# two languages so different that they can't be used for the same purposes



## panjabigator

j3st3r said:
			
		

> Very interesting, CrazyIvan.
> 
> How come you can express your thoughts better in English than in your mother tongue? Are the two languages so different that they can't be used for the same purposes?



I think this is a great topic to discuss, although I worry that it already exists, so forgive me if it has been done already.  English is my mother tongue because I know it the best and I can convey myself the best in it.  I also learned it fluently before I did Panjabi or Hindi (my parents choice).  Though I am fluent in Panjabi, there are too many terms that have become outdated, and thus it is much more natural to use their English equivalents.  And then there are certain themes which I feel I can only express in English. For example, love (though I never say it) would never sound right to me in Panjabi (unless it was said by my grandma).  I feel that a simple I love you does the job better than /mai.n tainuu.n pyaar kardaa haa.n/ ever would.  Perhaps that is just because of my environment, but their are plenty of Indians who I am sure would prefer English over Hindi to express certain things.


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## mytwolangs

the only way two langs could not convey the same ideas is if one was a non human language and one was a human one.


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## jester.

I once heard that part of the reason why Asian languages are so hard to learn for Westerners is that they are not only difficult but also use different concepts and mindets to express ideas. Maybe that's the crucial point here?


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## fenixpollo

Your original post is confusing because all languages are used for the same purpose: communicating.  However, as jester points out, you could refine your original question to ask us about languages different enough that one idea can't be expressed as well in another. 

Your example of "I love you" is merely one of preference. English and Panjabi are not so different, because they can both be used for the purpose of expressing the concept of love. What's different is your comfort level with one over the other when you express this idea.


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## tafanari

> I once heard that part of the reason why Asian languages are so hard to learn for Westerners is that they are not only difficult but also use different concepts and mindets to express ideas. Maybe that's the crucial point here?



I don't to mean to be flippant and I don't think it's a dumb question if you think about it so here goes:

What's an Asian language? In parts of Asia, they speak Arabic, Mandarin, Japanese, Thai, Tamil, Farsi, Turkish, Armenian, Urdu, all very different kinds of languages. Why put them in one grouping as opposed to another?


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## Victoria32

tafanari said:
			
		

> I don't to mean to be flippant and I don't think it's a dumb question if you think about it so here goes:
> 
> What's an Asian language? In parts of Asia, they speak Arabic, Mandarin, Japanese, Thai, Tamil, Farsi, Turkish, Armenian, Urdu, all very different kinds of languages. Why put them in one grouping as opposed to another?



To take one specific Asian language - Korean... I have worked as an ESOL teacher, and 90% of my students were Asian (Chinese, Japanese and Korean.) I have heard that the system of tenses in Korean is such as to make studying English unbelievably difficult for Koreans...


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## therumsgone

Victoria32 said:
			
		

> To take one specific Asian language - Korean... I have worked as an ESOL teacher, and 90% of my students were Asian (Chinese, Japanese and Korean.) I have heard that the system of tenses in Korean is such as to make studying English unbelievably difficult for Koreans...



I think the point the poster was trying to make is that there are a diverse grouping of languages throughout Asia. Chinese, Japanese and Korean are quite different from Hindi and Russian, so it makes little since to lump them all together. It's the same as putting English, French and Swedish in the same category because they are all European langauges.


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## jester.

tafanari said:
			
		

> I don't to mean to be flippant and I don't think it's a dumb question if you think about it so here goes:
> 
> What's an Asian language? In parts of Asia, they speak Arabic, Mandarin, Japanese, Thai, Tamil, Farsi, Turkish, Armenian, Urdu, all very different kinds of languages. Why put them in one grouping as opposed to another?


OK, that wasn't the right term. I meant the East Asian languages.


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## panjabigator

fenixpollo said:
			
		

> Your original post is confusing because all languages are used for the same purpose: communicating. However, as jester points out, you could refine your original question to ask us about languages different enough that one idea can't be expressed as well in another.
> 
> Your example of "I love you" is merely one of preference. English and Panjabi are not so different, because they can both be used for the purpose of expressing the concept of love. What's different is your comfort level with one over the other when you express this idea.



