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ellenkushnerA 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?)
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?)
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Date: 2006-08-22 01:46 pm (UTC)What a fascinating discussion! Ontroerend? What a beautiful word. My family lost any connection to the Dutch language when Hitler forced us out of the Netherlands...for the Dutch people here, how is that pronounced?