This is quite romantic, and I agree that we should be aware of our emotions as temporary, as clouds in the sky. However, the Irish language has not prevented the Irish people from having some of the highest rates of anxiety on Earth https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/anxiety-disorders-prevalence
This is one of those things where it’s not that deep.
Actually language plays a big part in our mental state, language processing is shown to play a huge role in the development and perception of our emotional states.
I’m aware.
People underestimate our ability to compensate for shortcomings of language. At the end of the day, you have to choose a way to say it.
Does “This car is fast” mean the car is the abstract concept of having higher velocity? Does it mean the car is permanently moving fast or it has not and will not stop?
“I am sad” doesn’t at all mean that sadness is my defining characteristic. It usually means sadness is a temporary state.
Non-linguists trying themselves at linguistics always often come up with pseudo facts like this.
You obviously know nothing about language. When I say “I’m here”, what I am saying is that I now and forever identify as the grocery store parking lot we decided to meet at. And when I say “I’m running”, I am saying that I have become the very concept of speed.
I. Am. Speed.
For normal people yes, for people who lack emotional regulation, “I am sad” can be an identity because you might get stuck in it for years at a time. Decades.
I think the author here is speaking to those people more than just your average joe who could care less about the distinction between state and characteristic because they understand the difference already.
It would be more correct to say “I feel sad”, but colloquially “I am sad” is used for the same thing.
Translating, conjugating and undestanding “To Be” is always fraught with peril. :)
English French Literal French Spanish Literal Spanish Japanese (Sorta) Literal Japanese I’m hungry J’ai faim I have hunger Tengo hambre O Estoy hambriento/a I have hunger OR I am (temporarily) hungry Onaka ga suita Regarding stomach: empty I’m angry Je suis fâché I am angry Estoy enojado/a I am (temporarily) angry Watashi wa okotte imasu Regarding me: angry is I’m cold J’ai froid I have cold Tengo frio I have cold Samui OR Samuidesu Cold OR It’s cold I’m scared J’ai peur I have fear Estoy asustado/a I am (temporarily) scared Kowai OR Watashi wa kowaidesu Scary OR Regarding me: scared/scary is I’m brave Je suis courageux I’m brave (courageous) Soy valiente I am (permanently) brave Watashi wa yūkan’na Regarding me: brave Languages are fun. French switches between “I have” and “I am” for these sorts of things. Spanish mostly uses “I am” but it has two versions of “I am”, one that’s used generally for more permanent states of things, one that’s used for more temporary states. As a result, “I’m scared but I’m brave” uses one for the temporary condition of being scared, but one for the more permanent condition of being brave.
Japanese has its own whole system that is so different from English that it’s hard to directly translate. In japanese “wa” marks the topic of a sentence, and can often be omitted if it’s obvious. So you could just say “cold” or “brave” if it’s obvious you’re talking about yourself, or you can say “Watashi wa” which sort-of translates as “regarding me” or “about me”. The particle “wa” is something used in Japanese to mark the topic of a sentence. Japanese doesn’t have verb-person agreement, so there’s no “I am”, “you are”, “he is”. There’s instead something vaguely like “regarding me: is” If you wanted to tell someone they were brave you’d change the topic of the sentence to them and say “Anata wa yūkan’na”.
Japanese also uses the same word for “scary” and “scared” so you need contextual clues or other words to differentiate between “I am scared” vs. “I am scary”. There’s a different Japanese particle “ga” that is similar but has a narrower focus. Instead of the whole sentence being about something, it’s just the previous word. So, I’m hungry becomes “my stomach is empty” but more literally: “specifically regarding stomach: empty”.
None of this really makes any logical sense. Languages are weird, and the things that are the most commonly said are the weirdest. What does “I am hungry” really mean, that I am the very definition of hunger? That whole condition changes when you eat a sandwich? What does “I have fear” mean? I have it in a basket? Does “I feel fear” mean that I can sense its texture with my fingers? In English we mostly “are” things like hunger or fear. But, for some reason it’s “I have a feeling” Now it’s like the other European languages where feelings are something you have, not something you are.
This guy languages.
We need an “iam14andthisisdeep” on Lemmy.
I’m unfortunately closer to “iam40andthisisdeep”
Stay wholesome please
I’ve seen a recent uptick in deepish thoughts. This is a prime example of that.