Very true.  It does have to do with my comfort level.


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## Outsider

therumsgone said:
			
		

> I think the point the poster was trying to make is that there are a diverse grouping of languages throughout Asia. Chinese, Japanese and Korean are quite different from Hindi and Russian, so it makes little since to lump them all together. It's the same as putting English, French and Swedish in the same category because they are all European langauges.


Putting English, French and Swedish together makes a lot of sense: they all belong to the Indo-European language family. 
On the other hand, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, and Russian belong to a different language family each.


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## ireney

I am positive that Russian belongs to the Indo-European language group too 

Anyway, it depends on what one wants to express.

For instance, I bet that there's an expression conveing the meaning, the feeling behind "I love you" in all languages. However, I do agree that, at least for some people, it will somehow _mean_ more to them if they say it in their native language or the language they feel more comfortable with.

On the other hand, other concepts may not exist in all languages. I am really not certain (since this was a conversation I had some years ago), but I think that I remember a professor saying that he had some trouble in translating Plato in Chinese because there's no 'word' for 'self'. I may not remember correctly though.
Anway, it is possible that some concepts of the kind (or other) may not exist in all languages/cultures so in this case, it is not a matter of knowing a language well or not .


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## tafanari

Sanskrit is a language more closely related to Spanish than Basque is. Can we then expect that translating from Sanskirt to Spanish is easier than from Basque to Spanish? Can we say that Spaniards have an easier time understanding concepts relating to, say, the Hindu religion, because their languages are in the same Indo-European family tree than a book written in Basque? Is Indian culture "closer" to other Spaniards than the culture of the Basque country?

I know it's an extreme example, and Sanskrit is not as 'current' as Basque (and the Basques are not on the other side of the world) but it seems to me that Indian and Chinese cultures are equally as exotic to me and the fact that Northern India speaks languages that are closer to the ones that I speak doesn't make them any more familiar to me on a cultural level.

Just my two rupees on the subject.


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## Brioche

Sounds in a way that we are discussing something like the Sapir-Worf hypothesis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Worf


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## ireney

If I am not mistaken (I could be) what we are discussing primarily is whether someone who knows _any_ two languages can express the same ideas and/or feelings in both.

The way I see it, as I mentioned above:
When it comes to using one of the two languages to say something for which the person feels some strong emotion about (i.e. love, freedom, religion), it all depends on which language the person feels more 'comfortable' with. It doesn't matter if there is a way to express the idea in both and, of course, it doesn't matter how closely related the two languages are. 
The emotion of love is one of the most prominent examples:
No matter how closely related English, French, German and Greek are or are not, saying "I love you" to a person you do, in your own language carries (for some people at least) more 'weight' than saying it in another language for the person that says it at least. I suppose that if I was to say "Σ'αγαπώ" to an English person it would mean less for him (maybe) than saying "I love you" but it may mean more to me.

When it comes to ideas that do not have an equivalent/translation in another language (see the Chinese example although I would love to have it checked by someone who knows the language; or I should check it myself I guess) it is a matter of being unable to express the idea or having to use a lot of words to describe it which is not exactly the same.
Again, it doesn't matter how closely related the languages are linguistically,  but if they share the same cultural background that  usually means that they have a way of expressing the same idea.

Translation is a  different issue. I don't think it's what we are talking about. I also don't think that culture has anything to do with whether you fell 'better' saying "I love you " in Polish or Korean, in  French or in English.


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## geve

Brioche said:
			
		

> Sounds in a way that we are discussing something like the Sapir-Worf hypothesis.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Worf


Thank you for the link, very interesting!

I do think that there are things that you can better express in a language, and I don't need to look at very exotic languages for that... French and English will do! Sometimes I have to translate from French to English, reports on market trends, brand analysis etc. In French we tend to be very conceptual, we will use a lot of very "intellectual" notions and most of the times, the only way to put it in English is to completely re-think what the author was trying to say because (I find that) English is generally more straight-to-the-point than French.

