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Why is it that the English language has dozens of words to describe varying degrees and specific occurrences for everything from shades of blue to feelings of anger, but has but one word to describe the concept of Love? when we love our children, when we love a friend, when we love our life partner or spouse... even when we love a particular activity or a food or a word, there is but one word to describe that sentiment: Love. when considered as a noun, we're offered adoration, worship  , affection, attachment, devotion, fondness, liking and loyalty as synonyms, but none of these really mean the same thing. taken as a verb, we have even fewer choices (atomica offers only "adore" and "worship"). how, then, do we differentiate the myriad forms that love takes, when trying to express ourselves? there's the "loving" vs. being "in love with" argument, but regardless--our language seems to come up woefully short in this important area. Atomica's translation tool provides the following:
Deutsch (German):
Liebe, Geliebte, Liebling, lieben, null
Français (French):
bien-aimé, amour, affection, aimer, raffoler de, être épris de, être amoureux, zéro, rien
Español (Spanish):
amar, querer, tener cariño, enamorarse, chifladura, cariño, enamoramiento, querido, amado, amante, amor, afecto
Italiano (Italian):
amare, adorare, amore, amante, affetto, amoroso, amorosamente
Português (Portuguese):
n. amor (m), afeição (m), amizade (m), zero (m) (Desp.) v. amar, querer bem, gostar de num. zero
Nederlands (Dutch):
liefde, geliefde, verliefdheid, genegenheid, schatje (informele aanspreekvorm), houden van, liefhebben, heerlijk vinden, verzot zijn op, vrijen met, liefdes-, nul (tennis)
Svenska (Swedish):
n. kärlek, förälskelse, tillgivenhet, lust , böjelse, förtjusning, passion, hälsning (ar), älskling, raring, lilla vän, rar (förtjusande) människa, sötnos, förtjusande (tjusig) sak, (Love) Amor, kärleksguden, (poet.) amorin, (i tennis o.d.) noll v. älska, tycka (mycket) om, vara förtjust i, hålla (mycket) av num. (i tennis o.d.) noll
Ελληνική (Greek):
n. αγάπη, στοργή, έρωτας, αγαπημένος, ερωμένος (άνθρωπος), (αθλοπ.) έλλειψη σκορ, μηδέν-μηδέν v. αγαπώ, ακριβαγαπώ, μου αρέσει πολύ, λατρεύω num. μηδέν
Русский (Russian):
любить, хотеть чего-л., любовь, предмет любви, любовная интрига My question, then, is this: It would appear that many of these other languages have several words of similar roots (and dissimilar, as well) for our one word "love". does this mean that these other languages have managed to fill in the gaps? i'm not sure if we have anyone familiar with Russian, or Greek a-Board, but i'd love  to hear some specific translations from those than can provide them.
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No, if you ran the same process in reverse you'd get all these synonyms: love, like, affection, adore, dear, darling, charity, friendship, fondness, desire, lust, nothingFrench has even less differentiation, with aimer being both 'love' and 'like'. C.S. Lewis wrote a study (a whole book, I think?) called The Three Loves on different concepts present in Greek words: eros the erotic love, philia 'affection, liking, friendship, bond', storge... I can't remember what storge is. But we are ill-equipped with words in the area and it does make for confusion. We could usefully distinguish affections for persons based on the hormones involved. The sex hormones testosterone and IIRC oestrogen dominate in the process of desire/lust. The mood hormones like serotonin dominate in "being in love", the happiness when with the loved one and anxiety when apart. And the bonding/maternal/orgasm hormones oxytocin and vasopressin dominate the calm, long-term security yu feel with someone. So I have proposed testolove, serolove, and oxylove. And of course they can overlap. 
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Great topic, bridget!
Random thoughts while getting ready for work:
Note that the "nothing" translation is from "love" as used in tennis (fr. l'oef? egg=zero?)
The Portuguese nouns translate as love, affection, friendship. The verbs are to love and to care about(for). "gostar de num. zero" can only mean "to like the number zero" (???) (doncha love on-line translators).
And there's a Greek word for love that Nicholas didn't mention: agape. I think that's what we call "brotherly love."
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In Italian, there are two choices for love, which you use depending on who you talk to. "Amare" is romantic love, so "Ti amo" (I love you) should only be used on, say, my own husband. If you are talking about loving your parents or children, then it's "Ti voglio bene" which literally seems to mean "I want good" but I think it means "I want good things for you". Anyway, both those phrases translate into "I love you" in English but you have to know which is which.
