In which sense genderless languages produce more egualitarian societies? I've read this bullshit more than once on this forum. Could you elaborate it a bit more?.
How is English less expressive than other languages?
<<Of course, in English, you can add (or modify it with) the word little etc., but then, you have two words. Do you think for an Englisch native speaker, Snow White bears the same connotation of being a twee little girl than Schneeweißchen in German? >>
And using two words is less expressive because?
What if it there were no gap, then would it be expressive?
"littledog" instead of "little dog"
"littlecar" instead of "little car"
What if the diminutive in German were a separate word, would it then suddenly not be expressive any more?
"Schneeweiß chen" instead of "Schneeweißchen"
And using two words is less expressive because?
What if it there were no gap, then would it be expressive?
"littledog" instead of "little dog"
"littlecar" instead of "little car"
What if the diminutive in German were a separate word, would it then suddenly not be expressive any more?
"Schneeweiß chen" instead of "Schneeweißchen"
Yes, why is a concept expressed by separated words always seen as simpler than a concept expressed by an inflected word? In spoken speech you can't hear the gap anyway.
Finnish is always cited as an extremely complicated language with loads of cases. Yet from what I understand these cases are only the equivalent of prepositions tacked onto the end of words.
What if this was English?:
The cat sat the wallon
I live a housein
She poured the wine the glassinto
They stood the busstopat.
Finnish is always cited as an extremely complicated language with loads of cases. Yet from what I understand these cases are only the equivalent of prepositions tacked onto the end of words.
What if this was English?:
The cat sat the wallon
I live a housein
She poured the wine the glassinto
They stood the busstopat.
<<Of course, in English, you can add (or modify it with) the word little etc., but then, you have two words. Do you think for an Englisch native speaker, Snow White bears the same connotation of being a twee little girl than Schneeweißchen in German? >>
No, not really.
But Little Red Riding Hood does -- because of the word "little".
<<In which sense genderless languages produce more egualitarian societies? I've read this bullshit more than once on this forum. Could you elaborate it a bit more?.>>
Who said that? I don't see any evidence that that hypothesis is in the least bit true, so there's nothing to really elaborate on.
No, not really.
But Little Red Riding Hood does -- because of the word "little".
<<In which sense genderless languages produce more egualitarian societies? I've read this bullshit more than once on this forum. Could you elaborate it a bit more?.>>
Who said that? I don't see any evidence that that hypothesis is in the least bit true, so there's nothing to really elaborate on.
@ true blue
I didn't claim that using two words is less expressive, I asked about it.
The point is, that -chen in German isn't a separat word, but a suffix. You can't put other words in between the word and the suffix. But you easily can say ''little cute girl'' or ''little brown girl'' or even ''little well dressed brown girl'' etc. So there can be many other words in between ''little'' and ''girl'', deluting or dimming your awareness of the ''little'' right at the beginning.
If it would be a seperate word, it would be a postposition, I think. But I don't know if there may be additional words between the original word and its postposition. This maybe depends on the respective language, too.
@ Uriel
But Little Red Riding Hood is a fixed expression. Little cute Red Riding Hood would be someone else, I think.
BTW, Uriel, did you follow the link I provided?
I didn't claim that using two words is less expressive, I asked about it.
The point is, that -chen in German isn't a separat word, but a suffix. You can't put other words in between the word and the suffix. But you easily can say ''little cute girl'' or ''little brown girl'' or even ''little well dressed brown girl'' etc. So there can be many other words in between ''little'' and ''girl'', deluting or dimming your awareness of the ''little'' right at the beginning.
If it would be a seperate word, it would be a postposition, I think. But I don't know if there may be additional words between the original word and its postposition. This maybe depends on the respective language, too.
@ Uriel
But Little Red Riding Hood is a fixed expression. Little cute Red Riding Hood would be someone else, I think.
BTW, Uriel, did you follow the link I provided?
<<Yes, why is a concept expressed by separated words always seen as simpler than a concept expressed by an inflected word? In spoken speech you can't hear the gap anyway.>>
Yes, you don't always hear the gap. Therefore it's not good to define a word on it's surrounding gaps.
