East Asian Linguistics

In April 2025, I was hospitalized for almost an entire month.

At that time, I did not fully understand what was happening to my body. Different specialists in oncology, nephrology, cardiology, and rheumatology rotated by my bedside, drawing my blood each day, trying to piece together what was causing my body to begin failing across multiple systems. Most of what I remember is not just the chronic high fevers that took me in and out of consciousness, but the constant conversations happening around me. Doctors came in and out of the room, explaining things to my family in careful, clinical language. There were words I had never heard before, explanations that felt more confusing the more they explained. I was diagnosed with “Lupus”.

But what stayed with me most was not just what was said, but what was not said.

When Chinese relatives called, I sensed the hesitation from my parents’ voice. When friends asked questions, I was told to be vague. Even when my grandma visited, I heard my dad whisper the disease name once, then never again. There seemed to be an unspoken understanding to avoid directly naming the illness in Chinese. Somewhere in those conversations, I heard the term in Chinese that would stay with me: “wolf disease”, “wolf bite”, or “wolf lesion”.

I remember feeling confused. Not just about the diagnosis itself, but about the name. Why was an illness named after a wolf? Why did it sound like something aggressive, something almost violent? It did not feel like a neutral description. It felt like something that carried meaning beyond medicine.

At the time, I did not have the language to explain why that bothered me. I only knew that it made the illness feel harder to talk about, not easier. It made the reactions around me make more sense. The silence, the hesitation, the careful wording. The name itself seemed to carry a weight that extended beyond the condition.

That experience is what led me to start thinking more seriously about how illnesses are named, and what those names do.

As I began to look into it, I realized that my confusion was not isolated. The term “lupus” itself comes from the Latin word for “wolf,” originally used to describe skin lesions that appeared to resemble the bite from a wolf. The metaphor made sense at a time when medical understanding was limited. But what surprised me was how long that metaphor has persisted, even as the science has changed.

What began as a descriptive comparison has become the official name of a chronic autoimmune disease.

In English, the word “lupus” has become somewhat abstract. Most people do not immediately think of a wolf when they hear it. But in Chinese, the translation often retains that imagery much more directly. The illness becomes “wolf disease,” a term that is harder to separate from its original meaning. It evokes something dangerous, something disfiguring, something that others might instinctively want to distance themselves from.

Looking back, this helped me understand the silence I experienced. The hesitation was not only about the illness itself, but about what the illness seemed to represent.

As I continued researching, I found that this connection between language and experience is something scholars have been studying for a long time. Arthur Kleinman of Harvard University writes that “illness is the lived experience of monitoring bodily processes… shaped by personal, social, and cultural reactions.” What stood out to me in this idea is that illness is not just something that happens internally. It is shaped by how people around you respond, and by the meanings attached to it.

In that sense, the name of a disease becomes part of the illness itself.

Sociologists Bruce Link and Jo Phelan describe stigma as a process that begins with labeling, followed by stereotyping and separation. Reading this, I started to think about how something as simple as a name could be the first step in that process. A label is not just a label. It carries assumptions, even if they are not consciously acknowledged.

This made me reconsider my own reaction. It was not just that “wolf disease” sounded strange. It was that it framed the illness in a way that made it feel more distant, more severe, and harder to talk about openly.

I also found that lupus is not the only example of this.

In studies of mental illness, researchers have found that terminology alone can shape perception. Work associated with Stanford University shows that word choice can influence how people respond to and interact with individuals who are diagnosed. In Japan, schizophrenia was renamed to a term that translates more neutrally as “integration disorder.” After the change, doctors were more willing to disclose the diagnosis to patients, and stigma surrounding the condition decreased.

That shift was not caused by new treatment or new science. It was caused, at least in part, by language.

Public health organizations have also begun to recognize this. The World Health Organization now recommends avoiding disease names that reference animals, locations, or anything that might “incite undue fear” or stigmatize certain groups. This reflects a growing understanding that naming is not just a technical decision. It has social consequences.

What connects all of these examples is a pattern I had not noticed before.

Disease names are often created in moments of uncertainty, when doctors are trying to make sense of what they see. They rely on metaphor, on imagery, on whatever language is available at the time. But once those names are established, they rarely change, even when the understanding of the disease becomes more precise.

The result is that we continue to use language that reflects the past, even as we live in a different medical reality.

Thinking back to my own experience, I realize that part of what made my diagnosis difficult was not just the illness itself, but the way it was framed. The name made it feel more isolating. It contributed to the sense that it was something to be managed quietly rather than discussed openly.

That is a subtle effect, but it matters.

If illness is, as Kleinman suggests, shaped by social and cultural reactions, then changing those reactions begins with examining the language that shapes them. Names should help people understand what a condition is. They should not make it harder to talk about.

I still think about that moment when I first heard “wolf disease.” At the time, it felt confusing and slightly unsettling in a way I could not fully explain. Now, I understand that reaction differently.

It was not just about the name itself. It was about everything the name carried with it.