Fri, 23 Feb 2024 10:00:07 +0000: [email protected] (HenHanna)
scribeva:

Yet there are plenty rather more obvious concepts that English has no word for.

Georgian has the wonderful, simple zeg, meaning the day after tomorrow. (Jp asatte)

Spanish has antier for the opposite – the day before yesterday. (Jp ototoi)

In Norwegian, you can refer to pålegg, whereas in English you’d be stuck with “things you put in a sandwich” – which sounds like something you might say in a supermarket when you’re so tired you’ve forgotten the word for cheese.

Finally, it says something worrying about the British national character that we’ve adopted the German word schadenfreude, taking pleasure in the suffering of others, but not the Hebrew word firgun, taking pleasure in the success of others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firgun
==
The word can be traced back to the Yiddish word farginen [...]
==

Aha! As we say in Dutch, ik gun je dit succes! En ik gun mezelf de
ontdekking.

--
Ruud Harmsen, https://rudhar.com

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Fri, 23 Feb 2024 10:00:07 +0000: [email protected] (HenHanna)
scribeva:

In Norwegian, you can refer to pålegg, whereas in English you’d be stuck with “things you put in a sandwich” – which sounds like something you might say in a supermarket when you’re so tired you’ve forgotten the word for cheese.

Similar to Dutch (brood)beleg.

English could use onlay in the word existed, but it doesn't. Inlay
does.
--
Ruud Harmsen, https://rudhar.com

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On 2024-02-23, HenHanna <[email protected]> wrote:

Yet there are plenty rather more obvious concepts that English has no word for.

And yet you have no problem talking about them in English.

Georgian has the wonderful, simple zeg, meaning the day after tomorrow. (Jp asatte)

Spanish has antier for the opposite – the day before yesterday. (Jp ototoi)

A contraction from (European Spanish) "anteayer", literally "before
yesterday". German has "übermorgen" and "vorgestern", again
transparent compounds, so do those could as "a word" in your view?

Finally, it says something worrying about the British national character that we’ve adopted the German word schadenfreude,

English has "glee" and "gloating" and really no need for "schadenfreude",
which is still marked as foreign.

7 Things You Can Say in Other Languages That You Can't Say in English

Distinguishing between the singular and plural you. ...

y'all, you guys, youse, ...
At least for appellative use, singular forms along the lines
of "you sir" can be formed.

Distinguishing between we inclusive and we exclusive. ...

"us two"
I'm struggling to come up with an everyday situation where I would
need to express an exclusive we that isn't obvious from context.

A proper subjunctive. ...

What would such a subjunctive express? Would it work as in French?
Or, differently, as in German?

Adapting the language for politeness and formality. ...

English seems quite capable of that. The must stunning example of
formal politeness I ever encountered was decades ago, when a CNN
anchor had Yasser Arafat on the phone on live TV.

Fully-accepted gender-neutral pronouns and epithets.

English is on a good course here. As your "fully-accepted" hints
at, that's more of a social issue than a language one.

And that's a very different situation from those European languages
that (1) have grammatical gender and (2) strongly correlate social
with grammatical gender. They are stuck and there is simply no way
forward. Pronouns are not enough, determiners (articles, demonstratives, possessives), adjectives, and participles all show obligatory
agreement. Those languages simply lack the tooling to innovate
gender-neutral forms. People are flailing around, but no solution
is in sight. Wait a few centuries for sound changes to erode the
gender endings?

7 Things English Can't Do That Other Languages Can ·
1. Play Around With Its Word Order ·

That I don't agree with.

2. Talk About The Future ·

?!?

3. Represent All Its Vowels ... ??????????????

That refers to spelling, I assume. English certainly manages to
represent all its vowels in spelling, it just doesn't reliably
distinguish all vowel phonemes in its orthography. A common side
effect of adapting an alphabet that suited one language (Latin) for
a different one. The problem applies to some consonants as well,
think <th> or <s>.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber [email protected]

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On 2024-02-25 23:22:05 +0000, Christian Weisgerber said:

That refers to spelling, I assume. English certainly manages to
represent all its vowels in spelling, it just doesn't reliably
distinguish all vowel phonemes in its orthography. A common side
effect of adapting an alphabet that suited one language (Latin) for
a different one. The problem applies to some consonants as well,
think <th> or <s>.

Latin alphabet did not suit that well to Classical Latin. Why is the
/k/ sound written usually with C but in some words K? Why is the same
I or V used for both the vowel and consonant? Why is there onlu five
vowel letters although Classical Latin ahd six vowel phonemes? And
why Late Latin needed six vowel letters for five vowel sounds?

--
Mikko

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On 2024-02-26, Mikko <[email protected]> wrote:

That refers to spelling, I assume. English certainly manages to
represent all its vowels in spelling, it just doesn't reliably
distinguish all vowel phonemes in its orthography. A common side
effect of adapting an alphabet that suited one language (Latin) for
a different one. The problem applies to some consonants as well,
think <th> or <s>.

Latin alphabet did not suit that well to Classical Latin.

Well, it was adapted to Latin and not invented from scratch, but
it fits quite well.

Why is the /k/ sound written usually with C but in some words K?

Yes, those few K spellings like "kalendae" are an inconsistency.

Why is the same I or V used for both the vowel and consonant?

Because the vowels and their corresponding semivowels were positional allophones. Sound shifts eventually broke that relationship, but
for Classical Latin it was appropriate.

Why is there onlu five
vowel letters although Classical Latin ahd six vowel phonemes? And
why Late Latin needed six vowel letters for five vowel sounds?

Classical Latin had five native vowel qualities and corresponding
letters (A, E, I, O, U), plus an additional one (Y) borrowed from
Greek. These came in short and long quantity, which was at least
occasionally distinguished by marking long vowels with an apex
diacritic.

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber [email protected]

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