"I am sad" doesn't at all mean that sadness is my defining characteristic. It usually means sadness is a temporary state.
Non-linguists trying themselves at linguistics always often come up with pseudo facts like this.
You obviously know nothing about language. When I say "I'm here", what I am saying is that I now and forever identify as the grocery store parking lot we decided to meet at. And when I say "I'm running", I am saying that I have become the very concept of speed.
I. Am. Speed.
For normal people yes, for people who lack emotional regulation, "I am sad" can be an identity because you might get stuck in it for years at a time. Decades.
I think the author here is speaking to those people more than just your average joe who could care less about the distinction between state and characteristic because they understand the difference already.
Translating, conjugating and undestanding "To Be" is always fraught with peril. :)
It would be more correct to say "I feel sad", but colloquially "I am sad" is used for the same thing.
Language does shape how we think, so it's possible that saying it that way has a subconscious effect. I guess.
We need an "iam14andthisisdeep" on Lemmy.
I’m unfortunately closer to “iam40andthisisdeep”
Stay wholesome please
I've seen a recent uptick in deepish thoughts. This is a prime example of that.
But, hey, if it gets you through...
Spanish is somewhat similar. Scared isn’t something you are, it’s something you have (tengo miedo, lit. ‘I have fear’). Emotions are also ‘put on you’ instead of making you a certain way. Ex: me puso feliz translates as ‘it made me happy,’ but literally is ‘it put happiness on me.’
Also, Spanish has two main verbs for "to be". There's "ser", which is used for things that are inherent (e.g.: "Yo soy de Mexico" means "I am from Mexico"). But then there's also "estar", which is used for the current state of things, or a temporary status (e.g.: "Yo estoy enfermo" means "I am sick (in my current state)").
"ser" is a cognate of "essence", "estar" of "state" :D
Ahh. I knew about "estar" but I never knew that about "ser". Very good to know!
And then locations and buildings come to fuck up that way of remembering it, because la biblioteca está allí, not la biblioteca es allí. 😩
Did you know that Spanish speaking kids don’t do spelling bees, they do grammar competitions? Not hard to see why, haha!
German (if I'm remembering right from my high school language class days), does the same thing as well. It's not 'I am hungry', it's 'I have hunger'.
(If there's any actual German readers/speakers and I misspoke, I apologize. This was almost 15 years ago at this point!)
Native speaker of German here: Both "ich bin hungrig" (I am hungry) and "ich habe Hunger" (I have hunger) are valid German. The latter is more common though, the adjective "hungrig" is more often used as an attributive adjective.
| English | French | Literal French | Spanish | Literal Spanish | Japanese | (Sorta) Literal Japanese | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| | I'm hungry | J'ai faim | I have hunger | Tengo hambre O Estoy hambriento/a | I have hunger OR I am (temporarily) hungry | Onaka ga suita | Regarding stomach: empty | | I'm angry | Je suis fâché | I am angry | Estoy enojado/a | I am (temporarily) angry | Watashi wa okotte imasu | Regarding me: angry is | | I'm cold | J'ai froid | I have cold | Tengo frio | I have cold | Samui OR Samuidesu | Cold OR It's cold | | I'm scared | J'ai peur | I have fear | Estoy asustado/a | I am (temporarily) scared | Kowai OR Watashi wa kowaidesu | Scary OR Regarding me: scared/scary is | | I'm brave | Je suis courageux | I'm brave (courageous) | Soy valiente | I am (permanently) brave | Watashi wa yūkan'na | Regarding me: brave |
Languages are fun. French switches between "I have" and "I am" for these sorts of things. Spanish mostly uses "I am" but it has two versions of "I am", one that's used generally for more permanent states of things, one that's used for more temporary states. As a result, "I'm scared but I'm brave" uses one for the temporary condition of being scared, but one for the more permanent condition of being brave.
Japanese has its own whole system that is so different from English that it's hard to directly translate. In japanese "wa" marks the topic of a sentence, and can often be omitted if it's obvious. So you could just say "cold" or "brave" if it's obvious you're talking about yourself, or you can say "Watashi wa" which sort-of translates as "regarding me" or "about me". The particle "wa" is something used in Japanese to mark the topic of a sentence. Japanese doesn't have verb-person agreement, so there's no "I am", "you are", "he is". There's instead something vaguely like "regarding me: is" If you wanted to tell someone they were brave you'd change the topic of the sentence to them and say "Anata wa yūkan'na".
Japanese also uses the same word for "scary" and "scared" so you need contextual clues or other words to differentiate between "I am scared" vs. "I am scary". There's a different Japanese particle "ga" that is similar but has a narrower focus. Instead of the whole sentence being about something, it's just the previous word. So, I'm hungry becomes "my stomach is empty" but more literally: "specifically regarding stomach: empty".
