Oftentimes language is a mirror that reflects how different people and cultures experience the world. In English, the word depression has become a clinical shorthand for a medical diagnosis, a global public health concern, and, for many, a personal battle.

Although it is also often used very loosely. When a child can’t have his birthday outside because it is raining, we say he is depressed. Yet it is the same word we use to describe a person’s state of mind when he puts a revolver in his mouth, just before he pulls the trigger.

Yet not every language carries a direct translation of the term. Instead, entire communities describe the weight of depression through imagery, metaphors, and sensations that feel as visceral as the experience itself.

These linguistic portraits are more than poetry; they reveal how different cultures conceptualise mental distress. They remind us that the human condition is universal, but the way we express it is shaped by culture. Interestingly Afrikaans does not have a word for mental health.

Take for example Africa, a continent of with a vast linguistic diversity, with some setting estimates of more than 2 000 languages. Yet, there is no single word for depression in any of those tongues.

In South Africa, several words are used to describe depression.

In isiZulu umoya uphansi describes the very visceral feelings depression brings, ‘…the spirit is down’, while the words inhliziyo ibuhlungu describe how ‘…the heart is sore’. Another word in isiZulu is ukudangala, which means ‘…discouraged and feeling hopeless’.

How accurate is that description – a clinical label and more about the embodied exhaustion where the very core of oneself has become weary. The imagery takes the focus away from an abstract illness to something deeply physical, felt in the heart.

It highlights the cultural understanding of the heart as the seat of emotions and the place where pain takes root.

In the Shona language of Zimbabwe, people say kufungisisa, which means ‘…thinking too much.’ The phrase accurately captures the racing mind and its endless spiral of rumination.

To describe depression as overthinking is not to dismiss it, but to acknowledge its consuming nature where the mind becomes both hunter and prey, consuming itself in an endless ever-tightening coil.

For communities where oral storytelling and thought are central, the metaphor resonates deeply. Yet in English too, many use descriptive language rather than the dry term of depression. Britain’s leader during World War II Winston Churchill described his depression as ‘…the black dog’, providing an image of being followed by a loyal and faithful albeit menacing hound.

In similar fashion, the term musta aurinko (‘the black sun’) is used in Finland, a land that is familiar with long dark winters and equally long bright summers. A black sun indicates a perversion of nature: a darkness where light should dwell.

In these descriptions, the image of depression goes much further than a deep sadness, it becomes a nightmare, a distortion of nature. These phrases are more than simple linguistic curiosities; they remind us that naming an experience shapes how we respond to it. The absence of the word, ‘depression’ does not mean the absence of the experience.

Where cultures have reached for metaphors to make sense of the unspeakable, their metaphors cut closer to the bone than a single clinical term ever could.