Grammatical structures also play a role in this. The existence of phrasal verbs in English makes it a lot easier to express complex ideas in short sentences - it's not that easy in French.

I don't view this as just a translation issue - I think that some categories of ideas are better expressed in one language or the other. This is also why learning a foreign language can be such a thrilling experience: if, as the Sapir-Worf hypothesis states, language shapes our vision of the world, then learning other languages broadens our perspective of the world. But I think we all knew that already on this forum, didn't we?


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## modus.irrealis

A really interesting book about these topics that I've read is _The metaphors we live by_ by George Lakoff. It basically says that cultures have a bunch of metaphors like A THEORY IS A BUILDING (he uses capitalization) which allows you to say things like "that argument is shaky." So if two languages don't share these metaphors, it's difficult to express this concepts in the same way (it also deals a death blow, I think, to "literal" translations).

And I agree with others here who have said that this kind of cultural sharing is more important than genetic relations between languages, especially when there's been a culturally dominant language in an area. French has influenced a lot of European languages (when I look up words in my Greek dictionary, I often find that the secondary meanings of some words have been borrowed from French just because the primary meaning of the Greek word coincides with some French word), and China has had a similar (if not more extensive) influence on East Asia. So I would expect Basque, Hungarian, etc. to share more of these cultural aspects with French, say, than does Hindi or Farsi, even if the latter are related to French. Maybe English's global dominance will draw languages together in this respect.

So maybe this explains panjabigator's preference. Maybe the LOVE concept in Panjabi has associations you dislike, or maybe in English it has ones that you find more agreeable.


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## panjabigator

Actually, one of the reasons I'm more comfortable with saying love in English is that Panjabi's really don't say I love you that much in the language.  I'd say the same for Hindi speakers too.  We aren't the expressive about love I guess...but thats another topic


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## ampurdan

I think I get Panjabigator's point. I don't say that much "I love you" in my language. I mean, I normally wouldn't say it to someone I haven't had sex with. I think English-speaking Americans are much more prone to say such thing to mum, dad and nana. I don't say "I love you" to a member of my family: I just show them my love.

Anyway, I could say "I love you", "t'estimo", "te quiero", "ich liebe dich", "je t'aime", "ti amo", etc. to someone I've had sex with (and whom I really love, of course). Once I understand them as equivalent, they all mean the same to me, and I feel comfortable with eachone of them.

Or rather, I'm just talking nonsense and I should go to sleep...


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## jester.

ampurdan said:
			
		

> I think I get Panjabigator's point. I don't say that much "I love you" in my language. I mean, I normally wouldn't say it to someone I haven't had sex with. I think English-speaking Americans are much more prone to say such thing to mum, dad and nana. I don't say "I love you" to a member of my family: I just show them my love.
> 
> Anyway, I could say "I love you", "t'estimo", "te quiero", "ich liebe dich", "je t'aime", "ti amo", etc. to someone I've had sex with (and whom I really love, of course). Once I understand them as equivalent, they all mean the same to me, and I feel comfortable with eachone of them.
> 
> Or rather, I'm just talking nonsense and I should go to sleep...


Are you referring to languages that you learn, by this statement? Then I agree with you, because the words "I love you" don't sound as serious in a learned language as in your mother tongue.


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## Outsider

ampurdan said:
			
		

> I think I get Panjabigator's point. I don't say that much "I love you" in my language. I mean, I normally wouldn't say it to someone I haven't had sex with. I think English-speaking Americans are much more prone to say such thing to mum, dad and nana. I don't say "I love you" to a member of my family: I just show them my love.
> 
> Anyway, I could say "I love you", "t'estimo", "te quiero", "ich liebe dich", "je t'aime", "ti amo", etc. to someone I've had sex with (and whom I really love, of course). Once I understand them as equivalent, they all mean the same to me, and I feel comfortable with eachone of them.
> 
> Or rather, I'm just talking nonsense and I should go to sleep...


