John Koenig: Beautiful new words to describe obscure emotions
جون كوينغ: كلمات جديدة جميلة تصفُ العواطف المُبهمة
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
about the meaning of words,
is a magnificent sponge.
I'm glad that I speak it.
وأنا سعيد لأنني أتحدثها.
a thunderstorm on the horizon
وتجدون أنفسكم منجذبين إليها.
rooting for the storm.
لديهم كلمة "yù yī" --
to feel intensely again
الذي كان ينتابك عندما كنتَ طفلًا.
hypothetical conversation
الذي يرهقُ تفكيرك.
play out in your head.
of course in German,
بالطبع في الألمانية،
التي تعني الخوف من الحصول على ما تريد.
of getting what you want.
so I know exactly what that feels like.
وأعرفُ تمامًا هذا الشعور.
if I would use any of these words
سأستخدم هذه الكلمات في حياتي اليومية
is because I made them up.
هو أنني شكّلتها.
of Obscure Sorrows,"
for the last seven years.
على مدى السنوات السبع الأخيرة.
in the language of emotion
ومحاولة سدها
about all those human peccadilloes
هفوات ونزوات الحالة الإنسانية
لأنه ليس لدينا الكلمات للتعبير عنها.
but may not think to talk about
عرّفتُ "sonder" (كلمة ألمانية)،
as the main character
أننا شخصيات مميزة متفوقة
we're all the main character,
in someone else's story.
من الردود من الناس
to something I had felt all my life
طيلة حياتنا ولم تكن هناك كلمة معبّرة عنه".
أن تخفِّف عنا شعور الوحدة.
Sonder/مميز
in conversations online,
عبر الإنترنت، وبعد ملاحظتها بفترة قصيرة،
in an actual conversation in person.
than making up a word
take on a mind of its own.
for that yet, but I will.
about what makes words real,
I got from people is,
والذي سألوني إياه كثيرًا:
I don't really understand."
لا أفهمُ ذلك حقًا."
تداول كلمة sonder،
are real and what aren't.
الحقيقية من غير الحقيقية.
who described his epiphany
الذي فسر"الظهور الإلهي"
as we go through the day,
bouncing against the walls too much
ونحاول ألَّا نلتفت كثيرًا للمعوقات .
by people no smarter than you,
ليسوا أكثر ذكاءً منك
and touch those walls
the power to change it.
"Are these words real?"
"هل هذه الكلمات حقيقية؟"،
that I tried out.
Some of them didn't.
if you want it to be real."
because people wanted it to be there.
لان الناس أرادوه ان يكون هناك.
campuses all the time.
what people are really asking
حول حقيقة الكلمة هو بالفعل:
they're really asking,
will this give me access to?"
هذه الكلمة الوصول إليها؟
a lot of how we look at language.
إلى كيفية رؤيتنا للّغة.
تجعلنا نصلُ إلى عقول بعض الناس.
فهي لا تستحقُ كل هذا العناء،
فهي تعتمدُ على من وصلت إليه.
فهي جديرة بالتحدث عنها.
access to as many brains as you can.
تستطيعُ إيصالك إلى أكبر عدد من العقول،
حسب هذا المقياس هي:
by this measure is this.
to a master key.
understood word in the world,
في العالم أينما كنت.
what those two letters stand for.
هذان الحرفان.
of "all correct," I guess,
لكلمتي "all correct: كله صحيح"
but the fact that it doesn't matter
حول كيفية إضافة المعنى إلى الكلمات.
how we add meaning to words.
in the words themselves.
نحنُ مَن نضيفُ المعنى لها.
that pour ourselves into it.
for meaning in our lives,
ونبحثُ عن معنى الحياة --
something to do with that.
for the meaning of something,
فالقاموس هو المكان المناسب للبدء.
لعالم فوضوي جدًا.
with patterns and shorthands
ومحاولة اكتشاف طريقة لتفسيرها،
a way to interpret it
to define ourselves.
بكيفية استخدامنا الكلمات.
All words are made up,
ولكن ليس لجميعها معنى.
trapped in our own lexicons
with people who aren't already like us,
كل عام،
a little more every year,
من أحد الفلاسفة المفضلين لديّ
"Calvin and Hobbes."
"كالفين وهوبز"، الذي قال،
your values and satisfies your soul
هو انجاز فريد من نوعه.
ولكنه ما زال ممكنًا،
happier for the trouble."
الصعاب لتحقيق ذلك."
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
John Koenig - WriterJohn Koenig is writing an original dictionary of made-up words.
Why you should listen
John Koenig has spent the last seven years writing an original dictionary of made-up words, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, which fills gaps in the language with hundreds of new terms for emotions. This project seeks to restore sadness to its original meaning (from Latin satis, "fullness") by defining moments of melancholy that we may all feel, but never think to mention -- deepening our understanding of each other by broadening the emotional palette, from avenoir, "the desire to see memories in advance," to zenosyne, "the sense that time keeps going faster."
Each entry is a collage of word roots borrowed from languages all around the world. Some entries are even beginning to enter the language outright:
sonder n. The realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own -- populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness -- an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you'll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.
His original YouTube series, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, which he writes, edits and narrates himself, has drawn acclaim from John Green and Beyoncé to Michael from Vsauce. "Each episode is a soothing meditation on its subject, fortified by a hypnotic soundtrack and Koenig’s twistingly intelligent narration," writes The Daily Dot.
He currently works as a freelance video editor, voice actor, graphic designer, illustrator, photographer, director and writer. His writing has been published in countless tattoos, stories, song titles and band names, but never on paper -- though he is currently working on publishing a book adaptation. Originally from Minnesota and Geneva, Switzerland, John lives in Budapest with his wife.
John Koenig | Speaker | TED.com