Talk:Saudade

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Contents 1 Tenho saudades tuas 2 AÑORANZA 3 Romanian 4 vfd discussion 5 Untranslatable?!? 6 Removed Move to Wikitionary tag 7 Longing for something which is still here 8 hipotesis: saudade derive de säwdâ 9 Third paragraph 10 Hebrew 11 What is banzo ? 12 Comments 13 Portuguese "Saudade" and Romanian "Dor" 14 Saudade and Sevdah 15 please do not delete talk page comments 16 Examples 17 Next Stop Wonderland 18 Translation in Italian 19 Troubles

[edit] Tenho saudades tuas

This can definitely be expanded into a Wikipedia article. Saudade has a rather intricate while at the same time vague description that goes beyond mere dictionary definitions, not to mention it's a crucial component of Portuguese culture (its most notable expression perhaps found in fado music). Also worth noting is the ambivalence of some Portuguese people towards the concept, in part due to its perceived pessimism and its association with a certain post-imperialist, post-colonialist sense of longing. I'll attend to this in the future, once I look into facts and specifics. --Goblin 08:48, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC).

Brief note: On the contrary of what s said before, "Saudade" in "Tenho saudades tuas" meaning "I miss you", meaning missing a person is not only used in Brazilian Portuguese but also (very frequently) in standard Portuguese in the same way, exactly with the same sense.

True, but the feeling of "saudade" means much, much more than just "I miss you". At least it does in Portugal. See this. Also, please sign your posts, or it'll become hard to keep track of who says what. --Goblin 23:00, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] AÑORANZA

SAUDADE in Portuguese is AÑORANZA in Spanish. So this word is not that untranslatable at all!

No it is not. I am fluent in Spanish and añoranza is not the same as Saudade. This is rubbish --Pinnecco 13:30, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Romanian

The word "Saudade" in Portuguese has the same meaning as the word "dor" in Romanian

Romanian: mi-e dor de tine Portuguese: Eu tenho saudades de ti

Romanian: dor de casă Portuguese: Saudades de casa -- M.Lira (I'm still learning the rules, heh)

[edit] vfd discussion

This article was proposed for deletion January 2005. The discussion is archived at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Saudade. Joyous 02:03, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Untranslatable?!?

"Untranslatable" what? Haven't you ever heard the English word "nostalgia"? The definition of nostalgia is homesickness, or a sense of longing for something past. The word nostalgia is also present in Portuguese and means the same. Saudade, however similar in concept, is not as limited as nostalgia --- for instance, saudade can be used to describe desire or despair for non-existent things. (By the way, saudade is not "untranslatable", merely difficult to translate.) --Goblin ^›talk 04:44, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)

We also have nostalgia in Portuguese, and it doesn't mean the same as "Saudade" (as Goblin said) Ahh.. and by the way, is not an "english word" as it comes from (new) latin (ehmm... Greek/Latin). ;) --Pinnecco 13:26, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

"The word nostalgia is also present in Portuguese and means the same." No, it doesn't. Sorry for that, but it simply doesn't. Homesickness can't be translated as nostalgia in Portuguese. (Anonymous)

What about the german word Sehnsucht (German for wishfulness or longing)? This is the only word I ever heard that is close to Saudade. --Pinnecco 13:32, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

As for as I know, being a native Portuguese speaker and talking to native Polish speakers, the Polish word "tęsknota" means exactly the same thing. 201.14.165.52 14:06, 2 February 2007 (UTC)Radek

[edit] Removed Move to Wikitionary tag

This article was marked "Move to Wikitonary" which is not appropriate because the article had been marked as such, was nominated to VFD and then survived. Personally I think it should be transwikied, but I think that all articles about words, their translation, and entymology should be in wiktionary no wikipedia. However, I am but one lone voice. Kevin Rector 15:04, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Longing for something which is still here

"feeling of longing for something you are fond of, which is gone, but can eventually return in a distant future". This is not entirely consistent with what several Brazilians have explained to me. They said it could also represent longing for something still present, but that you know will (or might?) be gone. For example a friend said she felt saudade for me because I was leaving in a few days. She didn't say that she would feel it, but she felt it already. Well, I will leave it to the experts. Portuguese is hard enough, even without "untranslatable" words. --Jens Schriver 17:22, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I would say this is an extension of the word's usage but certainly not its meaning. It is like saying that you are hungry just from thinking that you'll have to go without eating for a day. Rauh 21:58, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm fluent in PT-BR and I can assure you that the current way the explanation is worded is fairly accurate. What your friend probably meant is that she was feeling saudade by anticipation; that she knew she would miss you once you were gone, and was already experiencing the feeling. --Sn0wflake 02:37, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