We had a previous thread about that. It seems that some languages (cultures?) avoid using the L-word, which sounds a bit theatrical and ridiculous when overused. By contrast, English is a very "lovey-dovey" language.
There goes the myth of Latin romanticism versus Nordic phlegmatism...


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## ampurdan

j3st3r said:
			
		

> Are you referring to languages that you learn, by this statement? Then I agree with you, because the words "I love you" don't sound as serious in a learned language as in your mother tongue.


 
Well, you're right, but that's not what I said. In fact, it's quite the opposite. When I learn the way to say "I love you" in another language, it just means the same to me, though I would probably be not using it when and how a native speaker does. When speaking to a German, I could say "ich liebe dich" as seriously or as humorously as I would in Catalan. But maybe a German would not say "ich liebe dich" when and how I say "t'estimo".


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## pickypuck

j3st3r said:
			
		

> [...]because the words "I love you" don't sound as serious in a learned language as in your mother tongue.


 
I have that feeling with rude/bad words.

¡Olé!


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## CrazyIvan

I had a brief reply on the other thread but it were not transferred. It give me a chance to explain myself a bit further now.

While in Taiwan, if I engage into a 'discussion' with my friend, I would rather use English than Mandarine. (This kind of discussion is often related to some theory about what we have learned or current issues.)

The reason is,

1.) Mandarine has a very loose structure of causaul relationship link. I find it difficult to focus on a certain track therefore we easily lost in the middle of somewhere.

2.) Mandarine has lots of expression which is not "precise." You could say on character to mean on thing but if you combine this character with another, it will change the meaning in context again. 

So, that is actually what I feel, English serve the purpose to express myself in argument but Mandarine serve the funtion of daily general communication.

and I use my mother tongue Taiwanese to express my feelings, expecially I find some Taiwanese songs can release my emother a way better than songs in other language. 

So, Can different languages serve different purposes? Yes, indeed. At least this is what I believe.


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## CrazyIvan

I find it interesting to read through the 'I love you' discussion.

I have to say, the expression for these deepest ( or say, the most serious? ) feelings have little to do with languages. Whether the people who say it truly mean it or not is really depends on the the hidden angel/devil in their mind...

But, I have to say, if I am very familiar with certain language and the culture, I would be very cautious about saying these words. 'cause I know the consequence, and sometimes saying this means certain degree of responsibility in some culture context.


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## Outsider

*Brioche* mentioned the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis on the previous page. I'm skeptical, at least of the "strong version" of it, but I still have a little fuel to add to the fire.

I remember reading about how Greek (classical Greek, but I imagine that modern Greek is the same) was especially suited for science. What they meant was that if, for example, you wish to make up a new name for a contraption you've just invented which allows people to talk at a distance, in Greek you can just combine the word _tele_ "at a distance" with the word _phone_ "sound" into _telephone_, and presto, you have a name for it!

In Latin or the Romance languages it's not this easy to make new words from old ones. They are more rigid. In the Romance languages, especially, you would often need to connect two nouns with a preposition, which means you end up with clumsy three-word phrases, rather than a neat single word, as in Greek. (Here's a recent example: see the lengthy compounds that RL use for "lullaby".)

So, when we need to make new technical terms -- well, usually they're invented in English first, but...  -- we normally give up, and just go back to classical Greek, make a neologism in it from old roots, and then adapt the Frankenstein word into our language.

In Germanic languages like English and German, it seems that it's easier to make compounds, but they also tend to use Greek or Latin roots, although it's probably more for cultural reasons than for linguistic ones, in their case.

So perhaps some languages _are_ better suited for expressing some ideas than others, after all. What does everyone else think? How does you language make new technical terminology?


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## tafanari

Outsider said:
			
		

> So perhaps some languages _are_ better suited for expressing some ideas than others, after all. What does everyone else think? How does you language make new technical terminology?


