verity
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Post by verity on Feb 12, 2018 2:15:57 GMT
Most African languages do not possess the capacity to explicate abstract thought. Check this video out.
There is no word in Zulu for "obligation," they use the term that they have meaning "to bind one's feet."
There is no word for "precision" except the one which means "to make more like a straight line" and the word was not present in pre-colonial Africa.
When asking what words ought to be used to reference the physical location of a coconut on a tree, they only had a word for "up." There was no way to say that it is half way up or towards the top. Thus the language cannot express gradation.
Conscience and self-awareness also tends to be largely absent.
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Post by Mocha on Feb 12, 2018 2:42:29 GMT
Okay I'm sorry, but:
>Most African languages do not possess the capacity to explicate abstract thought.
Highly unlikely.
>"There is no word in Zulu for "XXX" except for YYY which is derived from ZZZ."
You can say the exact same thing for English. It's called having an etymology.
>When asking what words ought to be used to reference the physical location of a coconut on a tree, they only had a word for "up." There was no way to say that it is half way up or towards the top. Thus the language cannot express gradation.
Words in some languages may have two separate translations in other languages. English has no distinction equivalent to Spanish ser/estar "be", English has no distinction between Russian sinij/goluboj "blue", Esperanto peni/provi/jugxi "try", Inuktitut aput/mauja "snow", etc. This isn't that a language can't express X concept - this means that they express it differently. If a language had a concept it couldn't express, speakers would find a way to express that concept. They wouldn't just go "Gee, I sure wish I could say this but I can't, oh well", that's silly. Malagasy (An African language) can express clusivity (English can't) and has five-way distance distinction in demonstratives (English only has a two-way distinction).
Sounds a lot like English can't express the same level of gradation as Malagasy.
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verity
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Post by verity on Feb 12, 2018 7:29:49 GMT
Sounds a lot like English can't express the same level of gradation as Malagasy. Imagine being this mad. The argument is not about whether English Has specific words to convey concepts in one word for random things, it's which language possesses the highest potential of range of abstract expression. even that last statement in the second half of the sentence I just said: how would you say that in malagasy? and as far as the example in Spanish, I am still capable of explaining the difference between "ser" and "estar" in English, thus confirming the potential to identify the difference and express it in English and thus successfully convey the difference. however we have one word "be" which is more efficient. So that's a win for English I think. |
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Post by Elizabeth on Feb 12, 2018 7:41:48 GMT
Is it just languages in Africa? They should add words to their language. USA does it all time actually  |
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Post by Διαμονδ on Feb 12, 2018 8:00:51 GMT
For languages to be ideal, then people should have a widely developed culture! If it is not there then the language will be poor and meager....
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Post by Mocha on Feb 12, 2018 13:58:06 GMT
Sounds a lot like English can't express the same level of gradation as Malagasy. Imagine being this mad. The argument is not about whether English Has specific words to convey concepts in one word for random things, it's which language possesses the highest potential of range of abstract expression. even that last statement in the second half of the sentence I just said: how would you say that in malagasy? and as far as the example in Spanish, I am still capable of explaining the difference between "ser" and "estar" in English, thus confirming the potential to identify the difference and express it in English and thus successfully convey the difference. however we have one word "be" which is more efficient. So that's a win for English I think. >The argument is not about whether English Has specific words to convey concepts in one word for random things, it's which language possesses the highest potential of range of abstract expression. If that's your metric, then any language with an agglutinative typology, including Zulu, is going to be immensely superior to English. Not even remotely a contest. >even that last statement in the second half of the sentence I just said: how would you say that in malagasy? Not a speaker. A quick glance through an online dictionary shows it contains all the words in that sentence, or synonyms, and Google translate has no difficulty translating it. >and as far as the example in Spanish, I am still capable of explaining the difference between "ser" and "estar" in English, thus confirming the potential to identify the difference and express it in English and thus successfully convey the difference. Yes, but there is no lexemic difference between the two in English. Doesn't mean English can't say everything Spanish can. >however we have one word "be" which is more efficient. So that's a win for English I think. Oh boy, have you dug youself a hole. English is one of the worst languages, European or otherwise, when it comes to lexemic efficiency. If this is your metric of a 'good language', then Tok Pisin, Piraha, or really any Creole would completely blow English out of the water. Also, >There is no word in Zulu for "obligation," they use the term that they have meaning "to bind one's feet." Hey, look! Looks like Zulu is reusing other words for obligation - how efficient! |
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Post by Polaris on Feb 12, 2018 15:32:55 GMT
languages expand or shrink with the intellectual , demographic and economic amount of development.
