Re: language-thinking-speech

Elsa de Mattos (emattos who-is-at magiclink.com.br)
Sun, 28 Mar 1999 23:07:56 -0300

Maybe "longing to be with you" is even better.

Elsa

-----Mensagem original-----
De: Ilda Carreiro King <kingil who-is-at bc.edu>
Para: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Data: Domingo, 28 de Mar=E7o de 1999 21:05
Assunto: Re: language-thinking-speech

>The closest I can come to translating "saudade" into English is "longing=
to
>see you" but not quite that intensity. Somewhat of a nostalgic pang of
>wishing you could see someone. There is no one word I can think of that
>captures it.
>
>Ilda
>
>Ricardo Ottoni wrote:
>
>> Throwing some more wood over fire:
>>
>> "SAUDADE" for example,
>> is a concept simbolyzed in a portuguese language word that we cannot
>> translate correctly by the word "MISS" in english.
>>
>> I understand that To say "I MISS YOU" is not the same as to say in
>> portuguese "EU TENHO/SINTO SAUDADE DE VOC=CA". The concept of "SAUDADE=
" is
>> social or scientifc as LURIA clears up in his 'Social and cultural bas=
is
>> of cognitive development". So it's an abstraction or something that is
>> rooted in the historical/social development of portuguese culture, lik=
e
>> " TO MISS" is in fact to english/american culture.
>>
>> For a brazilian country woman/man from northwest part of Brazil, to fe=
el
>> "SAUDADE" of someone means something very different from this feeling =
to
>> a brazilian south country woman/man. By the way, in 'Central
>> Station'(movie picture of Walter Salles) it's easy to understand that
>> the way poor and non literacyted people feel "SAUDADE" is very strange
>> and unknown to middle class people who live in big cities and that wer=
e
>> literacyted (although Walter Salles had pictured it since his high
>> middle class perspective and using hollywood convention of making
>> pictures - very different from Eisenstein/Glauber/Godard and other
>> movie makers/directors).
>>
>> Beyond this fact,
>> that language/speech rebuilts thinking inside a given culture (differe=
nt
>> social class speech/urban tribes etc)
>> I believe language/speech rebuilts thinkink in different ways since a
>> transcultural perspective.
>