<<Finnish is always cited as an extremely complicated language with loads of cases. Yet from what I understand these cases are only the equivalent of prepositions tacked onto the end of words.>>
I don't know Finnisch, but the grammar will be different, too. There maybe is vowel harmony, so that you don't just tack the prepositions onto the end of a word. Maybe you also can drop some pronouns because the person is indicated on the verb.
What if this was English?:
The cat sat the wallon
I live a housein
She poured the wine the glassinto
They stood the busstopat.
What's the wallon? What does it mean when a cat sits the wallon?
What's a housein? You can live a houssein?
. . .
You see, your proposals violate basic grammatical conventions and therefore aren't understandable.
Yes, you don't always hear the gap. Therefore it's not good to define a word on it's surrounding gaps.
<<Finnish is always cited as an extremely complicated language with loads of cases. Yet from what I understand these cases are only the equivalent of prepositions tacked onto the end of words.>>
I don't know Finnisch, but the grammar will be different, too. There maybe is vowel harmony, so that you don't just tack the prepositions onto the end of a word. Maybe you also can drop some pronouns because the person is indicated on the verb.
What if this was English?:
The cat sat the wallon
I live a housein
She poured the wine the glassinto
They stood the busstopat.
What's the wallon? What does it mean when a cat sits the wallon?
What's a housein? You can live a houssein?
. . .
You see, your proposals violate basic grammatical conventions and therefore aren't understandable.
They are just pointing out that having what would be several words in English combined into one word in Finnish doesn't make one more expressive than the other -- you get the same point across whether you say "They stood at the bus stop" or "They stood the bus-stop-at."
<<The point is, that -chen in German isn't a separat word, but a suffix. You can't put other words in between the word and the suffix. But you easily can say ''little cute girl'' or ''little brown girl'' or even ''little well dressed brown girl'' etc. So there can be many other words in between ''little'' and ''girl'', deluting or dimming your awareness of the ''little'' right at the beginning. >>
I guess if you're a native speaker, separate adjectives don't really get "diluted" in your mind. We have diminutive suffixes, too, like -kins or -ie, but I don't think it makes much major difference to us if we say "cute little girl", "girlie" or "cutie".
And in "little cute red riding hood", we would actually switch the word order a little -- it would have to be "cute little red riding hood". Adjectives usually stack up in a certain order, and it does contribute to quick comprehension to keep them in the right order -- much like your suffixes have to be where they are supposed to be. There's a certain way we "want" to hear something.
And I'm sorry, I must have missed your link.
<<The point is, that -chen in German isn't a separat word, but a suffix. You can't put other words in between the word and the suffix. But you easily can say ''little cute girl'' or ''little brown girl'' or even ''little well dressed brown girl'' etc. So there can be many other words in between ''little'' and ''girl'', deluting or dimming your awareness of the ''little'' right at the beginning. >>
I guess if you're a native speaker, separate adjectives don't really get "diluted" in your mind. We have diminutive suffixes, too, like -kins or -ie, but I don't think it makes much major difference to us if we say "cute little girl", "girlie" or "cutie".
And in "little cute red riding hood", we would actually switch the word order a little -- it would have to be "cute little red riding hood". Adjectives usually stack up in a certain order, and it does contribute to quick comprehension to keep them in the right order -- much like your suffixes have to be where they are supposed to be. There's a certain way we "want" to hear something.
And I'm sorry, I must have missed your link.
English with cases.
The man killed his dog with a rifle.
The man killed hisego doga with a rifleom.
Meaning doesn't change.
The man killed his dog with a rifle.
The man killed hisego doga with a rifleom.
Meaning doesn't change.
The general lack of dimunitives and augmentatives in English can be viewed as a hindrance. So can the rather straightforward and strict system of verbal aspects, at least as compared with Russian. The Russian aspectual system, horribly messy and convoluted as it is, is nonetheless capable of enviably nuanced shading. From the imperfective "ya dumal" (I thought, I was thinking) to the perfective "ya podumal" (I had a thought, a thought came to me), to the frequentative "ya podumyval" (a thought popped into my head from time to time), the inchoative "ya zadumal", the inchoative-frequentative "ya zadumyval", etc., it is far richer than the English aspectual system, even though it lacks the basic distinction of continous/non-continuous and perfect/imperfect aspects of English.