I am Brazilian and can assure you that Sn0wflake' theory is correct. BTW, very few people in Brazil think of "saudade" as an untranslatable word, this was something literary critics sort of invented in the XIX century. As a translator myself I can assure that very few words, except most concrete nouns, like "dog" or "brick", can be translated with exactly the same meaning so the point of saudade's untranslatability is moot, though it is relevant as central tenet of Portuguese and Brazilian "state of mind". jggouvea 21:52, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Sn0wflake's words are pretty correct (saudade by anticipation, like any other feeling by anticipation). But unfortunately there is indeed a huge amount of people who still consider themselves "proud" of having "saudade" as an alleged untranslatable word, an "authentic sign of Portuguese beautiness" as they like to think of it. That same "proud" people simply can't even use the rest of the language correctly, though. (Anonymous)

I'm guessing, but I wonder if this could be translated as a "feeling of separation" from someone/something? Also see: http://linguistics.ucdavis.edu/FacultyPages/pfarrell/Saudade.pdf

Saudade is not merely a "feeling of separation", but the feeling that the past was better and is now impossible to recover (or at the very least, difficult). Like the ancient greeks longing for a "Golden Age" or the muslims referring to the time of Muhammad as the 'plenitude of times'. The concept was later expanded to include "everything and the kitchen sink" related to longing, separation, etc. Nostalgia is a [narrower] type of "saudade". jggouvea 21:52, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] hipotesis: saudade derive de säwdâ

El origen de la palabra saudade tenemos que buscar en la palabra arabe säwdâ. En los diccionarios etimologicos de las lenguas romances de peninsula Iberica relacionan esta palabra con palabra soledad. Pienso que esto no es correcto. Po no hablar mucho les mando un trocito de texto sobre el säwdâ (sevdah) que he encontrado en el internet. El significado de säwdâ (sevdah) es casi igual que de saudade.

Aqui esta http://www.mostarsevdahreunion.com/Color/aboutsevdah.htm

To millions of people in the world, Bosnia and Herzegovina is known only for horrible news on violence, ethnical cleansing and war. The recent war has completely overshadowed the very rich and unique cultural tradition of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the cultural heritage of this country, a special place belongs to the traditional Bosnian music form "sevdah". Although it is reliably known that the sevdah originated after the Turks came to medieval Bosnia, nobody has been able to determine exactly when this was. The word sevdah itself is open to several interpretations. The most accurate explanation is that is an Arabic word "säwdâ", which means love, desire or ecstasy. In an attempt to establish the meaning of the word sevdah, people went back to the old age when the Arabic word "sevdah (säwdâ)" was used by physicians to describe black gall, a substance which circulates through human organism that control feelings and emotions.

Otro http://www.zimba.nl/sevdah/english.php

“The meaning of the word sevdah in the Turkish language denotes amorous yearning and ecstasy of love, and has its origin in the Arabic expression “säwdâ”, which encompasses and specifies the term “black gall”. Namely, ancient Arabic and Greek doctors believed that the black gall, as one of the four basic substances in the human body, affects our emotional life and provokes a melancholic and irritable mood. There from derives the expression in the Greek language “melancholy” with a figurative meaning of the direct projection of its basic meaning: melan hôlos – black gall. Since it is love itself that causes the same mood, in the Turkish language these terms were brought into a close link with the semantic identity, accomplishing a conceptual result of a dual projection of the basic meaning. Linking these two meanings has opened the process of a poetic transfer of symbolic and emotional qualities from one term to another. This resulted in the birth of a new term related to specific lyrical and psychological features. In our society, the feeling of love expressed by the word “sevdah”, retaining the basic tone of its emotional commitment has got a melancholic notion of the Slavic-Bogomilian transience of space and time. In essence, our sevdah is both, the passionate and painful longing for love, as well as the melancholic and sweet one, the feeling when you are incapable of enduring the pain caused by love, and the pain transforms into the ecstasy of the intoxication of love that compares to the slow process of dying.

borut@fe.uni-lj.si

• http://www.priberam.pt/dlpo/definir_resultados.aspx?pal=saudade
• I'm 75% sure that is of erudite origin, that is, it is a word created by poets derived directly from Classic Latin, rather than of popular evolution. I don't know for sure, but I remember something like that (the mind plays tricks), but it is Latin for sure; Arabic influence in Portuguese is half that of Spanish, and Arabic words are always related to places(in the south), agriculture, other clafts and some other things. The Spanish soledad is not the same as Portuguese saudade.

