Is Saudade Really Untranslatable?

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A few days ago, in what connection I no longer remember, a student expressed the quite common idea that "saudade" is a Portuguese word with no equivalent in other languages. Yes and no, in my opinion.



My aging Aurelião dictionary defines "saudade" as "a sad and gentle memory of distant or departed persons or things, together with the desire to see them or possess them; regret at the absence of someone dear to us: nostalgia." "Saudade" is also "a beautiful bird of the Cotinga family ... in the Serra do Mar (Coast Range)." So here in Brazil, "saudade" is in the air.



While in English, this feeling (not the bird) is usually expressed as a verb, in Portuguese it is a noun. Tenho saudade de João = I miss John. Ter saudade = to miss. Very much like "saudade", one of the meanings of to miss is "to feel the lack or loss of (someone or something)." So the definitions of "saudade" and to miss are quite similar. When the feeling is stronger than mere nostalgia, it's time for the verb to long. Long is another example of a homonym: one word with two completely different meanings: long (adjective) = not short, and to long (verb): to want someone or something desperately. Ele tem muita saudade da esposa dele = He longs for his wife. We could also say "He misses his wife very much."



We've been talking about verb translations for saudade, but what if we really want a noun? The Aurelião dictionary itself suggests that a synonym for saudade is nostalgia, and English also has this word, with stress on the / a / = / nou STAL dʒə /. We also have the adjective nostalgic. For example, he is nostalgic for the 80s. Incidentally, saudoso meaning dead can be translated as late (another one of those pesky homonyms. Late can also mean "not early"). If we really, really, miss the dear departed, we can use "the late, lamented", as in "the late, lamented President Café Filho."

Saudade for one's home, family or country: homesickness. He is living 6.000 miles from home. He's dying of homesickness. He is homesick.

So it's clear from what we have just said that "saudade" has several translations into English. After all, we're talking about a universal human feeling here. The difference is in the part of speech, noun or verb, which one or the other language uses to express that feeling.