The word “dor” is one of the most frequent words in Romanian literature, poems and art in general.
–What makes it so special?
–It can’t be translated!
Having an untranslatable word is quite curious considering the fact that there are currently 47 languages that have at least some Latin roots.
The word dor means something like “to miss someone” or “to miss something”. You can miss a person (mi-e dor de tine) or you can miss a place (mi-e dor de acasa). Effectively, its literal translation means “I want (to see) you/it.”
At issue is that Latin, the foundational language for this word in Romanian, didn’t really have a clear way to say that you “missed” something or someone. In Romanian, dorcomes from the latin word dolus which means “pain” and it’s related to the Romanian word durere (which means “pain”).
Here are some official definitions of the word dor:
- Pain (related to other people)
- An illness
- A soul/ heart pain
- A powerful desire to see someone/ something you care about
- Appetite
- An erotic attraction
Furthermore, what I think makes dor special is the amount of feeling that goes into it.
I’ve never met a Romanian person who casually “misses” someone. When they miss you, they miss you wholeheartedly. It’s never a shallow emotion but one that often causes tears.
This meaning formed throughout our history, which included religion, war, times of prosperity and famine. When a mother sent her children to war, she felt the dor every single moment (also a recurring theme in most traditional poems – doină, another untranslatable word )
