By Megha Lakha
When it comes to love, there are many languages in which we express ourselves…and I’m not talking about love languages like “gift-giving,” “quality time,” or “acts of service.” I’m talking about actual languages like French, Spanish, Chinese, and Latin.
Love is an ancient, universal language that everyone out there speaks, but we all speak it in different languages depending on where we are from. I was interested in the idea of how people communicate and express their love, but then I wondered if there truly is a superior language in the world of romance.
I wondered what languages were the most romantic and my mind landed on the most obvious one of all: French. Google also agreed with me, however, when I made my way down to the language department center, Mrs. Sams was quick to shine some much-needed light on this assumption. Mrs. Sams speaks fluent French, Spanish, German, and Dutch, so she is well-versed in many languages.
“For some reason, people think French is much more romantic but it’s just the sound of the words,” she explained. “If you asked a non-native speaker, they probably like the beautiful sound of the language, but to someone whose native language is French, they understand that it’s just meaningful words, and it’s not different.”
Senora Vazquez, my current Spanish teacher who was also in the language department center, chimed in by saying, “It also depends on the personality.” With Spanish, “the body language that we use to speak is probably just as important as the tone or volume, so I think that we express from the heart but with our body as well,” Senora Vazquez said. “Like if we’re in love, we’re VERY in love.”
A few days later, I spoke with Mrs. Hu, who teaches Chinese. She told me there are a lot of generational differences when it comes to love in Chinese culture. She said that “young people use the term ‘520’, which is just another way of saying ‘I love you.’” She also said that the older generations don’t always show their love through words, but rather their actions. “For example, my husband doesn’t say ‘I love you’, but he will do things for me that show his emotions or passion, it’s just the little things he does,” Mrs. Hu said. “It’s like with my parents, in the morning when my mom does Tai Chi and my dad goes for a walk when he comes back and he doesn’t see my mom there, he will go out to meet her.”
Mrs. Hu, like many people, thinks French is the most romantic language, “To me German sounds aggressive, but French sounds like lovers talking to each other.” However, she says that “Chinese writing is more romantic because we have different ways of expressing love.”
As for expression, she thinks Americans are more romantic because they are always giving flowers or going out to movies with their partner and leaving the kids behind. “If you are Chinese you don’t really see them doing that, and they don’t really leave the kids,” she said. Mrs. Hu told me that her husband, for instance, doesn’t ever buy her flowers, but he does “more practical things” like cooking her breakfast in the mornings.
To get a sense of how love is expressed in a language that is no longer spoken, I met with Ms. Bracket who took me back to Ancient Rome. First, she gave me a brief lesson on the history of Valentine’s Day: “Saint Valentine was a third-century Roman Saint. He was martyred so the feats of Saint Valentine turned into Valentine’s Day and people would do a pilgrimage to his place to the catacombs in Rome especially if they were seeking love,”
Ms. Bracket said she couldn’t say for sure whether Romans were super romantic because she obviously wasn’t around in Ancient Rome. Still, she did say that “it wasn’t expected to love your spouse because almost all of the marriages were arranged and based on wealth and status.”
I met with her fellow Latin teacher Mr. Crowley to get more information. “If we are talking love language, I teach an ancient language, so it’s what we have written, so I can’t talk about love language because people who spoke this aren’t really around,” Mr. Crowley said, Instead, Mr. Crowley dove into the Greek language which he briefly studied in college.
He started by explaining a few Greek words of love to me. He said there are 7 words and they all mean different kinds of love. First, there’s “Eros”, which is romantic passionate love. “As in Cupid who was called Eros, you get shot by Cupid’s bow and you have eros for somebody,” Mr. Crowley explained. Then there is “Philia,” which is platonic or a love of things. Next, there is “Agape,” the love for a concept or love for an idea. There’s “Storge,” which is love for family. “It can also sometimes be used to describe patriotism. Like I’ve got storge for UGA, I have this kind of affinity, kinship to it, or like a state or country.” More problematically, there’s “mania,” which is a kind of obsessive love, “like a kleptomaniac, they steal because they like to, but that’s a mania. It is something you love doing. it’s obsessive and often self-destructive, like a stalker.” Then there is Ludes, “it’s like playful love, like puppy love.” Then, there’s “Pragma,” the longtime love your grandma and grandpa have for each other. “Hopefully it’s not Eros, the hot and passionate love,” Mr. Crowley chuckled, “And you also know that that couple has been together for a while and they probably have been through some [stuff].” Finally, “Philautia, is self-love, that kind of self-respect.”
After giving me a crash course on Greek words of love, Mr. Crowley told me that his 10th graders read a book written by a first-century Roman poet known as Catullus about toxic love. “It’s fascinating literature to read, but it’s not healthy,” Mr. Crowley explained. “This would be like someone carrying on an affair with Kim Kardashian and publishing all their of their DMs or messages.” He also told me his junior class is beginning to read a book by an ancient Roman author, Ovid, called Ars Avatoria. “This is literally his poetic handbook on how to pick up women in first-century Rome, and he’s like you need to learn how to dump men. And then he writes book 3 for women on how to pick up men and manipulate them.” So this seems like helpful poetry for those with no game and surprisingly doesn’t sound too outdated.
Mr. Crowley also blatantly expressed his opinion on Latin vs. English in terms of romance. “Latin is more romantic by a mile, English is just a dumb language in general,” he said. One of Mr. Crowley’s “favorite things about Latin is you can arrange the words in any way, but they always make sense, you can make word pictures.” He said he “just [doesn’t] think English poetry can structurally do anything as well as Latin.”
So overall, it seems like everyone has a different perspective on which language is superior in terms of romance, it depends on who you ask. I guess the lesson is that everyone speaks a different language, but we all have one thing in common–Love–and that won’t ever be outdated, no matter the words we use to express it.