No. The Romans borrowed a great deal of Greek words because their civilization was considered superior, more refined, and Latin was considered a rustic language. Not to mention that the Greeks controlled parts of Italy and were thus, the colonial rulers.

On the other hand, look at the amount of Latin in English legalese, and the amount of French. The reasons are quite similar. The Latin culture was seen as superior and the French were the "colonial rulers" at one point in England.

The reason we use Greek today has everything to do with the prestige of Greek and very little to do with its flexibility. Similar arguments are made about English borrowings in other languages and the supposéd flexibility of the English language. If English is so flexible, why are 90 percent of the words from other languages?

Sometimes the VCR beats the Betamax for reasons that have to do with marketing on not the quality of the machine. Language works the same way.


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## panjabigator

> Originally Posted by *Outsider*
> So perhaps some languages _are_ better suited for expressing some ideas than others, after all. What does everyone else think? How does you language make new technical terminology?


Now a days, if a new word is coined in Hindi or Panjabi (Indian Panjabi), its root will be from Sanskrit.  If it is coined in Urdu or Panjabi (Pakistani Panjabi), it will come from Farsi or Arabic.  There are I'm sure exceptions to the rule, but I cannot think of any.


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## Outsider

tafanari said:
			
		

> Similar arguments are made about English borrowings in other languages and the supposéd flexibility of the English language. If English is so flexible, why are 90 percent of the words from other languages?


But maybe that's what makes it so flexible!


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## tafanari

Outsider said:
			
		

> But maybe that's what makes it so flexible!



Sure. And I could then say that English is better than Greek because we say phone in another language and that people in Athens have a language so inflexible that they have to use their own word. Hahahaha. I don't mean that, of course. 

But take the word *flexible*. We don't have to use that Latin word; we could just say *bendable*. But flexible, ductile, elastic, extensible, extensile, flexile, malleable, moldable, plastic, pliable, pliant etc. all sound more sophisticated. Merci, la France.


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## vince

tafanari said:
			
		

> Sure. And I could then say that English is better than Greek because we say phone in another language and that people in Athens have a language so inflexible that they have to use their own word. Hahahaha. I don't mean that, of course.



I've always wondered about languages like Greek and Mandarin where educated words are derived from existing words in the same language. The words probably lose their sense of sophistication. Take the word "technology". In English, it's just a regular word. In Greek,  Τεχνολογία must sound as classy as "craft-saying" would sound in English. And in Mandarin, jishu                      技術 must sound like "ability-skill" in English.


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## tafanari

vince said:
			
		

> I've always wondered about languages like Greek and Mandarin where educated words are derived from existing words in the same language. The words probably lose their sense of sophistication. Take the word "technology". In English, it's just a regular word. In Greek,  Τεχνολογία must sound as classy as "craft-saying" would sound in English. And in Mandarin, jishu                      技術 must sound like "ability-skill" in English.



In Spanish and French verbs like *respirar *and *respirer *are run- of-the-mill. In English, _*to respirate *_is a bit more sciency than just *to breathe*. There are many more examples like that.


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## Outsider

Perhaps a more common example is "to comprehend". Spanish _comprender_, French _comprendre_, etc., don't sound especially sophisticated.


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## ireney

a) I would never classify English as rigid after having to translate some of F. Herbert's neologisms. Greek may be indeed flexible but Herbert had me scratching my head even when doing the proofreading (which means that sometimes my scalp was saved because someone else raked his before I got to see the text)

b) Vince is right; you'd be amazed for example to see how many Greeks whose grasp of the English language is rather shaky can understand practically all 'phobias' (arachnophobia, xenophobia, agoraphobia etc)


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## modus.irrealis

Outsider said:
			
		

> In Germanic languages like English and German, it seems that it's easier to make compounds, but they also tend to use Greek or Latin roots, although it's probably more for cultural reasons than for linguistic ones, in their case.


I was under the impression that German used calques (I think that's the right term) and replaced Latin/Greek words with German words, e.g. description becomes Beschreibung. Or is this relatively rare?

