Saudade (
European Portuguese: [sɐwˈðaðɨ],
Brazilian Portuguese: [sawˈdadi] or
[sawˈdadʒi],
Galician: [sawˈðaðe]; plural
saudades) is a
Portuguese and
Galician word that has no direct translation in
English.
It describes a deep emotional state of nostalgic or deeply melancholic
longing for an absent something or someone that one loves. Moreover, it
often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing will
never return. A stronger form of
saudade
may be felt towards people and things whose whereabouts are unknown,
such as a lost lover, or a family member who has gone missing.
Saudade was once described as "the love that remains" after someone is gone.
Saudade
is the recollection of feelings, experiences, places or events that
once brought excitement, pleasure, well-being, which now triggers the
senses and makes one live again. It can be described as an emptiness,
like someone (e.g., one's children, parents, sibling, grandparents,
friends, pets) or something (e.g., places, things one used to do in
childhood, or other activities performed in the past) that should be
there in a particular moment is missing, and the individual feels this
absence. It brings sad and happy feelings all together, sadness for
missing and happiness for having experienced the feeling.
In Portuguese, "
Tenho saudades tuas" (European Portuguese) or "
Tenho saudades de você" (Brazilian Portuguese), translates as "I have
saudade of you" meaning "I miss you", but carries a much stronger tone. In fact, one can have
saudade of someone whom one is with, but have some feeling of loss towards the past or the future.
In
Brazil, the day of
saudade is officially celebrated on January 30.
