Misplaced Pages

Hiraeth (Welsh pronunciation: [hɪraɨ̯θ, hiːrai̯θ]) is a Welsh word that has no direct English translation. The University of Wales, Lampeter, likens it to a homesickness tinged with grief and sadness over the lost or departed, especially in the context of Wales and Welsh culture. It is a mixture of longing, yearning, nostalgia, wistfulness or an earnest desire for the Wales of the past.

The Cornish and Breton equivalents are hireth and hiraezh. It is associated with the Amharic-Ethiopian concept of tizita, the German concept of Sehnsucht, the Galician-Portuguese saudade or the Romanian dor. A similar Scottish Gaelic term, cianalas, also refers to a type of longing or homesickness, often used in relation to the Outer Hebrides.

Etymology

Derived from hir 'long' and -aeth (a nominal suffix creating an abstract noun from an adjective), the word is literally equivalent to English 'longing'. A less likely, but possible, etymology is hir 'long' + aeth 'pain, grief, sorrow, longing'. In the earliest citations in early Welsh poetry it implies 'grief or longing after the loss or death of someone'.

Culture

Nineteenth-century attempts to spread the English language through its exclusive use in schools at the expense of the Welsh language, following the 1847 Reports of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of Education in Wales (commonly known as the "Treachery of the Blue Books" in Wales), led to an increase in hiraeth. Between 1870 and 1914, approximately 40% of Welsh emigrants returned to Wales, a much higher percentage than the rest of Britain, and it has been claimed that this was due to hiraeth.

See also

• Heimat
• Saudade
• Ḥuzn

Notes

Citations

1. "How to pronounce hiraeth". geiriadur.net.
2. "Hiraeth". Geiriadur Welsh–English / English–Welsh On-line Dictionary. University of Wales Trinity Saint David. Retrieved 2017-04-16.
3. Boynton, Jessica. "Hiraeth". Eastern Michigan University. Archived from the original on September 12, 2006. Retrieved June 21, 2010.
4. "Gerlyver Kernewek |". www.cornishdictionary.org.uk.
5. ^ Crossley-Baxter, Lily (15 February 2021). "The untranslatable word that connects Wales". BBC. Retrieved 27 February 2021.
6. University of Wales Dictionary, s.v. 'hiraeth'

Bibliography

• Williams, Robert (1865). Lexicon Cornu-Britannicum: A Dictionary of the Ancient Celtic Language of Cornwall, in which the Words are elucidated by Copious Examples from the Cornish Works now remaining; With Translations in English. London: Trubner & Co. p. 217

External links

• Hiraeth Smith College: Kahn Liberal Arts Institute
• BBC Wales - Arts - Hiraeth

v t e Emotions (list)
Emotions	Acceptance Admiration Adoration Aesthetic Affection Agitation Agony Amusement Anger Angst Anguish Annoyance Anticipation Anxiety Apathy Arousal Attraction Awe Belongingness Boredom Calmness Compassion Confidence Confusion Contempt Contentment Courage Cruelty Curiosity Defeat Depression Desire Disappointment Disgust Distrust Doubt Ecstasy Embarrassment vicarious Emotion work Empathy Emptiness Enthrallment Enthusiasm Envy Euphoria Excitement Faith Fear Flow Frustration Gratification Gratitude Greed Grief Guilt Happiness Joie de vivre Hatred Hiraeth Homesickness Hope Horror Hostility Humiliation Hygge Hysteria Ikigai (sense of purpose) Indulgence Infatuation Insecurity Inspiration Interest Irritation Isolation Jealousy Joy Kindness Loneliness Love limerence at first sight Lust Mono no aware Neglect Nostalgia Outrage Panic Passion Pity self-pity Pleasure Pride grandiosity hubris insult vanity Rage Regret Rejection Relief Remorse Resentment Revenge Sadness melancholy Saudade Schadenfreude Sehnsucht Sentimentality Shame Shock Shyness Social connection Sorrow Spite Stress chronic Suffering Surprise Sympathy Trust Wonder sense of wonder Worry
Worldviews	Cynicism Defeatism Fatalism Misanthropy Nihilism Optimism Pessimism Reclusion Weltschmerz
Related	Affect consciousness in education measures in psychology Affective computing forecasting neuroscience science spectrum Affectivity positive negative Appeal to emotion Amygdala hijack Emotion and art and memory and music and sex and sleep classification evolution expressed functional accounts group homeostatic in animals perception recognition in conversation regulation interpersonal work Emotional aperture bias blackmail competence conflict contagion detachment dysregulation eating exhaustion expression and gender intelligence and bullying Empathy quotient intimacy isolation lability labor lateralization literacy prosody reasoning responsivity security symbiosis thought method well-being Emotionality bounded Emotions and culture history in decision-making in the workplace in virtual communication moral self-conscious social social sharing sociology Feeling Group affective tone Interactions between the emotional and executive brain systems Jealousy in art Meta-emotion Pathognomy Pathos Social emotional development Stoic passions Theory affect appraisal constructed emotion discrete emotion somatic marker
Italics indicate emotion names in foreign languages

• Culture of Cornwall
• Nostalgia
• Culture of Wales
• Welsh words and phrases
• Words and phrases with no direct English translation