The Germanic languages are filled with several words packed with
historical context and culture that makes them virtually
untranslatable (schadenfreude, angst, blitzkrieg, doppelgänger,
ersatz). So while the British are boastfully proud of their bad
weather they don’t have a word like the Swedish “Uppehållsväder”
which describes a surprising lull between rainstorms. It’s a
word for the absence of falling rain. Among the more interesting
words is “bildning” which comes from the German word “bildung”
and is described by Wikipedia as: …refers to the German
tradition of self-cultivation, (as related to the German for:
creation, image, shape), wherein philosophy and education are
linked in manner that refers to a process of both personal and
cultural maturation. This maturation is described as a
harmonization of the individual’s mind and heart and in a
unification of selfhood and identity within the broader society…
On one level there is an element of education so a person of
bildung is a person who is educated bu