English is a rich and powerful language drawing from many roots. Nevertheless, there are several non-English words that enrich our ability to communicate — and apprehend.
Schadenfreude, which is of course German, is a good example of these sorts of foreign words, and it is already in widespread use in English. Schadenfreude is the feeling we all have at one time or another of taking pleasure in someone else’s pain, for example, when the boss you loathe gets fired.
A much less common word, from Portuguese, is saudade (pronounced roughly sau DAH jhay). It means a deep longing for something lost to you and likely never obtainable again, say a former love or a place you cannot return to. I used to have a sense of saudade toward San Francisco, having left more than a decade ago. I no longer even miss San Francisco, though, since it has become a giant Disneyland for techno-yup invaders.
Although English uses many words of Spanish origin such as amigo, fiesta, buckaroo, Nevada, and Montana, there are two more that are useful. Tertulia is a social gathering or an informal meeting, often to discuss current events, ideas, and arts. I was part of a tertulia for many years in San Francisco and hope to start one in the city I am in now. The other word is madrugada. It refers to the period of late night and very early morning. For example, in Spanish one would refer to 4:00 in the madrugada rather than 4:00 in the morning. Extending the meaning, a madrugador, or madrugadora in the case of a female, is an early-riser. I consider myself a madrugador because I typically awaken between 4:00 and 4:30 AM.
I always thought Tertulia was a turtle or a tortoise… Pat and I went to La Tertulia restaurant in Santa Fe for our first date. Housed in a former convent, the irony did not escape us.
Tortuga is the word I know for turtle.
Ah, tertulia. I greatly miss my San Francisco tertulia, which took place almost every Saturday morning beginning at 8:15. It still continues after twenty years.