What words define a nation’s culture?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve been reading a fascinating book on Mexican culture by an ex-intelligence officer. He uses an interesting approach - he picks about a hundred words which gave a very deep, historical, widely understood and nuanced meaning in the culture and discusses them in detail. In Mexico, these include terms like confianza and empresario.

It’s an ingenious approach. I’m curious to know the top five words in your country, or a culture you know well, that encapsulate some of the most important points? One thinks of things like hygge or no worries.

2

I don’t know about 5 words, but for the US, I’d suggest:

personal freedom
personal entitlement
selfishness
judgmentalism
hypocrisy
intolerance
waste

Of course if we were discussing what the US CLAIMS as its culture, that would be a different matter.

On edit, I apologize. I assume you are asking something different than I answered. Maybe: gimme and fuck you.

3

Costa Rica: pura vida

4

Ubuntu
just now - the South African equivalent of mañana
Apartheid - shouldn’t need explanation
braai - grilling meat, the universal cuisine shared across racial divides.
stokvel -

5

All of these defining Israeli words are basically untranslatable, but I’ll try:

Chutzpah - you know this one, although in Israel it can have both positive and negative connotations.
Tachles - means something like, “the bottom line”. It’s what you get when you strip away all of the extraneous bullshit.
Hamatzav - “the Situation”. The annoying thing happening in the country that we all have to deal with. Terrorism can be hamatzav; right now, Covid-19 is hamatzav.
Frier - a sucker, a dupe. The worst thing you can be.
Davka - a general term indicating contrariness. Based on context, it can mean anything from “Actually” to “Fuck you, that’s why”.

6

There is (was, I suppose) an awesome Tacheles in East Berlin. I suppose it was always popular with young Israelis?

7

I don’t know, but it’s from the same Yiddish word (meaning “straight talk”, from the Hebrew tachlit, “purpose”).