None of this really makes any logical sense. Languages are weird, and the things that are the most commonly said are the weirdest. What does "I am hungry" really mean, that I am the very definition of hunger? That whole condition changes when you eat a sandwich? What does "I have fear" mean? I have it in a basket? Does "I feel fear" mean that I can sense its texture with my fingers? In English we mostly "are" things like hunger or fear. But, for some reason it's "I have a feeling" Now it's like the other European languages where feelings are something you have, not something you are.
This guy languages.
How about German? Being the other main language behind the drunk hodgepodge that is English, it's worth looking into that
German also mixes it a fair bit. Following merc's table in order:
#4 uses haben (to have) + noun; #2 and #5 use sein (to be) + adjective.
For #1 you'll typically see the noun + haben. Adjective + sein is perfectly viable, but a bit less common, and I feel like it leans towards metaphoric usage; e.g. «ich bin hungrig nach Liebe», literally "I'm hungry for love".
#3 uses the dative instead, it's roughly "it's cold for me". If you use "ich bin kalt", you'll convey that your temperature is low, not that you're feeling cold.
Being the other main language behind the drunk hodgepodge that is English
That's inaccurate.
To keep it short, the situation between English, Dutch and German is a lot like the situation between Romance languages: they have a common origin (West Germanic), one isn't from the other. And while English got bits and bobs of vocab due to Norse and Norman influence, vocab is rather superficial, and most oddities of the language were born in the islands.
This table is a good example. English is basically adjectivising almost everything physiological and emotional, while both German and the Romance languages would use a mix of adjectives and nouns instead. (With the Romance languages typically preferring nouns, but that isn't a hard rule.)
Do you know German? The "I am cold" one is interesting to me. "Mir" is German for "me" or "to me" roughly, right? So, would a rough literal translation be something like "to me it is cold"?
I tried to learn some German at some point, but I didn't manage to learn enough to get comfortable with the various cases.
Fundamental misunderstanding of English.
"I am sad" -- am here is a copula. It indicates a link between the subject (I) and subject-complement (sad). In this case, it's saying "subject (I) has property (sad)." It does not equate the subject and subject-complement.
Not all languages work like this. In Mandarin for instance, 我是伤心* (wǒ (I) shì (am) shāngxīn (sad)*) would be seen as grammatically incorrect or at least weird. This would literally mean "I am sad" (adjectives in Mandarin operate as stative verbs, so the correct way to say this is without a copula -- i.e. 我很伤心 (wǒ (I) hěn (~quite/~very) shāngxīn (sad)). (You could drop the 很 (quite), and just say 我伤心, but the connotation in this case is that you're setting up for a juxtaposition, e.g. "I'm sad, you're not sad."))
I will say, as someone who lived through chronic pain for years, saying I have pain, rather than saying I'm in pain feels quite distinct and... Less hopeless? You're not incorrect, you're just not recognizing the impact and power words can have. There are whole therapies that specialize in reshaping our narratives, despite "I am sad" and "I feel sad" essentially meaning the same thing grammatically.
"In pain", to me implies that it's happening right now, where as "having pain" is a long term thing.
That's true. 'I am tall' ≠ "I am height"
You are grammatically right. But in practice the fact that am has also the meaning of equating the subject to the object puts the idea in people's head (at some degree, unconsciously, at least) that they equate to what they feel.
As a Spanish native I was very surprised when I learnt that "soy" and "estoy" both are translated as "I am" in English.
You can either be something because it is something inherent to your being "I am a happy person" or be something at this moment "I am happy". Both are expressed by the same verb, but mean very different things. In Spanish it would be "Soy una persona feliz" and "Estoy feliz".
Yeah we have that in English, too. We use the word “feel”. 🙄
The things English does with the word "feel" should be illegal.
You don't get to use the same word for having profound internal emotions AND to rub your grubby hands on things. That's just not right.
Well I might feel if you put your grubby hands on my things
This is quite romantic, and I agree that we should be aware of our emotions as temporary, as clouds in the sky. However, the Irish language has not prevented the Irish people from having some of the highest rates of anxiety on Earth https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/anxiety-disorders-prevalence
In English it is usually stated as I feel lonely or sad. Most English speakers take this for granted. They don't think people are sad, but that they are feeling sad.
I like to use acting like when talking about negative behaviors to not define the person as a negative emotion. You are acting like a douche for instance as opposed to you are a douche.
This is one of those things where it's not that deep.
Actually language plays a big part in our mental state, language processing is shown to play a huge role in the development and perception of our emotional states.
I'm aware.
People underestimate our ability to compensate for shortcomings of language. At the end of the day, you have to choose a way to say it.
