"Holes" in languages (Philological Room) Language Learning Forum

"Holes" in languages
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Language Learning Forum : Philological Room

26 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4

Cainntear
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Scotland
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Joined 6012 days ago
4399 posts - 7687 votes

Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh

Message 25 of 26

12 November 2010 at 12:40pm | IP Logged

simonov wrote:

Cainntear wrote:

Languages are like nets -- there's more holes than string, and neither would be much use without those holes!

Now what I don't understand is your last paragraph. Care to elucidate?
Of course a net wouldn't be a net without them holes, but a language would still be a language, holes or no holes.
You might call Greek defective because it doesn't have an infinitive. Well, it gets by just fine without one. No need, no hole!
So, what DID you mean by that cryptic remark?

The unique character of a language is the things that the speakers don't feel the need to say, or the need to distinguish between.

Why do the Spanish see waiting and hoping as so similar? Why do English speakers see requests and questions as so similar that we "ask" both?

A fully complete and unambiguous language would be extremely large, perhaps impossible for a human brain to learn, but in theory, if there was one, it would be possible for a dumb computer to translate it automatically into any other complete and unambiguous language, so you could argue that all such languages are the same language.

So it wouldn't really resemble what we call a language.
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schoenewaelder
Diglot
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Germany
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Speaks: English*, French
Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch

Message 26 of 26

12 November 2010 at 3:46pm | IP Logged

I think I might start using "to veg" /vedj/ as a synonym for "to kill".

As in: "he's gone to sleep with the vegetables"

edit: I've just remembered of course that "to veg" or "veg out" already exists in English (as in "to laze around, do nothing"). (It's really odd when you forget things in your own language. It happens sometimes playing scrabble, when you say "what does that mean?" and then realise it's a really common word.) But I think that touch of ambiguity only adds to it's potentially threatening undertones.

Edited by schoenewaelder on 12 November 2010 at 4:14pm
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