On the other hand, English is by far the richest language in the world vocabulary-wise. Russian is noticeably poorer in comparison. One well known example is the Russian verb issledovat', which corresponds to four different English verbs: to research, to investigate, to examine, and to explorer.
To be honest - and somewhat subjective - I prefer the literary Russian to the literary English.. but English comes through with its incredibly powerful abstract vocabulary, richer than any other living language, to be a far superior tool for the writing of anything from encyclopedia articles and technical papers to essays and philosophical treatises.
On the other hand, English is by far the richest language in the world vocabulary-wise. Russian is noticeably poorer in comparison. One well known example is the Russian verb issledovat', which corresponds to four different English verbs: to research, to investigate, to examine, and to explorer.
To be honest - and somewhat subjective - I prefer the literary Russian to the literary English.. but English comes through with its incredibly powerful abstract vocabulary, richer than any other living language, to be a far superior tool for the writing of anything from encyclopedia articles and technical papers to essays and philosophical treatises.
<<From the imperfective "ya dumal" (I thought, I was thinking) to the perfective "ya podumal" (I had a thought, a thought came to me), to the frequentative "ya podumyval" (a thought popped into my head from time to time), the inchoative "ya zadumal", the inchoative-frequentative "ya zadumyval", etc., it is far richer than the English aspectual system, even though it lacks the basic distinction of continous/non-continuous and perfect/imperfect aspects of English.
>>
Um, didn't you yourself just express those ideas in English?
ya dumal = I was thinking (tick)
ya podumal = I had a thought (tick)
ya zadumal = I resolved/concieved/decided (tick)
ya zadumyval = I would resolve/concieve/decide (tick)
Ideas expressed! Phew that was hard!
<<On the other hand, English is by far the richest language in the world vocabulary-wise. Russian is noticeably poorer in comparison. One well known example is the Russian verb issledovat', which corresponds to four different English verbs: to research, to investigate, to examine, and to explorer.>>
And it works the other way too. Russian has plenty of alternatives:
issledovat', rassledovat', razbirat', izuchat', rassmatrivat', osmatrivat', razvedyvat', etc
Ideas expressed! Phew that was hard!
>>
Um, didn't you yourself just express those ideas in English?
ya dumal = I was thinking (tick)
ya podumal = I had a thought (tick)
ya zadumal = I resolved/concieved/decided (tick)
ya zadumyval = I would resolve/concieve/decide (tick)
Ideas expressed! Phew that was hard!
<<On the other hand, English is by far the richest language in the world vocabulary-wise. Russian is noticeably poorer in comparison. One well known example is the Russian verb issledovat', which corresponds to four different English verbs: to research, to investigate, to examine, and to explorer.>>
And it works the other way too. Russian has plenty of alternatives:
issledovat', rassledovat', razbirat', izuchat', rassmatrivat', osmatrivat', razvedyvat', etc
Ideas expressed! Phew that was hard!
"English comes through with its incredibly powerful abstract vocabulary, richer than any other living language, to be a far superior tool for the writing of anything from encyclopedia articles and technical papers to essays and philosophical treatises."
Can you give us any examples on that abstract vocabulary and on how it makes English superior. I think you can't.
Can you give us any examples on that abstract vocabulary and on how it makes English superior. I think you can't.
"The cat sat the wallon
I live a housein"
Finnish case system doesn't work like that. And there are prepositions in Finnish: "yli", "vasten" and "läpi" for example.
I live a housein"
Finnish case system doesn't work like that. And there are prepositions in Finnish: "yli", "vasten" and "läpi" for example.
Russian has a very poor verbal systems compared to latin languages. It lacks of many tenses and moods.
