A few years ago, I bought a wonderful book by Howard Rheingold called They Have a Word For It: A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words and Phrases. This book examines foreign words that describe a concept rather than a single word, for which English has no single-word equivalent. It was quite fascinating to me, as a writer, philosopher and student of culture, to see exactly how Orwell’s statement that “if you don’t have a word for it, it doesn’t exist” is absolutely true.
Anyway, today’s word (which I don’t think is in the book, but the words in days to come will be) is:
Namaste: An ancient Sanskrit word that means “I honor the place in you in which the entire universe dwells. I honor the place in you, which is of light and peace. When you are in that place in you and I am in that place in me, we are one.”
Namaste to all 🙂
