KEYWORDS: A FIELD GUIDE TO THE MISSING WORDS
A compendium of words from 46 languages that fill lexical gaps (places the language is missing a word) in the English language. With a focus on words for connecting with Self, Others, and the Living World.
If the limits of my language are the limits of my world
how do I make my
world bigger?
A brief conversation with Gabriel about Keywords
Who is this book for?
I would say anyone in love with words. And/or anyone who has ever experienced the limits of what can be said in English, or whatever language you grew up speaking, for that matter. So it’s also for people who are frustrated by words. Frustrated by what is beyond them. It is also a meditation on that.
Why did you write this?
Language has a really profound place in what it means to be human, and it also constrains us. My sanity has, at various times in my life, been connected to being able to articulate aspects of my experience that literally cannot be named in English. I’ve had a number of experiences where learning a word felt like it saved my life– allowed me to name something unspeakable, and the naming of it convinced me that I was not crazy. And to know that someone else, or some other culture had a way of describing what I was experiencing? It made me feel much less alone. About twenty-six years ago, I began assembling a map of these untranslatable words.
What is one of your favorite untranslatable words?
The word kotodama, in Japanese, means the spiritual interior of the word. It acknowledges that we can say, I love you, for example, and it can be totally sincere, or an admonition, or a form of pleading, or a demand. The words are the same, but their kotodama, their spiritual interior, is totally different. This word changed my life.
What is the book focused on?
It is a kind of dictionary of untranslatable words, grouped into sections. There are sections on Ways of Knowing, Feelings, Interbeing, Greetings, the Living World. The book is organized to expand your ability to relate to these different aspects of experience. As unusual as the subject matter is, it is emminently practical.
Anything else you’d like to tell us about the book?
Well, this was our second collaboration with the inimitable book designer Kevin Barrett Kane, who is just extraordinarily gifted at designing books. We really went for it visually: the book is hardcover, it is 8 x 8 inches square, just under 300 pages, designed to be a conversation piece. The kind of book you can leave out on a coffee table, open to any page, and start a conversation with someone about.
Oh yeah– and it took me 26 years to write. No joke. I had been working on it for over two decades when it occurred to me to turn the map into a book. There are some pretty rad maps at the end, and a glossary of all the words. One of our readers told us that it was the most beautiful book she had ever read. That meant a lot to me.
