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Comment by EastLondonCoder | Hacker News Reader

Interestingly enough the words exists in Swedish as well, spelling is a bit different but the meaning is more or less the same:

German -> Swedish

Wehmot -> vemod

Entwicklung -> utveckling

Einsam -> ensam

Stimmung -> stämmning

Entschuldigen -> ursäkta

Aufrichtigkeit -> uppriktighet

Lebensmut -> livsmod

Ursprung -> ursprung

Liebenswürdig -> älskvärd

Note that Sinneswandel is missing not sure if there is a direct translation in Swedish

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I mean, technically you can do this in English as well. English is a Germanic language and compound words are fully legitimate in the language. The following don't exist in the colloquialisms or formal records of the language, but are grammatically correct:

  Wehmot -> sorecourage
  Einsam -> onepeace
  Stimmung -> innervoice
  Lebensmut -> lifegrit
  Liebenswürdig -> loveworthy

And, despite the author's claims, many do have direct equivalent words in English:

  Ursprung -> outspring
  Aufrichtigkeit -> uprightness
  Entwicklung -> unwrapping
  Entschuldigen -> unguilt

All of which could be used in the manner described in the article. As well as having accurate one-word synonyms:

  outspring: origin / original
  uprightness: compunction
  unwrapping: developing, delving, growth
  unguilt: unburden

The main difference in the languages is that modern English (especially 20th century on) has relied more on loanwords (another compound word) and hyphenations to augment. Love-worthy, for instance:

https://www.wordnik.com/words/love-worthy

It's hard to count compound words as "words that don't exist in other languages", honestly. Meanwhile, there are perfectly acceptable (compound or not) words that actually give voice to something hard to describe in other languages. Which is a far more interesting (IMHO) concept; such as "schadenfreude" or, going the other way for many languages, "irony".

I am not convinced that Wehmut translates to sorecourage. The -mut ending appears in other emotions as well, Sanftmut, Schwermut for example. I think it relates to words like "Gemüt" and corresponds to "mood".

Soremood Softmood Heavymood

I took some liberties on a couple to try and capture the meaning of the German word; "einsam" for instance would better translate into "onesome".

I'm also not a native speaker, so I could be completely off.

Interestingly here, "loanword" is a calque from the German "lehnwort", which reminds me of my favourite language fact: "loanword" is a calque, and "calque" is a loanword.

It's the same in Danish, and I'd imagine Norwegian too. And like Swedish, "Sinneswandel" is missing.

The Danish for "Ursprung" is »udspring«, which lit. means something more akin to 'out spring', but we do have the »ur-« prefix in Danish, meaning origin/source. So »urskov« would be the 'origin of forest', or jungle, i.e. it is the thing that it is the origin of all that.

In the same sense, you could - jokingly - making the word »urvittighed« meaning the 'original joke'. Compound nouns are extremely powerful.

Same in Dutch! Weemoed, ontwikkeling, eenzaam, stemming, verontschuldigen, oprechtheid, oorsprong.

Some are missing, or at least from my vocabulary. Glad I learned something new today!

> Interestingly enough the words exists in Swedish as well.

And this is no surprise. Low German was a major trade language of the Baltic region and Swedish absorbed an enormous number of Low German words either as direct borrowings or calques. Then due to the prestige of High German as a literary language in Northern Europe, Swedish calqued further words on German models.

>Entschuldigen -> ursäkta

That's not a direct translation as far as I can see. I'm not a native speaker but I don't think säkt does means anything, opposite to Schuld, which has a clear meaning. The direct translation would be something like avskulda, but that's not a word AFAICS.

Yes, you are correct. The direct translation is "urskulda" which is a Swedish word meaning "justify" or "excuse".

In Norwegian unskyld means i'm sorry which corresponds to german.

Many of these words just change a bit over time like geld/gjeld which is money in German and debt in Norwegian.

That sounds like "Unschuld" = innocence in German.

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