BTW I found this: Em 30 de janeiro celebra-se o "Dia da Saudade". Na gramática Saudade é substantivo abstrato, tão abstrato que só existe na língua portuguesa. Os outros idiomas têm dificuldade em traduzi-la ou atribuir-lhe um significado preciso: Te extraño (castelhano), J'ai regret (francês) e Ich vermisse dish (alemão). No idioma inglês encontramos várias tentativas: homesickness (equivalente a saudade de casa ou do país), longing e to miss (sentir falta de uma pessoa), e nostalgia (nostalgia do passado, da infância). Mas todas essas expressões estrangeiras não definem o que sentimos. São apenas tentativas de determinar esse sentimento que nós mesmos não sabemos exatamente o que é. Não é só um obstáculo ou uma incompatibilidade da linguagem, mas é principalmente uma característica cultural daqueles que falam a língua portuguesa. in here: http://www.spectrumgothic.com.br/gothic/saudade.htm -Pedro 18:48, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Third paragraph

>> "I feel so much "saudade" of you".

Are you kidding me?

Also, as a native speaker of Portuguese and a near-native speaker of English it is my opinion that the whole "untranslatable" deal is a myth. There are words in virtually every language to say it, like "longing" in English or better yet "Sehnsucht" in German.

Kripkenstein _{τ κ}

i agree...i think "yearning for" also works. Streamless 19:17, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

As per my comments above, I also raised the questions about "sehnsucht" and "longing". However, "longing" is not as abstract as saudade. Yearning could be (coult it?) but it is a verb, not a substantinve. But Sensucht (german), might be as good as saudade. But my german is not good enough to comment on that. --Pinnecco 12:59, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I just want to make a quick comment on the German word (I am German). "Sehnsucht" is a noun combined of "sehnen", which means "to long (for)", and "Sucht", which means "addiction". So "Sehnsucht" is a strong desire or longing for someone or something with a little touch of being almost unhealthy or extreme (addictions usually are). Hope this helps! --Gunnar 21:41, 15 September 2006 (CEST)

"yearn" is the verb root of yearning. as an aside, english words that end in -ing are called gerunds or participles. Streamless 19:53, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

• I is not a myth, it was considered as one of the hardest to translate. (note: it is not impossible to translate) Saudade is a type of longing. --Pedro 20:35, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Saudade is not so much untranslatable as complex in meaning; it is a combination of longing, melancholy and nostalgia; it is something that frankly has to be perceived or felt rather than described. See for example the poetry of the Galician writer Rosalia de Castro.

"I feel so much "saudade" of you" has been changed to "I feel 'saudade' for you". Now who wants to create the Portuglish article? – Morganfitzp 05:20, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hebrew

I was told Hebrew has a word that can almost be translated to Portuguese as "saudade".

Every language has a few "almosts" for saudade. In English, words like "longing" and "nostalgia" come close sometimes, but not always, and never really hit the sentiment in the heart. Morganfitzp 22:09, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What is banzo ?

I am a native speaker of Brazilian Portuguese (from São Paulo) and I must confess I've never heard the word "banzo" ! Saying that "Brazil has two words for this specific emotion of longing and missing" is quite a stretch IMHO. Mbruno 15:05, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

The word is now archaic but was current until the early half of the XX century and appeared often in books about slavery, like Coelho Neto's Banzo. The word, however, has been mostly forgotten because of its meaning being too specific. jggouvea 21:56, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I beg to differ as for it not being so specific or archaic. It's still in fair use, just not by the younger generations who don't know the meaning, but often come to know it. "Saudade", "nostalgia" and "banzo" are very much co-related in this way:

"nostalgia" = saudade of when (related to time), like you'd use in "Good times!..." or "Remember when we used to...?"

"banzo" = saudade of place (mostly, mother land, but also a place you've visited long ago), like in "I'd like to be home now..." or "I miss Greece". The pronunciation of "banzo" in English would be pretty close to "bunzo".

They are all related to something that is distant, and "saudade" is more generally used for people ("I'm at war, I miss my wife and kids"), or your pet or even more mundane stuff ("I miss my old car, the one they took away").

Actually, because of the mentioning of "nostalgia" in the text, I believe "banzo" should be perfectly included too, so "nostalgia" wouldn't come out as being the only variation of "saudade", a time-related one. There is also this other word, space-related.

[edit] Comments

I just can tell that I like this word "saudade" becouse has much explanations and is so weird. I'm from Croatia and I don't realy know what it mean, but I hope one day I'll know. Salutation. vale v:);(

That article kind of makes me proud of being a Portuguese speaker... Every time I say saudade I should think about all those people who will never be able to say it. 201.21.126.147 00:27, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Portuguese "Saudade" and Romanian "Dor"

I'd just like to draw the attention to possible editors of this page that what the Portuguese or students of Portuguese language and culture claim about the word "saudade" is actually correspondent to the word "dor" in Romanian, a very close Romance language. Although "dor" in PT is equivalent to "pain" the same does not happen in Romanian which as a similar word for it "doare". Sorry not be of more help on it. Just thought you'd like to know.

