with others. Love is a fact of existing, as I am because you are. It is not an act or a feeling, but rather what it means to be. Ubuntu is a philosophical framework for communally living in this paradigm.
“My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.”
—Desmond Tutu
Russian: Lyubov (Любовь)
Russians can’t be light about anything, and love is no exception. It goes back to the Proto-Indo-European root for “to care” and made its way through the Proto-Slavic word for “dear” to now carry a connotation of deep seriousness. Love, for the Russians, is about preparation for sacrifice and consequences for the other. It is a consolation in the darkness and a reason to plunge further into the depths. It is the agonizingly beautiful axis of the human experience.
“Love sacrifices all things to bless the thing it loves.”
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
English: Love
Making it from Proto-Indo-European leubh through Proto-Germanic lubo into Old English lufu, all the way to us, love has had quite the journey. Depending on the context, it can mean a great many things. You can love God, your family, food, the weather, and pieces of media. Depending on how talented you are with words, expressions of love can have varying levels of effectiveness, but the actual linguistic definition has been saturated into near meaninglessness.
But we all agree that it’s the best.
I do hope that on this Valentine’s Day, we take a moment to meditate upon what love means to us. When you say “I love you” to someone, what is it you’re trying to say? When you feel a need to be loved, how would that feeling translate into words? Without belting into song, ask yourself: what is love?
And those of you who have an answer, please share it with the rest of us in the comments.
🎶….baby, don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more…🎶
❤️❤️❤️