love

[ellenkushner]

A friend in a locked post writes about different languages' words for love and friend - made me reply thus:

There is a beautiful word in Dutch (which an old flame taught me) that means you feel a love for something so intense that - and this is pretty much what the King James Bible used, too! - your bowels twist within you. From the way he used it, it's less about romantic love than that sudden wrench you get over a beloved child, or a landscape . . . Nevertheless - interesting to know how English limits us (now that our bowels no longer yearn like they used to in 1605)!

(And, yes, I've forgotten the actual word - though I can still see his face and eloquent gestures in the restaurant candlelight . . . Anyone know it?)

Comments

[db2305.livejournal.com]

Huh. I'm Dutch and I can't think of any word connecting love and twisting guts. and wouldn't you know, there's no Dutch thesaurus online yet. 'Ontroerend' en 'hartroerend' seem close. The latter: stirring the heart. That what you mean?

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

"roerend" sounds like it has the root of the English "rending" - without the negative context. What's the translation of "ontroerend"? I bet either that or "hartroerend" was the word he used.

[db2305.livejournal.com]

"Roeren" is literally to stir. I doubt that rending is etymologically connected.
"Ontroerend" is touching, moving, basically the same as 'hartroerend', but just a notch lower on the emotional scale.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Ah! Thank you.