But in general, are one-word compounds more flexible than three-word phrases in an objective sense. I mean, is it Greek is prestigious because it forms compounds easily and compounds are elegant, or is it Greek is prestigious and therefore since Greek prefers compounds, compounds are elegant? (I hope that's clear).

I read up about Sapir-Whorf and I have a hard time believing it. Personally, I don't think there's anything one language can say that another can't, nor do I think that some language say some things better, since better in this case seems to me to be just a subjective notion about what style we prefer.

That's a good point about English having all these common/sophisticated doubles (although I think they've often acquired subtle differences in meaning), but it's probably a matter of degree. Greek and French at least have changed and they do not usually form their scientific compounds on the basis of modern words. "Eye" in Greek is μάτι but eye doctor is οφθαλμίατρος, and similarly with French a blind person is aveugle but his condition is cécité.


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## tafanari

modus.irrealis said:
			
		

> ...and similarly with French a blind person is aveugle but his condition is cécité.


The French borrowed _*cécité *_from Classical Latin more recently. The same thing happens in Spanish with *dedo *(finger) and *digital*. *Yo veo* ("I see") and *video *which is "I see" in Classical Latin.

I don't think there was anything inherently sophisticated about the Greek language. However, I think there is a great deal of evidence that there was something quite sophisticated about the Greeks.

It also occured to me that while Americans think they sound cool by saying "savoir-faire" it seems that some Frenchmen have become fond of "know-how." The grass is always greener de l'autre côté de la mer.


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## ireney

Modus while it is often the case that we don't use the colloquial term for a word for our more technical terms this doesn't mean that they sound more sophisticated or archaic really (with notable exceptions as always).
Your everyday Greek might not know the etymology of a word i.e. but, as long as it is used in any term, it sounds familiar. On the other hand, words that are no longer used really do seem 'exotic' to us ( would you believe that very few understand that Κυανοπώγων means Bluebeard?)


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## modus.irrealis

tafanari said:
			
		

> The French borrowed _*cécité *_from Classical Latin more recently. The same thing happens in Spanish with *dedo *(finger) and *digital*. *Yo veo* ("I see") and *video *which is "I see" in Classical Latin.


But in some sense, it's a situation that's analogous to Greek since French, Spanish, etc. are Modern Latins if you will. They're all using an older form of the language to get a more educated/technical/impressive/etc. feel, although I would guess that French speakers feel more of a distance between their language and Latin than a Greek speaker does about Ancient Greek.





> It also occured to me that while Americans think they sound cool by saying "savoir-faire" it seems that some Frenchmen have become fond of "know-how." The grass is always greener de l'autre côté de la mer.


I agree with you there.





			
				ireney said:
			
		

> Modus while it is often the case that we don't use the colloquial term for a word for our more technical terms this doesn't mean that they sound more sophisticated or archaic really (with notable exceptions as always).


But I think the same could be said about English; is vision more sophisticated than sight? I think my point was that in these source languages, scientific words don't sound folksy or anything like that. Of course, it's more transparent (see-through?) to Greeks what some of these words means, but they too have to learn the proper form of the words when they occur in these compounds.





> On the other hand, words that are no longer used really do seem 'exotic' to us ( would you believe that very few understand that Κυανοπώγων means Bluebeard?)


Like you say, if they're no longer used, what can you do?


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## zena168

My linguistic professor told me that people don’t understand vocabs by their fixed dictionary definition.  Each of us understands words by somewhat of a more blurred ideal or “meaning.”  And individual words can carry a spectrum of connotations that reflects the cultural and or linguistic history of that particular language.
So you can never replace one word for another completely.
Most often, our language system works with our moving culture.  The language will emphasize and produce words that are relevant to the culture.  I forgot which Indian language example he cited for having hundreds of vocabs just for telling directions.
As in mandarin Chinese, I don’t think there’s any parallel for the word “孝” [shao] which means the duty and responsibility to serve one’s parents.  I believe that’s because it’s a historical-cultural product.


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