Finns say their word sisu meaning “guts” or “fortitude” characterizes their national identity. Does your culture have such a word, like the Portuguese term saudade, perhaps? This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Cultural Terms for Expressing National Identity”
Hi, you have A Way with Words.
My name is Linda Vallier. I am calling you from Ishvaming, Michigan, in the beautiful Upper Peninsula.
And so everything’s well there, and you’ve got a language question for us.
Yes, I certainly do. I actually, I’m of Finnish heritage. All of my grandparents came here from Finland, and the Finns kind of have a term for a characteristic. It’s called sisu.
Sisu.
Yeah, and I understand that to mean guts, determination, fortitude, intuitiveness, all of the following. My question, I guess, is are there other terms that people of other heritages have to describe their own characteristics?
So you’re talking about people who’ve come to the New World, brought some of their culture with them, and when they think about that old culture in the old world, they’ve got kind of this one term for it.
Yeah, exactly.
I don’t know. I think of the British as the stiff upper lip. That’s what I think of. And what else occurs to me, Linda, I’m thinking of the Japanese business principle of kaizen, which is about gradual self-improvement of business and personal practices.
But I don’t know. That’s so businessy, though. That’s not really personal. Maybe it’s more about, I don’t know. It’s a good question.
There are also words that are so associated with another culture but don’t necessarily characterize the entire culture. I’m thinking of saudade in Portuguese.
Yeah, yeah.
That’s a vaguely like sadness but not quite really sadness, right?
Yeah.
It’s got lots and lots of layers. Melancholy nostalgia, something like that. Yeah, missing somebody or someplace and probably knowing they’re never coming back or you’re never going to see that place.
I mean, it’s really, really rich. But you’re thinking of that word for the Portuguese because it’s so striking and so much, it’s so hard to define without the Portuguese culture.
Right, right.
Or Brazilian. It’s like they own that word. But I don’t know that it necessarily describes the people.
Well, this is a really good question. I think, Martha, we have to toss this to the listeners.
Let’s do it.
And everybody on the website and Facebook and Twitter and say, if there was one word that could describe you or the culture you come from, what would it be?
Give us a call, 877-929-9673, or email us, words, at waywordradio.org, or drop it into Facebook and Twitter and let the whole world know.
Linda, thanks so much for calling.
Well, thank you. Enjoy your afternoon. Stay warm.
All right, you too. Take care now.
Okay.
We will.
Bye-bye.
