{"id":237,"date":"2025-08-12T11:48:36","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T03:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arsliterica.org\/home\/?page_id=237"},"modified":"2025-08-16T05:22:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T21:22:03","slug":"the-arete-lexicon","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/arsliterica.org\/home\/the-arete-lexicon\/","title":{"rendered":"The Arete Lexicon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><strong>One of China&#8217;s first lexicons dedicated to &#8220;untranslatable&#8221; words.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\">About the lexicon<\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p>You\u2019re on vacation. The sunset sky burns above as the sea rolls towards the shore. A wave of transcendental happiness washes over you. No, not just \u201chappy,&#8221; but something unnamable, yet undeniably real.&nbsp; You grapple to find a word to capture this moment. Darn it, you should have taken those advanced language classes in high school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Luckily, if you\u2019ve studied Greek, you might say that you\u2019re feeling <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/%E1%BC%80%CF%84%CE%B1%CF%81%CE%B1%CE%BE%CE%AF%CE%B1%CE%BD#Ancient_Greek\">\u1fb0\u0313\u03c4\u1fb0\u03c1\u1fb0\u03be\u1fd0\u0301\u1fb1\u03bd<\/a>, a lucid tranquility, or you\u2019re <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/w\/index.php?title=%CF%87%CE%B1%CE%AF%CF%81%CE%B5%CE%B9%CF%82&amp;action=edit&amp;redlink=1\">\u03c7\u03b1\u03af\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2<\/a>, \u201cexperiencing a divine grace.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Indeed, language shapes emotions. Sapir and Whorf called this \u201clinguistic determinism,\u201d that languages determine our perception of the world. Then, if we limit ourselves to our mother tongue, do we lose a rich part of our humanity? After all, the untranslatable feelings lie buried beneath our linguistic consciousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Poets have wrestled with words to illuminate the ineffable, yet rarely reach the public. Perhaps only by breaking foreign words into cognitively digestible parts (i.e., translations) can we enrich the human existence for all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the Arete Lexicon \u2014 one of China\u2019s first lexicons dedicated to \u201cuntranslatable\u201d words \u2014 we hope to explore the emotional nuances of the human spirit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-a89b3969 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-text-align-center wp-element-button\" href=\"http:\/\/aretelexicon.com\">View The Arete Lexicon<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of China&#8217;s first lexicons dedicated to &#8220;untranslatable&#8221; words. About the lexicon You\u2019re on vacation. The sunset sky burns above as the sea rolls towards the shore. A wave of transcendental happiness washes over you. No, not just \u201chappy,&#8221; but something unnamable, yet undeniably real.&nbsp; You grapple to find a word to capture this moment. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"postBodyCss":"","postBodyMargin":[],"postBodyPadding":[],"postBodyBackground":{"backgroundType":"classic","gradient":""},"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-237","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arsliterica.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arsliterica.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arsliterica.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arsliterica.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arsliterica.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/arsliterica.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":265,"href":"https:\/\/arsliterica.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/237\/revisions\/265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arsliterica.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}