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verity
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Post by verity on Feb 12, 2018 17:23:24 GMT
Imagine being this mad. The argument is not about whether English Has specific words to convey concepts in one word for random things, it's which language possesses the highest potential of range of abstract expression. even that last statement in the second half of the sentence I just said: how would you say that in malagasy? and as far as the example in Spanish, I am still capable of explaining the difference between "ser" and "estar" in English, thus confirming the potential to identify the difference and express it in English and thus successfully convey the difference. however we have one word "be" which is more efficient. So that's a win for English I think. >The argument is not about whether English Has specific words to convey concepts in one word for random things, it's which language possesses the highest potential of range of abstract expression. If that's your metric, then any language with an agglutinative typology, including Zulu, is going to be immensely superior to English. Not even remotely a contest. >even that last statement in the second half of the sentence I just said: how would you say that in malagasy? Not a speaker. A quick glance through an online dictionary shows it contains all the words in that sentence, or synonyms, and Google translate has no difficulty translating it. >and as far as the example in Spanish, I am still capable of explaining the difference between "ser" and "estar" in English, thus confirming the potential to identify the difference and express it in English and thus successfully convey the difference. Yes, but there is no lexemic difference between the two in English. Doesn't mean English can't say everything Spanish can. >however we have one word "be" which is more efficient. So that's a win for English I think. Oh boy, have you dug youself a hole. English is one of the worst languages, European or otherwise, when it comes to lexemic efficiency. If this is your metric of a 'good language', then Tok Pisin, Piraha, or really any Creole would completely blow English out of the water. Also, >There is no word in Zulu for "obligation," they use the term that they have meaning "to bind one's feet." Hey, look! Looks like Zulu is reusing other words for obligation - how efficient! Pre or post European contact? Where was their dictionary? It's an oral language. |
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Post by Mocha on Feb 12, 2018 20:15:29 GMT
>The argument is not about whether English Has specific words to convey concepts in one word for random things, it's which language possesses the highest potential of range of abstract expression. If that's your metric, then any language with an agglutinative typology, including Zulu, is going to be immensely superior to English. Not even remotely a contest. >even that last statement in the second half of the sentence I just said: how would you say that in malagasy? Not a speaker. A quick glance through an online dictionary shows it contains all the words in that sentence, or synonyms, and Google translate has no difficulty translating it. >and as far as the example in Spanish, I am still capable of explaining the difference between "ser" and "estar" in English, thus confirming the potential to identify the difference and express it in English and thus successfully convey the difference. Yes, but there is no lexemic difference between the two in English. Doesn't mean English can't say everything Spanish can. >however we have one word "be" which is more efficient. So that's a win for English I think. Oh boy, have you dug youself a hole. English is one of the worst languages, European or otherwise, when it comes to lexemic efficiency. If this is your metric of a 'good language', then Tok Pisin, Piraha, or really any Creole would completely blow English out of the water. Also, >There is no word in Zulu for "obligation," they use the term that they have meaning "to bind one's feet." Hey, look! Looks like Zulu is reusing other words for obligation - how efficient! Pre or post European contact? Where was their dictionary? It's an oral language. Post-European, although considering none of the words I mentioned were European loans, this applies to Pre-European contact as well. I used an online dictionary, although it is unfortunately limited to a few thousand words. Wiktionary provided another source of translations. The Wikipedia article on the subject provides links to a seven others. And Malagasy is not an 'oral language'. Wikipedia says there is written Malagasy literature dating to the 15th century. The Malagasy edition of Wikipedia has 84,764 articles at the time of writing, including this article describing Philosophy. Feel free to press the link Pejy kisendra "Random Page" to explore more of the site. It is the primary official language of Madagascar, and is also spoken in two other countries. Its modern orthography appears to have been used for nearly two centuries. I was able to find an online copy of a bible published in 1865. It is available to read here. Additionally, I was able to find thirteen memrise courses pertaining to Malagasy, including this one containing 26 chapters. Where on earth are you getting the information that it is an 'oral language'? |
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verity
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Post by verity on Feb 12, 2018 23:39:49 GMT
Pre or post European contact? Where was their dictionary? It's an oral language. Post-European, although considering none of the words I mentioned were European loans, this applies to Pre-European contact as well. I used an online dictionary, although it is unfortunately limited to a few thousand words. Wiktionary provided another source of translations. The Wikipedia article on the subject provides links to a seven others. And Malagasy is not an 'oral language'. Wikipedia says there is written Malagasy literature dating to the 15th century. The Malagasy edition of Wikipedia has 84,764 articles at the time of writing, including this article describing Philosophy. Feel free to press the link Pejy kisendra "Random Page" to explore more of the site. It is the primary official language of Madagascar, and is also spoken in two other countries. Its modern orthography appears to have been used for nearly two centuries. I was able to find an online copy of a bible published in 1865. It is available to read here. Additionally, I was able to find thirteen memrise courses pertaining to Malagasy, including this one containing 26 chapters. Where on earth are you getting the information that it is an 'oral language'? Oh I see the confusion. I'm talking about Zulu which is an oral language. Oral languages are limited because you have to memorize all of the words. That poses obvious limitations, doesn't it? i don't know much about Malagasy. However if it's an oral language, I would assume it has the same limitations as Zulu. |
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Post by Mocha on Feb 13, 2018 2:32:11 GMT
Post-European, although considering none of the words I mentioned were European loans, this applies to Pre-European contact as well. I used an online dictionary, although it is unfortunately limited to a few thousand words. Wiktionary provided another source of translations. The Wikipedia article on the subject provides links to a seven others. And Malagasy is not an 'oral language'. Wikipedia says there is written Malagasy literature dating to the 15th century. The Malagasy edition of Wikipedia has 84,764 articles at the time of writing, including this article describing Philosophy. Feel free to press the link Pejy kisendra "Random Page" to explore more of the site. It is the primary official language of Madagascar, and is also spoken in two other countries. Its modern orthography appears to have been used for nearly two centuries. I was able to find an online copy of a bible published in 1865. It is available to read here. Additionally, I was able to find thirteen memrise courses pertaining to Malagasy, including this one containing 26 chapters. Where on earth are you getting the information that it is an 'oral language'? Oh I see the confusion. I'm talking about Zulu which is an oral language. Oral languages are limited because you have to memorize all of the words. That poses obvious limitations, doesn't it? i don't know much about Malagasy. However if it's an oral language, I would assume it has the same limitations as Zulu. Zulu is not oral either. A quick glance on its Wikipedia page shows that it has a well-described orthography. The Zulu Wikipedia contains 882 articles, which, while definitely limited, is significant. There is a browser plugin to spellcheck Zulu text in Firefox, available in an archived link here. I would assume if a language has a spellchecker, it has an orthography. >Oral languages are limited because you have to memorize all of the words. If you've memorized all the words, I'd hardly consider that limited. Do you know every single English word? Do you feel limited in your expression because you don't know every single English word? |
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