3 ms·

>I've heard that gaelic and latin for example don't have a real word for "yes", but instead the answer repeated the affirmative form of the verb or similar. Th

>I've heard that gaelic and latin for example don't have a real word for "yes", but instead the answer repeated the affirmative form of the verb or similar. Then they have a way to express affirmation.

ithkuil 16y ago
Yes, the fact that you don't have a specific word for a concept doesn't mean that you don't have a concept The trick is probably that some concepts are activated when our language center parses more than one word; we don't think about them as separate words. There are plenty of examples in the vocabularies of various languages, one of my favorites is the word 'alarm': I asked a lot of people in the Italy if they recognize what the word "allarme" comes from. Surprisingly only few recognized the exhortation "all'armi!" (to the weapons!) (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=alarm http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=alarm). Sometimes this effect creates a new word, but sometimes a concept remains indirectly expressed, while the speaker unconsciously extracts the high level meaning of it. However, I noticed that most of the amateur discussions about linguistics scratch only the surface because mostly only nouns are touched. For example when I was younger and still living in Croatia. A relative of mine was Macedonian and told me that they have a verb mood that is used when you state something which you are sure that is true, vs only being told that is true. I'm not really sure what is that, after a bit of research I think it's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferential_mood http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferential_mood. "The inferential mood (abbreviated infer or infr) is used to report a nonwitnessed event without confirming it" Does this shape the way you think? After all, even English speakers are able to express the fact that they didn't witness an event; I guess they do, didn't check :-)
- RyanMcGreal 16y ago
  Interesting etymology of alarm - reminds me of the English "Mayday!" from the French "M'Aider!" (Help me!)

ithkuil 16y ago

Yes, the fact that you don't have a specific word for a concept doesn't mean that you don't have a concept The trick is probably that some concepts are activated when our language center parses more than one word; we don't think about them as separate words. There are plenty of examples in the vocabularies of various languages, one of my favorites is the word 'alarm': I asked a lot of people in the Italy if they recognize what the word "allarme" comes from. Surprisingly only few recognized the exhortation "all'armi!" (to the weapons!) (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=alarm http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=alarm). Sometimes this effect creates a new word, but sometimes a concept remains indirectly expressed, while the speaker unconsciously extracts the high level meaning of it. However, I noticed that most of the amateur discussions about linguistics scratch only the surface because mostly only nouns are touched. For example when I was younger and still living in Croatia. A relative of mine was Macedonian and told me that they have a verb mood that is used when you state something which you are sure that is true, vs only being told that is true. I'm not really sure what is that, after a bit of research I think it's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferential_mood http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferential_mood. "The inferential mood (abbreviated infer or infr) is used to report a nonwitnessed event without confirming it" Does this shape the way you think? After all, even English speakers are able to express the fact that they didn't witness an event; I guess they do, didn't check :-)

RyanMcGreal 16y ago
Interesting etymology of alarm - reminds me of the English "Mayday!" from the French "M'Aider!" (Help me!)