This is a combination of how the Celtic languages do possessive sentences and the very common European metaphor for "having" a feeling
Basically Irish (among with many other languages) don't have a word for have, instead they use the phrasing "X is at Y", where X is the thing being had and Y is the haver. This ties in with the metaphor of "having" a feeling, which can be seen in the English "I have a desire to..." or the German "Ich habe Hunger"
Does "This car is fast" mean the car is the abstract concept of having higher velocity? Does it mean the car is permanently moving fast or it has not and will not stop?
yes it means that.
See, you start reading too much into grammar this way and then you learn about how Spanish uses their "to be" equivalent and have a massive existential crisis.
Even beyond just emotions, in Portuguese the "be" verb can be translated into two different verbs: "ser" and "estar". They are two complete separate things - so separate that English classes kinda turned the "to be" verb into a meme due to how long it takes to teach Portuguese speakers to use it and understand what it means in each sentence.
"Ser": to be someone who is something. Usually more permanent, but not necessarily.
"Estar": to be in the state of something. Usually more temporary, but also applies to permanent states.
Some examples showing how the meaning of some expressions change depending on which verb you use:
You are sick "Ser": you are a sick (twisted/evil) person. "Estar": you have caught some sickness.
You are sad "Ser": life has made you sad in general. "Estar": you're feeling sad right now.
You are beautiful: "Ser": you are a beautiful person. "Estar": you are looking great today.
You're good at this: "Ser": literal, you're good at this. "Estar": implies being good is not the default but you have reached the point of being good at this.
**you're funny drunk": "Ser": when you're drunk you are funny. "Estar": you are drunk now and this time you turned out to be funny while drunk. Or, in this point of your life you're funny when you're drunk.
it's cold there: "Ser": that is a cold place. "Estar": that place is cold right now.
it's cold there now "Ser": it's like saying that winters in that place used to be mild but nowadays winter there can get pretty cold "Estar": that place is cold right now.
So depression is on me as well?
and horny
We really need two more disparate words for those who are anxious and have anxiety disorder.
Anxious - (e.g. "world is falling apart and I could be laid off and be homeless anytime" or "I fear strangers who approach me, what kind of scam are they pulling?") which is a normal and accurate reaction to the world but if undesirable can be gaslit out of you via therapy. Likely very transient.
Vs.
Anxiety - a medical disorder due to neurotransmitter dysregulation treated by anti-psychotic or benzo medication. Unlikely to be solvable without professional psychiatric intervention or self-medication.
How do I get the sadness and anxiety offa me?!
have you tried, like, not being sad?
The same language rules are used for control/ownership of objects as well. A book is on you, (or with you), as is your car and your clothes.
That said, the concepts in english aren't foreign or lost in translation. When the language became more than a tool for people to communicate, miscommunications start happening.
If you're bipolar you definitely are your emotions.
Welcome to Lemmy Be Wholesome. This is the polar opposite of LemmeShitpost. Here you can post wholesome memes, palate cleanser and good vibes.
The home to heal your soul. No bleak-posting!
1. Be Respectful
Refrain from using harmful language pertaining to a protected characteristic: e.g. race, gender, sexuality, disability or religion.
Refrain from being argumentative when responding or commenting to posts/replies. Personal attacks are not welcome here.
...
2. No Illegal Content
Content that violates the law. Any post/comment found to be in breach of common law will be removed and given to the authorities if required.
That means: -No promoting violence/threats against any individuals
-No CSA content or Revenge Porn
-No sharing private/personal information (Doxxing)
...
3. No Spam
Posting the same post, no matter the intent is against the rules.
-If you have posted content, please refrain from re-posting said content within this community.
-Do not spam posts with intent to harass, annoy, bully, advertise, scam or harm this community.
-No posting Scams/Advertisements/Phishing Links/IP Grabbers
-No Bots, Bots will be banned from the community.
...
4. No Porn/Explicit
Content
-Do not post explicit content. Lemmy.World is not the instance for NSFW content.
-Do not post Gore or Shock Content.
...
5. No Enciting Harassment,
Brigading, Doxxing or Witch Hunts
-Do not Brigade other Communities
-No calls to action against other communities/users within Lemmy or outside of Lemmy.
-No Witch Hunts against users/communities.
-No content that harasses members within or outside of the community.
...
6. No NSFW Content
-Content shouldn't be NSFW
-Refrain from posting triggering content, if the content might be triggering try putting it behind NSFW tags.
7. Content should be Wholesome, we accept cute cats, kittens, puppies, dogs and anything, everything that restores your faith in humanity!
Content that isn't wholesome will be removed.
...
8. Reposting of Reddit content is permitted, try to credit the OC.
-Please consider crediting the OC when reposting content. A name of the user or a link to the original post is sufficient.
...
Also check out:
Partnered Communities:
...
Reach out to @[email protected] for inclusion on the sidebar.
All communities included on the sidebar are to be made in compliance with the instance rules.~~___~~___
