Asklemmy

50871 readers

1116 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 6 years ago

MODERATORS

What are some loanwords (originated in another language and usually retains original spelling in equivalent english) for concepts, things, or experiences that English doesnt necessarily have yet? (sopuli.xyz)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by sopularity_fax@sopuli.xyz to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

51 comments fedilink hide all child comments

If you could, please format it

WORD, DEFINITION

I want to add them to a flashcard deck for myself, I casually collect loanwords and have been getting turned on to trying out csv/flashcards lately haha

Feel free to do the same, if the format is followed you can just copy and paste it to a new line of the csv deck

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Infrapink@thebrainbin.org 3 points 8 hours ago

UBUNTU, from Zulu.

Ubuntu is a concept in Bantu philosophy which is commonly translated as humanity or humaneness, but those are rough and don't capture the nuance.

In a bunch of SciFi stories, a robot or alien joins a group of humans. The humans are initially wary of the alien/robot, but they spend time together, bond, and realize that they're not really that different after all. A human says that, while their new friend might not be Homo sapiens, they're definitely human.

Ubuntu captures that whole concept in one word. It refers to the subtle, ineffable qualities which "make us human", as exemplified by our social bonds and how we interact with each other.