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Science and languages today | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| jsun Groupie Joined 5086 days ago 62 posts - 129 votes  | Message 10 of 48 21 January 2011 at 11:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
Chinese is still borrowing from the Japanese on social issues as Japan is the first in Asia to encounter problems of long term economic downturn after success, For example, 宅男, 電車男,,熟女, 剩女, 獨男... In Cantonese, Japanese 獨男(single guy, with the implication of being lonely due to economic status) is reanalyzed into 毒男(toxic guy). The most notorious in the sea of Japanese loanword is "M 型社會". In Japanese, the phenomenon of the shrinking of the middle class is called "m字型社会". In Chinese writing, it's called "m 型社會' 
The lowest point in the graph is the population of the middle class. 
Have you ever study chemistry and biology in Chinese? I did. It's a nightmare. Chinese languages are good literature but not for science. Edited by jsun on 22 January 2011 at 12:04am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5227 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 11 of 48 22 January 2011 at 4:40am | IP Logged | |||||
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Spanish lacks absolutely no scientific terminology whatsoever.
One problem is that most of our modern so-called 'men of science' have very little knowledge of anything outside their own microfield, and they only arrived to some degree of knowledge after ignoring pretty much everything before their university years (which includes any serious study of their mother tongue). So they start studying seriously for the first time in their lives and they naturally adopt terms from whatever language the most bibliography happens to be written in, which is usually English, instead of using perfectly appropriate terms from their mother tongue. Incidentally, these are heard all the time from senior, real scientists. The irony is, most scientific neologisms are coined words from Classic Greek and Latin roots anyway, so most scientific loan words are not loan words at all, except for the bizarre English around them. It's usually just a matter of cleaning up. So in the beginning you hear students speaking Spanish with a great deal of English in it for technical stuff, but it gradually disappears as they realize that proper Spanish terms are there, and they're easier to understand and use. The only field I hear true English loan words from all the time is computing, where things like 'software' (what's that? soft tools?), 'chip', 'pin', or 'buffer' are common. But every time you develop something new and you need a word for it, either you make up a new one or you borrow it from somewhere else. Spaniards arrived at that field when all the necessary terms were there, so why not borrow instead of reinventing them? WRT the language classes are imparted in I'd say English is used only very rarely at most universities, because it's not widely spoken. But, of course, I can't speak in behalf of everyone (just this time ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ANK47 Triglot Senior Member United States thearabicstudent.blo Joined 7098 days ago 188 posts - 259 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (classical) | Message 12 of 48 22 January 2011 at 6:24am | IP Logged | |||||
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Arabic is alright for basic science stuff, but if you get into the names of compounds and chemicals then it breaks down. For example, CO2 is "thani oxide al karbon" ثاني اكسيد الكربون , I imagine very few languages have their own words for things like that though. Are there languages that have made their own words for the elements or are the elements pretty much the same around the world?
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| Aineko Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5449 days ago 238 posts - 442 votes Speaks: Serbian*, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 13 of 48 22 January 2011 at 9:31am | IP Logged | |||||
yep. just few examples from Slavic languages: carbon is 'ugljenik' in Serbian, which comes from Serbian word for coal, 'ugalj'. Word for oxygen is 'kiseonik' with the root from the word 'kiselina' - acid. Hydrogen is 'vodonik', from the word for water, 'voda'. And so on. On the other hand, some not-so-everyday elements have names coming directly form Latin, like Kalijum and Natrijum (where did English got potassium and sodium from?). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5227 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 14 of 48 22 January 2011 at 10:47am | IP Logged | |||||
Incidentally, 'hydrogen' comes from Classic Greek meaning 'gives origin to water' so the parallel in Slavic languages is rather obvious. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| null Groupie China Joined 6126 days ago 76 posts - 82 votes Speaks: Mandarin* | Message 15 of 48 22 January 2011 at 12:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
Here's a dictionary of 577,092 scientific terms in English, Chinese and Japanese: http://www.msckobe.com/links/dic/a.htm and a Huge Chinese - English dictionary of technology with 750,269 English terms, 744,542 Chinese terms and 805,139 terms submitted by the users: http://www3.zzu.edu.cn/zzjdict/ The Largest Technology Dicitionay in China (as far as i know)《中英科技大词典》(software, current version 1.3) has 2.4 million English - Chinese terms listed. 
Edited by null on 22 January 2011 at 12:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6035 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 16 of 48 22 January 2011 at 8:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
Oh, gosh. This is fun. Let's compare several languages; I hope other people will also contribute to the multilingual chemistry dictionary. Bulgarian / Russian / French / English Sn калай, олово, étain, tin ( 4 completely different words ) Pb олово, свинец, plomb, lead ( 4 words; also notice "олово" is lead in Bulgarian and tin in Russian ) Au злато, золото, or, gold ( 3 ) Ag сребро, серебро, argent, silver ( 3 ) Cu мед, медь, cuivre, copper ( 2.5 ) Fe желязо, железо, fer, iron ( 3 ) H водород, водород, hydrogène, hydrogen (2 versions) O кислород, кислород, oxygène, oxygen (2) C въглерод, углерод, carbone, carbon ( углерод/въглерод is similar, let's say 2.5 ) S сяра, сера, soufre, sulphur ( 2.5; tricky spelling differences in the Fr/En pair ) Na натрий, натрий, sodium, sodium ( 2 ) K калий, калий, potassium, potassium ( 2 ) Hg живак, ртутъ, mercure, mercury ( 3 ) Edited by Sennin on 22 January 2011 at 8:49pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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