This fun list is making the rounds on social media, and includes the wonderful Danish word "Hygge." A number of years ago, I had the pleasure of giving a keynote at the annual meeting of the Danish Philosophical Association, and learned that a senior philosopher afterwards called me "hyggelig." As my host explained, this...
...was unexpected and a very significant token of your status here. Normally [the Danish philosopher in question] is sarcastic and dismissive of all American philosophers (and most other philosophers for that matter). As I told you there is no higher praise in the mouth of a Dane (not least an elderly one).
As for the concept "hygge", it does indeed seem to share a common root with "hug" even if the matter is speculative. The Germanic root is "hyggja", which has to do with "holding [in mind]" . Modern English "hug" seems to be a broadened sense of a term, which once meant only "holding" (as e.g. in wrestling), again deriving from that Germanic root. In modern Danish you have "omhyggelig" which means something like "thorough" or "attentive" and "hygge" (the hard to translate concept" see e.g. http://hotword.dictionary.com/translate/ ) . From "hygge" you have "hyggelig", which means: "prone to spread "hygge", and "hygge sig", which means: to be in a situation of "hygge".
"Hygge" is essential to Danish culture and cultural self-understanding. It denotes an aspect of a special sort of socially harmonious informal situation. There is a mental aspect to it also (The root of "hygge, "hyggja" also goes into "hu", which is old Danish for "mind", "omhu" [around-mind] is slightly outdated Danish for attentiveness). It is important to "hygge", that the social participants are attentive to the shared harmony and cherish it. Also that they know one another quite well (you could never "hygge" with perfect strangers). At festivals like Christmas, Danes work hard and spend a lot of money in an effort to establish "familiehygge", i.e. "family hygge", but are rarely succesful. Nevertheless many of us like to think of ourselves as a "hyggelig" people.
English "cosiness" will not do. There is nothing whimsical or essentially rural about "hygge". Also you can say "a cosy cottage", but "en hyggeligt hytte" would be more metonymical, like "a cottage in which you could easily have hygge).
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