11 messages over 2 pages: 1 2
Astrophel Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5731 days ago 157 posts - 345 votes Speaks: English*, Latin, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Cantonese, Polish, Sanskrit, Cherokee
| Message 9 of 11 19 February 2010 at 3:59am | IP Logged |
Piraha has no words for color - only darker and lighter.
In Moken, there is no word for want, take, when, hello, or goodbye.
The Kuuk Thayorre do not have "left" and "right", but use absolute direction...and when asked to arrange pictures chronologically, organize them east to west!
Even in German, a language very close to English, there's no way to say that someone "made" you do something. You either use the stronger word "forced" (zwang), or resort to circumlocution.
Different languages are like different styles of art. If an Impressionist, a Surrealist, and a Renaissance master all painted the same scene, even though they all had the same initial perception, they expressed it in different ways. Likewise, the same situations, emotions, and phrases are worded in completely different ways that reflect the culture and do not translate literally. Compare Spanish and Portuguese and note where the differences in phraseology lie and you'll see what I mean.
This is why conquerors always try to oppress the language of the conquered. You lose a language, you lose an entire, unique system of categorizing thoughts and expressing feelings about the world.
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| Ulrike Tetraglot Newbie Germany Joined 5560 days ago 23 posts - 27 votes Speaks: German*, Latin, English, French Studies: Persian, Arabic (classical)
| Message 10 of 11 19 February 2010 at 10:36am | IP Logged |
In German, my native language, you can use "jemanden veranlassen, etwas zu tun" for the English "make somebody to do something". This phrase can be put into all tenses and is, as far as I can decide it for English is a foreign language to me, at least very close to "make somebody to do something."
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| jondesousa Tetraglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/Zgg3nRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6263 days ago 227 posts - 297 votes Speaks: English*, Portuguese, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Mandarin, Spanish
| Message 11 of 11 19 February 2010 at 1:34pm | IP Logged |
An old Bulgarian friend of mine used to tell me some fantastic Chukchi jokes. They were quite funny.
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