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TheAlchemist

The term "infinity" in different languages

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Infinity. The way we tend to traditionally think of the word "infinity" through our schooling and culture is something like an infinitely big thing. Something massive, something like a never ending number or an endless sea. I realized that for me it was limiting to try to "grok" infinity through that framing. It easily can get us to start looking "out there" for infinity. 

I recently realized that the words for infinity in my native language are quite interesting. The words in Finnish for infinity (ääretön, rajaton) could be translated quite directly as "boundless" or "without a border", "borderless".

The terms boundlessness and borderlessness can bring about a different kind of flavor and perpective to what the term "infinity" might be pointing to. It doesn't have to mean some colossal thing, It can be something quite relaxed, something gentle. Infinity is simply that which has no border --> that which is not and cannot be separate.

Would be interesting to hear, is the term infinity seen in a different way through the word that is used in some other languages as well? 


"Only that which can change can continue."

-James P. Carse

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I can't tell you how the word infinity is understood all around the world.

In German the most common translation is "Unendlichkeit" which basically says "endlessness" and this is probably what most people envision when they hear the word. Something that continues forever in all directions with no end to it.

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