Made by @vardy on X

The Multilingual Wheel
of Emotions (40+ languages)

200+ words from 40 languages
Built on Willcox · Plutchik · Lomas
Hover or tap any word for its meaning

Every language draws the map of feeling differently. English names roughly three hundred emotions; other tongues have named feelings English has never noticed. The Portuguese saudade, a longing for something lost that may never return. The Japanese mono no aware, the gentle sadness of things passing. These are not translations waiting to happen. They are coordinates on the emotional landscape that English simply does not visit.

This wheel is an attempt to make that landscape visible. Six core emotions sit at the centre, after Gloria Willcox's clinical model. Around them, their English subtleties. Around those, the outer ring: words gathered from across the world's languages, each placed near the feeling it most closely neighbours. Research suggests that naming a feeling more precisely is not merely describing it, but expanding what you are capable of feeling.

Happy · contentment, joy
Sad · grief, longing
Angry · frustration, rage
Fearful · anxiety, dread
Surprised · awe, wonder
Disgusted · aversion, shame
Center ring: core · Middle ring: English sub-emotions · Outer ring: words from other languages
Appendix

The Full Lexicon

Made with paste.page