Languages, words

[wispfox]

English has insufficient words. Even considering how many words there are (mostly synonyms), there are not enough.

For those who know Spanish:

Why are 'conocer' and 'saber' both 'to know' in English? Hello, _really_ different meanings! ('To be aquainted with someone' and 'to have knowledge about something/one')

Or... 'ser' and 'estar', being 'to be'? ('to be, on a permanent basis' - like, for example, 'I am myself', or 'to be, on a temporary basis' - like, 'I am well')

Or... 'picante' and 'caliente', as 'hot'? (spicy hot vs temperature hot - seriously, I tend to try to use 'picante' _all the time_. But not everyone knows Spanish)


Why do we say that we _are_ hungry, rather than (as in Spanish) we have hunger? (or cold, or hot, or sleepy, or thirsty, or...)

I _do_ use 'have' that way often enough, because that makes more sense in my head. If y'all ever wondered why my grammar is so strange, combine not thinking in words, and knowing two different languages, where my brain often tries to pick the grammar that is closest to how I think or the ideas came out of my head. :)

Comments

[opalmirror.livejournal.com]

Linguists I've talked to always keep telling me English has the benefit of being the most catholic of languages, in that it picks up words from any other language and coopts them without any anxiety or concern about staying pure.

The English vocabulary is incredibly diverse and rich. In many other languages, the relatively limited vocabulary means that the words are more overloaded with possible meanings -- the limited environment of symbols means each symbol has to cover many more meanings. In these environments, the context that the word is in is far more important than it is in English.

However, English is difficult to learn, as there are fewer rules about spelling, pronunciation. The language is fraught with irregularities from all the imported words from different system. House->houses but not mouse->mouses.

What my German teach taught in the first week of class still rings true. There is no LITERAL translation between two languages. The grammar and the connotation of individual words never correspond one-to-one. However, you can always translate the MEANING of the idea expressed in a sentence.

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

But as wispfox points out above, and as my cataloging textbook points out, English also has a lot of words that have multiple meanings, and most meanings have multiple words.

English does not separate some things as finely as we would like.

No language does.

[rednikki.livejournal.com]

German has "kennen" and "wissen", which are two different types of knowing. And in German, "I have a cold" is "Ich bin erkaltet" - literally, "I am colded." I like that better - it sounds like you're under attack.

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

Tomar el pelo = pull the hair (vs. pulling your leg)

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

I am colded!!!!!!

*pleased*

[dglenn.livejournal.com]

I had been all set to speculate that the English "I am cold" versus the French and Spanish "I have cold" was because of the Germanic origins of English not being entirely obscured by its later Romance influences, but until this moment I wasn't sure which pattern German used. :-)

English is similar enough to the Romance languages to make the differences confusing, but the differences are significant, not (all) random.

As for knowledge ... I know, I understand, I comprehend, I grok, I believe, I am acquainted with, I am familiar with (or I familiarize myself with), I am certain, and I see. All in English. All different (though second meanings of some of them overlap).

Similarly, although it's usual in English to say, "I am hungry", it is nonetheless correct as well to say, "I hunger." "I have hunger" could be argued, but "There is hunger within me" would be perfectly understood and considered melodramatically poetic but not incorrect.

If you want to be as objective (by which I mean non-idiomatic) as possible about it, I suppose the only logical way to phrase it in any language would be, "I feel hunger." Is that the custom in any natural language?

Precisely a day late, but hopefully not a dollar short (if that's not strictly Midwestern)

[whiterabbitt.livejournal.com]

Germans say "I am colded," but they also say "I have hunger." Possession of hunger seems more natural to me, because it is slowly obtained through hours of eating. Though I like the englishy "ry" words signifying temporary (estar would be used in spanish) feelings--angry and hungry are both easily rectified. Perhaps hunger more easily than anger, at times.

-Xander

[opalmirror.livejournal.com]

And my final point... knowledge of two languages makes us personally richer, since it shows us two models of expressing our world and our thoughts. Rather than our only tool being a hammer, we now have a hammer and a saw. Try explaining that to the people who think the hammer is the only tool they need....

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

I try to explain nothing to people who only know one language, at least as far as languages go, because they tend to get confused. :)

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

That they do. But they can also have insight, particularly about English if they're English majors. Give them some credit. :)

I couldn't find an online copy of the humor essay I was searching for about the travails of raising a bilingual child (French and English and something about a shirt). Instead, I give you jokes! (http://www.sw.vccs.edu/Judkins/Humor.htm)

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

/me blinks.

My initial sentence was horribly confusing - I meant to say that I did not tend to talk about language differences (between languages) to those who don't know other languages, because it confuses them.

But anyway. Yes. Credit as due - even those who don't know other languages still might be interested in such. Bad me!

(mmm. Jokes.)

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

My point was that even people who don't understand other languages can make interesting points about English. :) That's all.

Some of them are interested in other languages too, but most people interested in other languages would have learned another language already if they were seriously interested.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

people who don't understand other languages can make interesting points about English

Oh, goodness, yes! No argument there. :)

Also - I'd been saying 'know' rather than 'understand', because I only understand English and Spanish, but I also have bits of Latin in my brain. :)

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

Saber y Conocer y Comprender! Oh mi mente! :)

[opalmirror.livejournal.com]

What do you call someone who knows three languages? Trilingual.
What do you call someone who knows two languages? Bilingual.

What do you call someone who knows one language?

American.

(also from my High School German Teacher, Sid Stuller).

Factoid of the day

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Kids who learn a second language early in life and become fully bilingual have a much easier time abstracting concepts from words, and, as a result, end up with higher average analytical/mathematical intelligence than monolingual kids.

Re: Factoid of the day

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

This does not surprise me, although I'm not sure I knew it before.

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

Try throwing in Latin too... And what about the different grammatical tenses?

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

True! (how come I'm not seeing everyone's comments in my email?!)

Re: comments

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

There is some sort of borkness with the LJ e-mail servers. There are rumors of a DDoS but nothing official..

Re: comments

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

*uh-oh face*

Re: comments

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

Yep. As mentioned here (http://www.livejournal.com/community/lj_maintenance/84615.html).

Re: comments

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

And it seems to have gotten fixed as of yesterday. Many old comment emails.

[regyt.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I've always edited English grammar to suit my needs, on the theory that since I absolutely do understand and know the rules, I get to break and bend them as a I whim. It strikes me as strange to say that I *am* hungry or whatnot, so I often end up claiming to be all full of the hunger instead.

Re: Languages,words

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

I find there are concepts in Japanese that are rather difficult to express in English. Unfortunately, currently, I just remember that idea rather than the actual concepts.

One thing about English is that it tends to speak more of possessing things in the body and mind rather than being such things. 'Course the hunger thing is a counterpoint. I wonder about the sapirwhorfity of different manners of thinking of concepts. I know that one time after studying intensely for a Japanese final, afterwards, I was much more deferential than I ever am...

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, consider the usage distinction between por and para sometime. That was my personal nemesis in high school Spanish. Por and para are both used roughly the way we use "for" in English, but have distinctions that always seemed confusing and arbitrary to me.

For the most part, though, I agree with you -- there's a lot about Spanish spelling and grammar that makes much more sense than English.

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

True, learning those fine distinctions can be quite difficult, but can produce worthwhile insight.

And the same thing happens with sounds too... the classic example being Japanese speakers learning "r" and "l", but also "l" "ll", "r" "rr" in Spanish.