In the early days of the United States, the country was often referred to as the “melting pot” where people from many different cultures and languages came together to form a mixture or blend of communities working and living together. The word amalgamation means a mixture, where different parts are melted and fused into one substance. It’s often used to refer to the process of making alloys, such as when copper and zinc are combined to make brass. But unlike the homogeneous metal alloy, the human combination still keeps its individuality, as the different native languages are first preserved and then mixed in with English. Over the centuries, English has added many new words from these immigrants, and become the richer for it.

But there’s still room for more people in the United States, and for more new words in the English language! One word we saw recently deserves to be included: the Portuguese word saudade. It’s a word that packs a lot into three syllables. On the surface, it might be defined as simply meaning “a sense of loss,” but when people use this word, they’re referring to a profound emotional state where love and longing and nostalgia and even regret are felt in an amalgamation of feelings that simply can’t be described in one English word.

In a previous post, we talked about other non-English words that efficiently express complicated concepts and which could be useful additions to the English vocabulary. By learning these words, you’ll learn more about the cultures they came from, and get more familiar with the way people in other countries view the world and how they live in it. If you don’t have time to travel, you can send your vocabulary on a global journey and find new words to blend in to your daily conversations.

What interesting words have you found in other languages?