But, hey, if it gets you through…
lol no? we say “i am sad”, not “i am sadness”. that’d be weird.
sapir-whorf, annoyingly, strikes again
Spanish is somewhat similar. Scared isn’t something you are, it’s something you have (tengo miedo, lit. ‘I have fear’). Emotions are also ‘put on you’ instead of making you a certain way. Ex: me puso feliz translates as ‘it made me happy,’ but literally is ‘it put happiness on me.’
Also, Spanish has two main verbs for “to be”. There’s “ser”, which is used for things that are inherent (e.g.: “Yo soy de Mexico” means “I am from Mexico”). But then there’s also “estar”, which is used for the current state of things, or a temporary status (e.g.: “Yo estoy enfermo” means “I am sick (in my current state)”).
“ser” is a cognate of “essence”, “estar” of “state” :D
This little nugget would have come in handy when I was learning Spanish
Ahh. I knew about “estar” but I never knew that about “ser”. Very good to know!
And then locations and buildings come to fuck up that way of remembering it, because la biblioteca está allí, not la biblioteca es allí. 😩
Did you know that Spanish speaking kids don’t do spelling bees, they do grammar competitions? Not hard to see why, haha!
The library is a thing, not a person. That’s why you say está, because there’s nothing inherent about a library, it’s just an outer description. In general location descriptions are described with está, no ser.
Estoy triste: I am sad right now Soy triste: I am a sad person, in general.
La biblioteca está genial: the library is awesome right now (maybe due to an event or special decoration or because it was recently cleaned).
La biblioteca es genial: the library is awesome in general.Tengo hambre: I am hungry
Soy hambre: I am hunger/(a hungry person)And then locations and buildings come to fuck up that way of remembering it, because la biblioteca está allí, not la biblioteca es allí.
True that. I guess maybe it’s because a building’s location isn’t necessarily part of its essence. Or how it feels more natural with respect to a person, e.g.: “yo estoy en la biblioteca” makes sense cause a person moves from place to place. I guess technically buildings can be moved but it’s still a bit confusing.
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German (if I’m remembering right from my high school language class days), does the same thing as well. It’s not ‘I am hungry’, it’s ‘I have hunger’.
(If there’s any actual German readers/speakers and I misspoke, I apologize. This was almost 15 years ago at this point!)
Native speaker of German here: Both “ich bin hungrig” (I am hungry) and “ich habe Hunger” (I have hunger) are valid German. The latter is more common though, the adjective “hungrig” is more often used as an attributive adjective.
Yes but it is “I am sad”
…no? In the literal examples given in the post, they would be translated as english
I’m sad: estoy triste I’m anxious: estoy ansioso/a
That’s why I said somewhat similar and gave different examples than the ones in the OP. The non-literal language involved in talking about emotions being different between language groups in some situations was interesting to me.
I believe this is just about which word a language uses to say that an adjective applies to a noun. While ‘to be’ is very popular for this, ‘to have’ is quite common too. Mandarin uses ‘very’.
It’s a bit deeper - in Spanish and other Romance languages, emotions and physiological states are typically conveyed by a noun, not by an adjective*. Like in Catoblepas’ example “tengo miedo”, it’s literally “I have fear”; miedo is a noun. You could use one of the two copulas by forcing an adjective, but it’ll change the meaning:
- soy miedoso - you’re a scaredy-cat, you’re often afraid
- estoy miedoso - I’m not a native speaker** so my intuition might be wrong, but it sounds like you’re going through hard times and you’re currently afraid of random stuff.
*there are exceptions, like “feliz” (happy; adjective).
**my native language does something similar, but the verbs don’t match well.
*miedoso/a
Idk what medroso is but isn’t Spanish.
Fixed - thanks for pointing it out. (Portuguese.)
How do I get the sadness and anxiety offa me?!
have you tried, like, not being sad?
Yeah we have that in English, too. We use the word “feel”. 🙄
The things English does with the word “feel” should be illegal.
You don’t get to use the same word for having profound internal emotions AND to rub your grubby hands on things. That’s just not right.
French is even weirder with “sentir”.
For feelings, french usually uses a reflexive form: “je me sens triste” (I feel sad). That’s the easy part.