The other Italian ones you listed are not as varied as you think:
amare: to love (verb)
adorare: I think this is really "to adore" which isn't quite the same
amore: love (noun)
amante: one who loves, lover
affetto: affection, sort of platonic, a friend may write "tanto affeto" (=much affection) in a letter
amoroso: full of love, amorous(?) (adjective)
amorosamente: full of love (adverb)
So you see they don't really cover much more territory than the English ones. For me the biggest distinction is the Ti Amo/Ti Voglio Bene split, which I find English doesn't sufficiently separate.
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Español (Spanish):
amar, querer, tener cariño, enamorarse, chifladura, cariño, enamoramiento, querido, amado, amante, amor, afecto
“estimar” and “apreciar” as “tener cariño” express a mild feeling and can be used when referring to acquaintances, relatives or friends.
Although we can replace “amar” by “querer” in most situations we cannot “amar” a good steak. For material things we use “querer” but only on ‘want’ expressions.
When we love activities or material things we use “encantar” or “gustar” and if the feeling is very intense we can say “adorar”.
I think most of those words have an English equivalent but it seems that the usage of them differs.
Encantado de colaborar.
Juan Maria.
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And there are yart, yart, yart all the thing from the heartheartfelt, heart to heart, sweet heart. and other body parts-- he/she is my right arm, my soul mate, attached to me at the hip , (that could be a very specific kind of love!) the apple of my eye...
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"even when we love a particular activity or a food or a word, "
I was taught that the word love should be reserved for animate beings that could return love.
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Love. when considered as a noun, we're offered adoration, worship, affection, attachment, devotion, fondness, liking and loyalty as synonyms, but none of these really mean the same thing.
But you don't want them to mean the same thing, since you are looking for differentiation. I think the use of "love" for all these different attitudes/afflictions is a secondary phenomenon: either you don't want to differentiate them out of sheer laziness, or "love" is (improperly) used as a "generic superlative" for all these terms, to which I am inclined to ad: interest, predilection, preference, inclination, hankering, passion, attraction, crush, obsession, infatuation, enthusiasm..
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The Three Loves
The third (first, actually) wasn't storge, it was agape, which is the first mentioned in the list of Greek words in the original posting. Agape is the personal love with no expectation of return or reward, like the love of God for his creatures, humans for God, humans for other humans (without any erotic element, which would be eros.
I take it that the Greek list is in modern Greek, which I know nothing about. A list in koine Greek would include philein but not storge.
Besides the words listed in French, there is the phrase avoir envie de ....
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What! Love is all hormones-- what about pheremones? They have discovered some human phermemones-- and there is evidence for more.
A study done in US hospitals, where baby's are regularlly put in a nursery, (and don't "room in" with the mother) discovered mothers could identify there baby's clothes (and their babies) better by smell than by sight! The nurses could not. Most of the nurses couldn't even detect that the babies smelt differerent! (they all smelled like babies... which is an other point.. even with out baby powder, or baby oil, babies smell nice (well newborns do-- toddlers don't smell as nice) --Do newborn exude a pheremone? (any other mothers want to comment?--women seem to react stronger.. but men are not immune)
There is other evidence that subtle scents (real scents or pheremones?) help us recognize "close" biological relations..
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but none of these really mean the same thing.
But you don't want them to mean the same thing, since you are looking for differentiation. wsieber, i misstated myself. what i was attempting to say is that none of the words i listed--at least in my mind--are suitable (superlative enough, if you will) for adequate expression of the depth, breadth, or compelling force that is embodied in the word "love".
i guess i'm just lamenting the absence of a few more ways to express deep adoration in various circumstances without detracting from the sanctity of the word LOVE. i think it's wonderful to tell people that you love them--i say it to my own children a million times a day, and often say it to my close friends as well--but somehow in my mind it's like trumping a two of hearts when you've got the three in your hand...where do you go from there?
NicholasW.... your coinings are wonderful ~ powerful and apt distinctions between at least three different types of love(*), though as you wisely pointed out, they are rarely mutually exclusive.
(*): is that poor grammar? can one distinguish "between" three things? somehow "among" didn't look right either.
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Agape is the personal love with no expectation of return or reward, like the love of God for his creatures, humans for God
Agape is also the word that the Authorised Version translates as "charity." As in 1 Corinthians 13:13, "and now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity." Given the extent to which so much modern charity is motivated by a love of tax rebates, translating agape as charity seems very quaint indeed.
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1st Corinthians 13:13, "and now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."
Wasn't that changed in the "new" Bible to "love?"