"ya zadumal = I resolved/concieved/decided (tick)
ya zadumyval = I would resolve/concieve/decide (tick)"
No. I resolved, I decided = ya reshil. "I would resolve" marks the habitual, not the frequentative (in addition to 'would' marking the subjunctive, the conditional and future-in-the-past).
"And it works the other way too. Russian has plenty of alternatives:
issledovat', rassledovat', razbirat', izuchat', rassmatrivat', osmatrivat', razvedyvat', etc"
Most of those words correspond to yet other batches of English synonyms. I'm not going to argue it is IMPOSSIBLE to translate a certain precise English/Russian expression with the same precision into the other language. All I'm saying is that Russian often has aspectual and emotional nuance where English has none, and that English is a richer language, abstract vocabulary-wise, than Russian or any other language, and that these nuances are mostly ignored in translation in order to avoid inserting dictionary definitions and explanations into the text.
"Can you give us any examples on that abstract vocabulary and on how it makes English superior. I think you can't."
I already did. Explore, research, examine = issledovat'. To evaluate, to estimate, to price = otsenivat'. Guilt, blame, fault = vina.
"Russian has a very poor verbal systems compared to latin languages. It lacks of many tenses and moods."
1. There's no such thing as Latin languages. They're called Romance languages.
2. The basic aspectual distinction of Russian and Romance languages is the same: perfective vs. imperfective aspects in the past and future tenses, and ony one generic present tense. However, Russian, in a very messy and disorganized way, maintains many other aspectual distinctions, the way Latin could, and modern Romance languages cannot. Compare "florere"-"florescere" with "tsvesti"-"zatsvesti". No modern Romance language, to my knowledge, has a nifty inchoative marker.
3. Modern Russian indeed has a simpler tense system, having lost the old pluperfect (Ukrainian still has it, I think). Good riddance. Tenses are the most unnecessary part of any language. Look at how Chinese manages perfectly well without them.
4. Russian has pretty much the same mood system as most Romance languages, avoiding the subjunctive conjugation with the subjunctive/conditional particle "by". This is a laudably analytical development in an otherwise heavily synthetic language.
ya zadumyval = I would resolve/concieve/decide (tick)"
No. I resolved, I decided = ya reshil. "I would resolve" marks the habitual, not the frequentative (in addition to 'would' marking the subjunctive, the conditional and future-in-the-past).
"And it works the other way too. Russian has plenty of alternatives:
issledovat', rassledovat', razbirat', izuchat', rassmatrivat', osmatrivat', razvedyvat', etc"
Most of those words correspond to yet other batches of English synonyms. I'm not going to argue it is IMPOSSIBLE to translate a certain precise English/Russian expression with the same precision into the other language. All I'm saying is that Russian often has aspectual and emotional nuance where English has none, and that English is a richer language, abstract vocabulary-wise, than Russian or any other language, and that these nuances are mostly ignored in translation in order to avoid inserting dictionary definitions and explanations into the text.
"Can you give us any examples on that abstract vocabulary and on how it makes English superior. I think you can't."
I already did. Explore, research, examine = issledovat'. To evaluate, to estimate, to price = otsenivat'. Guilt, blame, fault = vina.
"Russian has a very poor verbal systems compared to latin languages. It lacks of many tenses and moods."
1. There's no such thing as Latin languages. They're called Romance languages.
2. The basic aspectual distinction of Russian and Romance languages is the same: perfective vs. imperfective aspects in the past and future tenses, and ony one generic present tense. However, Russian, in a very messy and disorganized way, maintains many other aspectual distinctions, the way Latin could, and modern Romance languages cannot. Compare "florere"-"florescere" with "tsvesti"-"zatsvesti". No modern Romance language, to my knowledge, has a nifty inchoative marker.
3. Modern Russian indeed has a simpler tense system, having lost the old pluperfect (Ukrainian still has it, I think). Good riddance. Tenses are the most unnecessary part of any language. Look at how Chinese manages perfectly well without them.
4. Russian has pretty much the same mood system as most Romance languages, avoiding the subjunctive conjugation with the subjunctive/conditional particle "by". This is a laudably analytical development in an otherwise heavily synthetic language.