Now the real fun is that you can say stuff like “je sens tes pieds”, and it could mean “I can feel (touch) your feet” or “I can smell your feet”, or even both at the same time.
Well I might feel if you put your grubby hands on my things
So do other romance languages. In Spanish the “siento” word has a very similar meaning and is used very similarly. It applies to both of your examples.
I feel like there’s no issue with the use :)
You can’t use “sentir” for touching things. I mean, you can try, but you’d sound like a creep. Come to think of it, Spanish doesn’t really have a word for perceiving things by touch. They just say… well, touch. They have a specific different thing to reference feeling around (a tientas).
It can technically mean “hear” in it and a few other romance languages, though. Not as weird, I’d argue.
“esta superficie se siente rugosa”.
That’s a completely valid sentence, you can and do use sentir. However I think I understood what you meant, you meant that english uses feel as a verb to describe the action of touching things, not to describe how things feel to the touch. Gotcha.
A tientas is used as a descriptor when you are trying to feel something without light, yeah.
Also, I’m from Spain, you really don’t need to lecture me on how we talk 😅.
I mean, that’s a bit of an anglicism, though? It’s not strictly incorrect, maybe, and you’ll hear it in some dialects, but it sounds weird. For one thing it’s more ambiguous. It sounds like you’re saying the surface itself is feeling a bit rough today. I’d go a looong way out of my way to not say it that way. “Es rugosa al tacto” sounds more natural.
But yeah, in English feeling is specifically the verb used to express that you’re touching something or perceiving something by touch. In romance languages it tends to default to hearing before it does touch.
Even beyond just emotions, in Portuguese the “be” verb can be translated into two different verbs: “ser” and “estar”. They are two complete separate things - so separate that English classes kinda turned the “to be” verb into a meme due to how long it takes to teach Portuguese speakers to use it and understand what it means in each sentence.
“Ser”: to be someone who is something. Usually more permanent, but not necessarily.
“Estar”: to be in the state of something. Usually more temporary, but also applies to permanent states.
Some examples showing how the meaning of some expressions change depending on which verb you use:
You are sick “Ser”: you are a sick (twisted/evil) person. “Estar”: you have caught some sickness.
You are sad “Ser”: life has made you sad in general. “Estar”: you’re feeling sad right now.
You are beautiful: “Ser”: you are a beautiful person. “Estar”: you are looking great today.
You’re good at this: “Ser”: literal, you’re good at this. “Estar”: implies being good is not the default but you have reached the point of being good at this.
**you’re funny drunk": “Ser”: when you’re drunk you are funny. “Estar”: you are drunk now and this time you turned out to be funny while drunk. Or, in this point of your life you’re funny when you’re drunk.
it’s cold there: “Ser”: that is a cold place. “Estar”: that place is cold right now.
it’s cold there now “Ser”: it’s like saying that winters in that place used to be mild but nowadays winter there can get pretty cold “Estar”: that place is cold right now.
Little trick, anything that you would use “estar” in romance languages aka Portuguese, use “feel” instead of “be”, it’s just as valid and there’s less misunderstandings.
Also, for your examples, you would never interpret “you are sad” as ser, since ser describes adjectives, it’s always estar. Your ser version would be “you are a sad person” aka “eres un triste” (in Spanish).
This is half-true. Both versions are acceptable for most, possibly all emotions.
Eg ‘fearg’ is anger, which would be on you. “tá fearg orm” ~ Anger is on me
‘feargach’ is angry, which you can be. “táim feargach” ~ i am angry
See, you start reading too much into grammar this way and then you learn about how Spanish uses their “to be” equivalent and have a massive existential crisis.
I’d like to tell people “soy aquí” is perfectly grammatical and means you’re identifying with a place like “I’m the Earth”. It could be figurative language or science fiction.
“Soy aqui” reminds me a certain movie scene:
–El senado decidirá tu destino.
–YO SOY EL SENADO.Bad idea to confuse it with “estoy cenado”, otherwise you might get Jedi trying to murder you for having dinner.
Are there other attributes that share the English construction?
Am I male, or do I have maleness on me?
Am I old/young, or do I have oldness/youth on me?
Am I sleepy, or do I have sleepiness on me?
Am I tall, or do I have tallness on me?