I would suggest that saudade comes from Arabic sawda with the same meaning. In the Balkans, word sevdah means the same. Like in Portugal, it is expressed through a particular music genre, also called sevdah. For me personally, it is interesting that both in Portugal and in Bosnia, people generally believe that these kinds of longing cannot be translated and thus represent the unique features of their respective cultures.

--In addition to what was written here i would also like to point out that when it is said that the word " saudade" is "untraslatable" they refer more to it as the feeling, state of mind and not as the word itself, it's the same with the Romanian "dor", these two words mean exactly the same thing; and in Romania also, it is believed that is an untraslatable word, the fact is that the word can be translated into another language what is more difficult to explain is the emotional state that the person experiences, as the word involves a complexity of emotions.

And so that we can be more clear, regarding to the above comment, the word "dor" can be related to "pain" although it has a closer meaning to " hurt", but when refered to " dor" as a noun, it has the exact same meaning with " saudade" ; "doare" is a verb, comes from "a durea"= "to hurt"(and it is refered to feeling and NOT causing the pain- "ma doare piciorul"="my foot hurts"; "ma dor picioarele"="my feet hurt")--anelis(romania)--

[edit] Saudade and Sevdah

I would suggest that saudade comes from Arabic sawda with the same meaning. In the Balkans, word sevdah means the same. Like in Portugal, it is expressed through a particular music genre, also called sevdah. For me personally, it is interesting that both in Portugal and in Bosnia, people generally believe that these kinds of longing cannot be translated and thus represent the unique features of their respective cultures.

That's curious, but it's generally agreed that saudade derives from Latin solitatem, like the (not synonymous) Spanish word soledad. FilipeS 12:21, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] please do not delete talk page comments

could someone who understands wikipedia better than i do please undo the deletion? thanks. Streamless 14:35, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Done. Did I get verything? Morganfitzp 14:44, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Examples

• The loved ones who are dead (whom you'll meet again in Heaven, of course)

It seems to me that this needs some kind of explicit caveat or contextualization. Since I don't have a native sense of saudade nor does "whom you'll meet again in Heaven" have a positive truth value for me, I don't know how to fix it, other than to delete it. I hope someone can fix it so it it represents NPOV at a very basic, literal level. Nohat 05:52, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I gave it a crack. There are many POVs running amok throughout this article (though most are quite friendly and do not bite). Morganfitzp 06:22, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Next Stop Wonderland

Saudade is one of the central themes in the 1998 indie romantic comedy Next Stop Wonderland.

The main character, a nurse played by Hope Davis, is treating a Brazilian patient. As the scene evolves, he says to her:

"You like my country's music, right? I can tell there is a little bit of Brazil in you."

"Oh yeah?"

"See, you are sad and happy. You don't smile but you are content. You are sad and happy at the same time. In Brazil we have a term for that - it's 'Saudade'. It's like ... melancholic, nostalgic; it's very Bossanova."

Thought you might find this of interest. (It's on-topic and off-topic at the same time :-) ). Plus the film's enjoyable in a low-key way. Dugo 02:27, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Translation in Italian

The 'Translation in Italian' section ( "Saudade can be translated with malinconia romantica...") makes absolutely no sense to me. If this were true saudade could be translated in many languages with things similar to 'romantic melancholy'. And then there would be no reason why Italian would have a special section. Yet the article seems to assume that saudade is not mere romantic melancholy, so the italian translation is inaccurate too. If you agree, please remove the section. Junuxx 14:32, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Troubles

I don't know of any non-original research, but this article seems to focus very narrowly on the concept. In Brazil, at the very least, Saudade can have positive connotations. It sort of suggests that you have a place in the world, and you're only away from it temporarily, or something.

Does anyone know of any research that can back this up? Because I'm absolutely sure this is true, and this article puts the word in a light I always considered overly poetic. "To Morrendo de Saudades" isn't always, to me, suggesting a person you'll never see again. Kyle543 10:42, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Guys, having just translated an article and feeling like some words are untranslatable I can understand the dificulty in finding a one-to-one relationiship between words of diferent languages. Who would think of translating "Mesa" (table or desk) as "court of law"? The fact is that in context it does happen. Some portuguese words condense several english meanings and some english words do exactly the same to portuguese meanings. Aren't we embarking here on a Estado Novo-style "portugal is the center of the world" line of thought and editing? For another "untranslatable" word try "emprestar", which means both "borrowing" and "lending". Now how can that be possible? Maybe it's just the case of another word that condenses 2 english meanings. And no, I'm not trolling, just trying to keep a NPOV Galf 21:51, 2 March 2007 (UTC)