Etymology and Musica

As I look back on my life hitherto, one of the things I'm most glad of was enrolling in Latin classes in college. I've never had a use for French, German, or Russian. And I don't need six weeks to learn how to conjugate "amar".

As a result, if I come across a word I'm unfamiliar with, I can usually walk my way through the context through its Latin root. My working vocabulary greatly increased in the two years I learned the language of Cicero, Ovid, and Horace. I bring all this up because I love learning foreign languages. Particularly the Romance Languages.

When I was a kid and read a book about presidents, I learned that James Garfield could simultaneously write Greek with one hand and Latin with the other. I couldn't tell you much of his presidency beyond his assassination, but that has always impressed me.

At my boss' Christmas party last year, a co-worker mentioned that she had seen a Christian bookstore named Pathos. She asked around if anybody knew what the word meant. Before I could answer, her husband rhetorically asked who was up to speed on their Latin. Being the language snob I can be at times, I had muster all my civility to politely inform that the word is Greek and essentially means "suffering". Its derivative is how we got the word "passion".

And just the other day, I was sucking up to my boss and told her that she knew everything. Fortunately, she knows I'm full of it and didn't take me seriously. She asked if the word was "omnipotent" and I was able to correct her and say "omniscient".

And that's the entire point of learning languages and various word origins. Not to have a geekish party trick or to win trivia games but to perhaps understand that passion is incomplete without some level of suffering.

I mentioned in a previous post that I lived in Portugal in the early 90's. During my time there, I tried to speak the language as much as possible. I was greatly impressed that so many people there spoke English fluently and I wanted to reciprocate the courtesy. I was able to achieve a level of fluency to where I could dream in Portuguese at night.

Once I came home, the extent of my language maintenance was either reading a few books I had or speaking to myself. One grew stale and the other questioned my sanity.

So I listened to their music, called fado. Fado is a melancholy form of music that is unique to Portugal. It's folk music that has been around since the early 19th century; it originated in the university city of Coimbra but a bastardized form was eventually imported from Lisbon.

The music is typically mournful and is dwells on the sadness of life with a hint of optimism. Originally, it was only performed by males; however, many females have since made legitimate careers singing fado music.

Whereas the Brazilian bossa nova and samba are more jazz influenced and more upbeat, fado is purposefully sorrowful. It gets its name from the word "fate". The proposition that certain elements of our lives are beyond our complete control.

A central theme to fado is the word "saudade". It is perhaps my favorite word in the world. It has no translation, no equivalent in any other language. Loosely, it is the word used to describe the longing for something, the emptiness brought on by its absence.

So, since there is no way to define it, I'll borrow another's words to describe it:

In his book In Portugal, A.F.G. Bell writes: "The famous saudade of the Portuguese is a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present, a turning towards the past or towards the future; not an active discontent or poignant sadness but an indolent dreaming wistfulness."

And even that doesn't do it much justice. To further describe the impossibility of translating the word, to experience saudade is to miss something you have never experienced before; the thirst you need to quench before you even feel thirsty.

So while I now listen to more Jobim and the Gilbertos, I gain more understanding from fado.

And actually welcome the occasional suffering of saudade. Without it, passion is incomplete.