The publication of this recent cartoon that predicts a future (by 2109) in which “every sentence is just the word ‘sustainable’ repeated over and over again” got me thinking again about the language of sustainability. I am NOT I hasten to add reopening the debate about the use of the word ‘sustainability’ – that particular argument is hoarier than Melanie Phillips’ silvery barnet. Rather I’m interested in the way that language connects us to ideas and indeed shapes the very way we see, feel and describe our interactions with each other and the world around us.

This was also triggered by work I’m involved with in Wales where I’ve had amazing conversations about wonderful Welsh words that seem to embody aspects of sustainability far better than their English equivalents – where these indeed exist, often they are simply untranslatable.

Take ‘hiraeth’ for example – a unique Welsh word with links in meaning to Portugese ‘Saudade’ (listen to this track by the late great Cesaria Evora for a moving musical sense of the word), that conveys a heady mix of yearning, longing, nostalgia, wistfulness and homesickness, tinged with a sadness for a Wales of the past. It’s a beautiful encapsulation of a certain strain of sustainability that seeks an elegant simplicity, often rooted in historical experience, to tackling our challenges.

Even more powerful in a modern progressive sense is the notion of ‘bodlon’. A direct attempt at translation would be ‘happy’ or ‘satisfied’ but the interpretive meaning is much more subtle. It is as much about a sense of ‘enough’ or ‘contentment’ in being pleased and thankful for what you have as it is about being simply ‘cheery’.

This connects with the Swedish idea of ‘lagom’. Perhaps mis-translated as ‘enough’, ‘sufficient’ or ‘adequate’ lagom means so much more than that. Words like ‘moderation’ and ‘average’ have distinctly unsizzling negative connotations, whereas lagom suggests positively ‘appropriate’, and as my Swedish colleagues in our Stockholm office would say “Lagom är bäst“ – or ‘enough is as good as a feast’.

It’s a lovely way of aspiring to ‘just enough’, or to each their need, something I was aiming for in my idea of ‘frucool’ (admittedly a pretty ugly neologism) – a conflation of ‘frugal’ and ‘cool’ (which was memorably described in a comment on one of my Guardian blogs as the kind of word only a ‘Twunt’ would come up with!). Still, it’s now my Twitter moniker (@frucool) and I’m sort of stuck with it!

Whilst English is without question a fantastically diverse, kleptomaniac (we do like nicking words don’t we?) and effective language, I do wonder that it’s very ability to take us into deeply detailed and jargonistic territory potentially further alienates us from some of the simple pleasures and deep connections in life that words like hiraeth, bodlon and lagom far more eloquently encapsulate.

Do you know any other brilliant words from other languages that offer a specific perspective, world view or insight in the context of sustainability in either a beautiful way or that are expressed with breath-taking brevity?

Please tweet suggestions to @futerra or @frucool.