There’s a word in Japanese, komorebi, that roughly translates to the filtering of sunlight through the gaps of leaves. Jugaad, in Hindi, is a flexible and innovative solution to a problem that seems unsolvable. Italian has the word sprezzatura, an effortless, leisurely, intentful carelessness.

None of these words have an English equivalent that is as concise. Each is unique to their own language meaning something different to its respective culture.

Language is inherently complex. Over 7,000 languages exist across the world, with a majority of these being variations of certain meanings attributed to certain words. The intricacy, then, comes in the distinct definitions each language gives to their words and the availability of them.

Through this existence of specific words, or lack thereof, different languages ultimately shape the opinions of the people who utilize them, as argued in a study written by the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan. They argue that part of this comes from understanding the power that certain languages attribute to different aspects of conversation. 

In Korean, for example, there is a large emphasis on respect, encouraged by their extensive honorific system. Utilizing different phrases and suffixes based on age or social status, it is considered both standard and polite to use honorifics in everyday language. For example, older people are commonly referred to with the suffixes -si or -eusi. Beyond this, there are dozens of other honorifics that influence their hierarchical culture.

English has a highly limited variety of honorifics, traditionally reverting to “Mr” and “Mrs.” This lack of variety ultimately prevents the extent of respect that can be expressed in many other cultures, and also reduces the level of connection between different individuals.

Besides just influencing interconnection within people of a culture, language also has the ability to define a culture’s attitude and behavior towards life as a whole. Italian, for example, has a wide array of words that can be used to describe leisurely and calm, slow living.

This cultural practice, known as Lo Strusci, is not only their belief in the art of slow living, but a lifestyle that Italians follow. The practice is exemplified their language, with various words like “pantofolaio” (idle comfort), “abbiocco” (post-meal sleepy feeling), “meriggiare” (rest in the afternoon shade), and one of their most popular phrases, “dolce far niente,” or the sweetness of doing nothing.

This is a stark contrast to the United States, where there are only a few words for idle and slow lifestyles, most of which are connoted as lazy or unproductive. In this way, the Italian language both reflects and impacts the connotations with which Italy views idleness.

This availability of words also influences the default norm that people of the language result in. This can be seen in the case of gendered languages, such as Spanish and French.

Both Spanish and French are gendered languages, with Spanish using “el” for masculine terms and “la” for feminine ones, and French using “le” and “la” respectively. While this usage isn’t inherently sexist, the issue comes when people need to reference something they may not know the specific article, and thus resort to the masculine one. 

Furthermore, gendered languages often resort to the masculine when referring to plural nouns, which identifies the masculine one as the standard. In Spanish, “niño” refers to a boy, and “niña” a girl. However, when needed to reference plural kids, the term used is “niños.”

Due to this fallback, gender is a pervasive issue in both the language and the culture. A study done on gendered language by the World Bank found that people from countries with gendered languages are more likely to uplift men in matters of capability when compared to women. It stigmatizes women as inferior to men, associating men as the dominating gender.

These preexisting nuances within languages can make it inherently more difficult to express certain emotions and easier to show others. Languages are constantly evolving, and as times change, so do they. Understanding the foundations of different languages allows us to not only understand cultures better, but also understand differences between them and their ideologies.