Eskimos have supposedly dozens of words for different types of snow.
Myth, I read a paper years ago that pointed out that depending on the place there are three or four roots for different kinds of snow and then those are modified in different ways by a very rich derivational system.
the Polish born semantician Anna Wierzbicka said that Japanese has a lot of expressions for determination and continuing on in the face of difficulty and ignoring pain etc.
And pretty much no two words in different languages are ever 100% the same... even things like 'and' and 'i' or 'dog' and 'pies' have different ranges of usage.
The topic of how language relates to national character again! You very astutely highlight how these cultures have particular vocabularies that relate to their prevailing cultural disposition.
The Portuguese very notably have the term/concept of saudade. The Koreans have han. The Germans are very well known for their schadenfreude. These terms have no direct synonyms in other languages and it's very telling that these cultures created specific words for them. What would you say the Polish equivalent is?
Yes, that's why I wrote "supposedly", because I wasn't certain how accurate this was. I remember coming across some text that had also dismissed this claim.
It worked for the point I was trying to make though - so I was content.
The point was - English is undoubtedly the language with the largest vocabulary in the world, but it doesn't automatically make it "the richest".
If you open an English dictionary and skim through it, how many words would be scientific terminology, compounds, jargon, dialectal forms, obsolete words (of Norman, French, or Latin provenance), or just straight up borrowings?
Other languages may "generate" words productively rather than storing them separately.
Arabic and Chinese are worth noting too. The morphological richness of the former, makes it pretty difficult to fairly compare it with an English dictionary. Chinese compresses enormous semantic meaning into a comparatively small number of morphemes - what do we do about Chinese?
What would you say the Polish equivalent is?
I don't know Polish well enough to say anything here, except that it seems much like Russian to me in the cultural bent of its vocabulary richness.
obsolete words (of Norman, French, or Latin provenance), or just straight up borrowings?
What obsolete words? English is as rich a language precisely because we were colonised so much by the Romans, Normans, Saxons, etc. Meanwhile, modern British street slang, and adopted words like 'shampoo', take from Jamaicans, South Asians, West Africans, etc. We are the most cosmopolitan nation on the planet because we have been conquered and we have also conquered - like Rome, but the equation goes both ways.
Meanwhile, the backward French invent words like 'ordinateur' for computer, rather than accept out word, because they don't want to admit we've won the battle of the European civilisations and our language is dominant. Because the island the Romans, Normans, Vikings and others came out on top and they are an irrelevant country with a niche language. It's very sad to be a Frenchman - they haven't accepted their irrelevance yet and nor surely ever will they.
Let me just say this. We all speak bits of Latin in our languages and that's the mark of the long-dead Roman civilisation, while on their current territory there is just a corrupt and poor southern European morass of decay. That's what they managed, a thousand years ago. In a mere few hundred years, a small and oppressed island has managed to make the entire world speak its language, after conquering huge swathes of it. We managed what the greaseball oppeesors never did. F*ck you, greasy centurions. All you have right now is tacky fashion, pasta and a worse standard of living than in eastern Poland. The world's smallest violin is playing for these former imperial overlords, 20th century fascism enthusiasts and now second-rate beggars of Europe.
Apologies for the myriad mistakes in that post - too passionate, I guess. To paraphrase a common meme, the Italians and Norman French tried to bury us, but we were seeds. And from those seeds grew an empire that utterly eclipsed them. Everyone speaks our language, and meanwhile nobody speaks the language of the frog-eaters and the poor Southern European backwater.
But yes, I understand that the Normans took over England and became our aristocracy etc. We've come to terms with being considered multiple times, unlike you lot who just cry and cry and cry about it.
we managed what the greaseball oppeesors never did.
I appreciate the sentiment - really - I do.
But some humility is perhaps necessary here, no?
We live in a world the Romans created - most of us - outside China, Asia and certain parts of the Middle East.
Britain was a blip in comparison, still, though some future interplanetary settlement may make Britain's imprint the longest lasting :).
nobody speaks the language of the frog-eaters
Everybody in our neck of the woods spoke their language for a good 800+ years, so perhaps there's some catching up you could still do there.
English is easier to learn, better for commerce, a more efficient stratum for various pidgins, easy for Germans and Dutch to make sense of, and so on - but French is still superior. I mean, come on...
Oh wow, a Russian is really trying to play a game of who's got the biggest balls? Who speaks your language, again? And what empire did you have apat from bullying various small Eastern European countries?
Britain may have been a blip but that blip created the modern world. What did you do apart from create a lot of concrete housing blocks and bread queues?
but French is still superior. I mean, come on...
It's superior to your stuck up slavic languages, sure, but that's not exactly difficult. French is a far superior of superior language to Russian, Polish and German, purely because it isn't obsessed with incredibly difficult grammar and it actually sounds beautiful.
When was the last time the British were conquered? In case of Ireland it's pretty recent history in comparison.
When was the last time Poland did anything apart from being defeated and whining endlessly about it?
When was the last time the British were conquered? In case of Ireland it's pretty recent history in comparison.
Britain got its defeats out of the way a long time ago, learned from them, and grew up to be world-conquering empire. The Irish and Poles, on the other hand, dwell endlessly on your subjugation like a bunch of losers. Don't like being pushed around? Learn to stand up for yourselves. But you didn't. And that's why we became an empire and you are still Germany and Russia's football.
Chaucer's mother tongue was in fact French. When Spencer's "Fairie Queen" was first published in the mid-17th century, apparently his editors chided him for his allegedly self-conscious "Chaucerisms", e.g. final 'e's' written, although not pronounced etc..
@Chipsy, what kind of toxic piece of potato are you? lol 🥔
When was the last time Poland did anything apart
It does all kinds of things all the time :D Pay better attention maybe.
Britain may have been a blip but that blip created the modern world.
Woah, you're getting ahead of yourself here... :D Damn... That's some gigantic ego o_O
Britain got its defeats out of the way a long time ago
That's because it was conquered long time ago.
you are still Germany and Russia's football.
I'm afraid Poland can't swap geographical location with the UK. 🤦 Ah, the bliss of living on an island... :D I wonder if you would talk so "tuff" if you were actually born between Germany and RuSSia - and knew what it's like :)))
Yeah, and we got over it, unlike you bitter Poles who blame everything else on everyone else. Always the poor little martyrs lmao
Ah, the bliss of living on an island... :D I wonder if you would talk so "tuff" if you actually lived between Germany and RuSSia - and knew what it's like :)))
F*ck off Paula, my grandparents fought an entire world war started because you people got invaded, when it was a continental European problem that the Spanish, Swiss and others swerved and your little greasy Italian mates joined on the enemy's side. We got drawn into all your bullshit wars. Why should British men have died in trenches in France and Belgium just because some Austrian moustache got assassinated by some Serb c"nt? We endlessly get drawn into your bullshit.
@Paulina Don't worry about him, he is all over the place. His slick is basically that the British, and by that he means himself, are better than everyone else. His insults are all nationalistic, ie Britain good everyone else bad. He is a stereotypical British supremacist.
You're full of bollocks. You Irish think you're better than everyone else despite doing absolutely nothing to save Europe from the Nazis and you lot bombing the **** out of my country and women and children all throughout the 20th century. You haven't any kind of moral high ground whatsoever.
Well you've not lived long in Polska then, lol, because according to this lot everything is nationality xD this sordid bag of c*nts are still blaming Swedes for the deluge
@Chipsy I live in Ireland. I don't think it's necessary to bring national supremacy into any topic. You don't like Polish people, French, Italian, Irish and god knows how many others. I don't have any advice other than avoid discussion boards they're not good for your blood pressure
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