Me: "There's no direct equivalent in Polish for the word 'familiarity'."
Stock response: "Yes there is - it's znajomość".
Nowhere near, I'd argue. Look at the etymology. 'Familiar' shares the same root as the word 'family'. From the Latin familia, or 'household'; Znajomość, like the word znajomy - acquaintance - has its root in the verb znać, 'to know'. Znajomość is defined as 'relacja osób, opierająca się na utrzymywaniu ogólnych, niezbyt bliskich stosunków' ('relationship of people, based on maintaining general, not very close relationships').
"Are you familiar with the works of James Joyce?" "No, but I am acquainted with them."
There's a big difference.
Familiarity is defined as 'close or habitual acquaintance with someone or something; understanding or recognition acquired from experience'.
It's that second part I want to focus on - 'understanding or recognition acquired from experience'. Familiarity - with a landscape, with music, with taste - with all manner of subjective experience - is a matter of consciousness. Something you intuitively feel - or not. A period of history, a place in space and time - do you feel it - or not? It either clicks, or suits, or falls into place in your consciousness - or it doesn't. The familiar is congruent. It fits.
Familiarity is important, just as comfort is important. If something is unfamiliar, it can be uncomfortable. But something strange or even eerie can be comfortably familiar. 'Strangely familiar' is itself a familiar term, suggesting a common experience.
My childhood included numerous conscious moments of anomalous familiarity - "where do I know that feeling from?" A snatch of melody, a particular cloud formation, an old motorbike, a scent - intimate experiences, unique to me, outside of ego or imagination, yet instantly familiar to me and only me.
These flashbacks of anomalous familiarity occur to me a couple of times a week, more often when the seasons change. I had one on this evening's walk - I turned west towards a sun setting towards a flat horizon in a cloudless sky, under the wide brim of my bush-hat. Strongly familiar yet not West Ealing or Warwickshire.
They are pleasant and bring me comfort and indeed joy. And with them comes a sense that life is less transient than our physical selves - biological containers for our egos - think it is.
[Update Jan 2023: One suggestion I was offered was bliskość - (literally 'nearness') - good one! And the adjective, for familiar, would be bliski/bliska/bliskie. Thank you, A!]
This time four years ago:
Karczunkowska viaduct - further delays
Russia's going home
This time 15 years ago:
Sun and zenith rising
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