Never

There is no word “NEVER” in Japanese. At first glance, this seems strange. But when you think about it for a moment, it seems even more strange that in Indo-European languages like English or Polish the word “NEVER” is nevertheless. The word “NEVER” in the strict sense means a situation that excludes everything. It means a situation outside of time from which you can not even meaningfully ask the question “WHEN”.

Logically, it is probably impossible to talk about what is beyond time being placed in time. Mathematics is probably the best example of this. I don’t know if the mathematical theory of collections has a special branch that deals with their time aspect. Are collections that have temporary properties just the domain of physics? The collection “NEVER” at least superficially resembles some kind of antithesis of the collection of all russel collections. Learning Japanese attracts me more and more.

I recommend Georg Steiner’s excellent book “After the Tower of Babel”. The word “after” in this title means “after” and not “across”. I write just in case, because I do not know how to translate it LI (who translates great).