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What’s the most efficient language? | ||
Tags: Synonyms | Translation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| outcast Bilingual Heptaglot Senior Member China Joined 4954 days ago 869 posts - 1364 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, English*, German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Mandarin Studies: Korean | Message 33 of 44 04 March 2013 at 2:58am | IP Logged | |||||
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This may sound obvious, but in the well-known Germanic/romance branches, I would bet
that in general, noun and adjective heavy texts will tend to be shorter in the Germanic languages, because Germanic languages tend to use shorter words for nouns and adjectives to begin with, plus they can compound without requiring bulky romance "x de y" constructions. And other mechanisms too (I am taking the liberty of taking a tiny piece of Paul Theroux's chats with Borges from the "Old Patagonian Express"). Talking about a passage by Rudyard Kipling: "What is a woman that you forsake her, And the hearth-fire and the home-acre, to go with the old grey Widow-maker?" Borges said: "The old grey Widow-maker, that is so good. You can't say things like that in Spanish." Trying to translate "widow-maker" into Spanish would yield some cumbersome approximation that I would not dare attempt. If the text is verb or temporal narration heavy, however, most romance languages can be visibly shorter (French may be the exception). This is because they use many more synthetic tenses where the Germanic languages necessitate periphrastic compounds. Additionally, many are pronoun-dropping (particularly Spanish), thus: "We will attempt to decrease the rent, we told ourselves. We used to debate..." "Wir werden versuchen, die Miete zu verrigern, sagten wir uns. Wir debattierten..." "Buscaremos reducir la renta, nos dijimos. Debatíamos... " "Nous essayerons diminuer le loyer, nous nous sommes dit. Nous débattions..." I know the sentences are slightly contrived, but not unlike what one could find in any novel. You can see how across dozens of pages, the ability to use one verb and to drop the pronoun not only saves the words themselves but the spaces too. So in these scenarios Spanish I've noticed in translations can be significantly shorter. But that can also be negated if the verbs in Spanish just happen to be three or more syllables. English can compensate with short words (one could use "try" for "attempt", I used the latter simply to make a point), and like that many English verbs are monosyllabic. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Majka Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic kofoholici.wordpress Joined 4662 days ago 307 posts - 755 votes Speaks: Czech*, German, English Studies: French Studies: Russian | Message 34 of 44 04 March 2013 at 9:21am | IP Logged | |||||
Not so surprisingly, Czech is even shorter then Spanish: "Buscaremos reducir la renta, nos dijimos. Debatíamos... " "Pokusíme se snížit nájem, řekli jsme si. Jednali jsme..." and even with the "debatovat" not much longer: "Pokusíme se snížit nájem, řekli jsme si. Debatovali jsme..." The reason is that the Slavic verb aspect can often shorten the sentence. Add to it dropped pronouns and no articles and here we go. In my experience, one cannot say even between two languages, if the translation will be shorter or longer. It often depends on the type of document, as already mentioned. I am speaking here from perspective of Czech and German. Edited by Majka on 04 March 2013 at 9:21am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5061 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 35 of 44 04 March 2013 at 10:38am | IP Logged | |||||
But Russian texts are not shorter than English, Spanish and others. For example, Russian often requires suffixes and endings where English doesn't, it often requires conjunctions and subordinate clauses where English doesn't and even prepositions are often used where English doesn't use them. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| AML Senior Member United States Joined 6830 days ago 323 posts - 426 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Modern Hebrew, German, Spanish | Message 36 of 44 04 March 2013 at 11:18am | IP Logged | |||||
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Hebrew and Arabic are "short" due to lack of vowels. Hebrew, especially, seems to have very short ways of saying things that are long in English. For example תתחדש (enjoy your new [thing that you bought]).
Also Mandarin. I don't know much Mandarin, but it looks fairly compact due to the characters and shortness of each word. Many word are single syllables. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ling Diglot Groupie Taiwan Joined 4591 days ago 61 posts - 94 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Indonesian, Thai | Message 37 of 44 04 March 2013 at 11:34am | IP Logged | |||||
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When you translate modern Mandarin Chinese into English, on average you end up with about
two English words for every three Chinese characters. But two English words are usually "longer" than three Chinese characters on the page, and so the Chinese appears to take up less space. Classical Chinese is far terser than modern Mandarin, and I would consider it perhaps the "shortest" language I've ever seen. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4712 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 38 of 44 04 March 2013 at 1:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Toki Pona.
4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4673 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 39 of 44 04 March 2013 at 7:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Toki Pona is not really the shortest. Because of its Newspeakesque structure,
anything but the basic statements have to rely on cumbersome descriptive approach (beat around the bush: I like raspberry jam: I like cooked sweet mass made from red berries that grow on hills). Edited by Medulin on 04 March 2013 at 7:13pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6602 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 40 of 44 04 March 2013 at 7:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
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yeah, toki pona is like that <3
1 person has voted this message useful |
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