For Y, I chose the Chinese term 緣份, which is written as yuan fen in hanyu pinyin. 

Yuan Fen is most often translated into the word ‘fate’ in English. While it comes close to it, ‘fate’ doesn’t entirely encapsulate everything that the term embodies. The beauty of the Chinese language is that so little can mean so much. Yuan Fen is a nebulous concept but can be said to be a mix of fate, destiny and serendipity; similar but not entirely the same concepts or circumstances.

緣 (yuan) is said to be laid out in the stars, and that something is going to happen whether or not you choose it. Yuan is what makes people meet as acquaintances, friends or lovers. 份 (fen), on the other hand, emanates from one’s own will. Effort is needed to keep in contact to maintain the yuan, so to speak. Therefore by logic, there needs to be yuan before you can have fen. This is also why there is a Chinese saying that goes 有緣無分. Which means two persons may meet but they are not destined to be together. The story of my life. So far. Bleah.

The beautiful thing about the term is that it doesn’t necessarily apply only to lovers. It simply refers to any type of relationship between two people. An interesting thing I learnt about the word 緣 is that its left radical 糸 refers to thread / cloth while its right radical 彖 refers to a pig’s mouth. Pairing the two radicals to form the character 緣 would mean covering the mouth with cloth, and originally referred to the seams of clothes. (Don’t ask me why!) And so the meaning of the term 緣份 was extrapolated to refer to the threads that bind one’s fate.