I like the wording in the "old" Bible much better but perhaps that's just a case of prefering the things you grew up with.
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Wasn't that changed in the "new" Bible to "love?"
Yes. I believe that it may have something to do with the remote possibility that English usage just might have shifted a tad since 1610.
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Love, amour, amor, amore, liebe, charity, agape, storge, yadda, yadda, yadda.... Nobody's mentioned the word used in the story, Bambi - twitter-pated!  Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage. Ambrose Bierce By the time you swear you're his, Shivering and sighing, And he vows his passion is Infinite, undying-- One of you is lying Dorothy Parker
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Perhaps this is why we are so prone to using qualifyers to shade our "kind" of love, i.e. "Platonic love," "romantic love," "young love." But the misconstrued semantics of love are legendary. I know I've gotten into trouble many times when a light, friendly "love" was taken for something else by the person it was directed towards, or by someone who overheard and got the gossip chain going! And once that happens, it seems the explanation, "No, I just meant I really love her as a friend" is never fully trusted and the relationship is never quite the same again. A language gap, indeed! One well-known German word left out: Leibchen. And, remember, "Love is never having to say your sorry!" Somebody how to say that awful phrase, so I thought I'd save somebody else the cringe of putting it out there!
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The way I see it, "love" is a verbal word. Unless you're exceedingly inept in the use of day-to-day speech, to say "I love ice blocks" would not leave anyone having visions of a very peculiar type of relationship. I might (but wouldn't, of course) say "I love Heather Locklear", but even then, no one would really believe that I did anything other than vaguely lust after her. And there are, of course, dozens of other shades of meanings and contexts in which you might say "I love" rather than "I like" while actually meaning "I like". Spoken, there would be little confusion. The word "love" falls down when it is part of written prose. Without a lot of modifying preparatory bumpf, the bald, written statement "I love Heather Locklear" might be taken in the sense of eros simply because there are no referents on which to base any other interpretation. Similarly, you may be kinky as all get out, and write "I love my church", intending the sense of eros while others around you would interpret it in terms of agape because of lack of other information. However, I understand Bridget's dilemma, and I have a solution. Let's say that "love" as a verb takes a modifying number, for instance, 1 to 10. 1 equals "I like" and 8 equals "I love romantically" with all of the ramifications of that. 9 equals "luuurrve" and 10 equals "I'm damned if I know what love is, really". Therefore "I love(1) ice cream" will leave no one confused about what you mean. "I love(9) Heather Locklear" will be interpreted correctly. "I love(10) my wife" would get you a divorce. How about it?
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.
Ambrose BierceAs a character remarked on a sitcom last night, "After all, half of settling down is 'settling.'"
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Charity
Charity comes, of course, from caritas, the word which St. Jerome chose to translate agape. Apparently amor had the same connotation as eros. In spite of that, you get the famous hymn, Ubi caritas et amor, ibi Deus est (Where charity and love are, there is God), which seems to put both loves in the same category. Modern Bible translations have abandoned the use of charity for the famous Corinthians passage precisely because the original meaning has been subsumed by the modern meaning of "alms".
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a verbal word
As opposed to...?
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a verbal word
As opposed to...?
Non-verbal. Picky-picky!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Pooh-Bah
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So much a verb, there is no word for it.
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<<Liebe, Geliebte, Liebling, lieben, null >>
The German also distinguishes between "Ich liebe dich" and "Ich hab' dich lieb." Each can be translated, "I love you," [I hear arguments brewing emoticon] but they have different senses, as in, I love you like none other, and I love you as a dear friend--only stronger.
Argue as you may, this makes for a lovely little turn in the trial scene of "The Marriage of Maria Braun." Asked to describe the difference in her feelings toward her husband and the general Ms. Braun says she has killed, she answers, "Ich liebe meinen Mann" but "Ich hab' [den General] lieb'." When the military court asks for a translation, Ms. Braun's attorney answers, "She says she loves her husband, but she loves the General."
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French has even less differentiation, with aimer being both 'love' and 'like'.
Except that the French use 'aimer bien' for 'like' in cases where they think there will be problems.
So at the tender age of thirteen, when I told a French exchange partner 'J'aime ton oncle' (intending to say 'I like your uncle') I was promptly corrected. 'J'aime bien ton oncle' is the correct French for this.
Quite why 'loving well' should mean a more lukewarm feeling than 'loving' remains a mystery to this day.
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Quite why 'loving well' should mean a more lukewarm feeling than 'loving' remains a mystery to this day.
Perhaps because it sustains a modifier.
Just a guess.
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