3 ms·

> only relying on one language narrows cultural expression I am not sure I understand what you mean. Sure, there are languages whose grammars require speaker

> only relying on one language narrows cultural expression I am not sure I understand what you mean. Sure, there are languages whose grammars require speakers to choose a more polite or a less polite form of a word; but I doubt this presents an insurmountable obstacle to the other culture for expressing the attitude of politeness, or the concept of hierarchy. Being speaker of a language that has two forms for the word "you" — a polite, plural one, and a familiar, singular one (I suspect that this grammatical behavior was imported from French in around 18th century; the distinction is similar to what Middle English had with you vs thou), I am sure that our concept of politeness is not markedly different from cultures whose languages do not have this distinction in second-person pronoun. The distinction cannot be trivially translated into modern English, true, but I don't think it matters a whole lot. Besides, if a culture really starts to feel a need for expressing a certain concept, they will find a way for doing that with the language they have.

Barrin92 6y ago
The specificity and formality of honorifics in Korean or Japanese goes way beyond the formal 'you' (speculating you may be German, Du/Sie?) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorifics_(linguistics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorifics_(linguistics) Korean has seven different levels of speech depending on the level of casualness one engages in and the Japanese language has features to raise or lower the status of the addresse as well encoding different feelings in the language. There is no analog for this in English, and also not really in Western culture. There's a very distinct notion of politeness in several Asian cultures that has no corolarry in Western societies because we don't tie it formally into social status. There's also a lot of other issues. A lot of major religious traditions rely on revealed scripture whose meaning is only precisely accessible through a particular language. In Islamic theology this would be Arabic and for Jews it is Hebrew of course. It would be an extreme cultural loss for billions of people to lose this access to their traditions.
- azangru 6y ago
  > There's also a lot of other issues. A lot of major religious traditions rely on revealed scripture whose meaning is only precisely accessible through a particular language. In Islamic theology this would be Arabic and for Jews it is Hebrew of course. It would be an extreme cultural loss for billions of people to lose this access to their traditions. I don't see it as a problem in the slightest, and not just because I personally think religious traditions are better left behind. No-one these days speaks classical Latin or ancient Greek; and yet we have some knowledge about the ancient tradition through commentaries and translations (regardless of how imprecise those translations are). We do not experience this as a tragedy or as an extreme cultural loss, despite us not being able to read those texts. Nor is anyone bemoaning the inaccessibility of Beowulf and the inadequacy of existing translations. And if someone is especially interested in the topic — well, there are always scholars who are free to learn those languages and to study the originals.
  - Tainnor 6y ago
    You clearly haven't talked to Latin or Greek teachers if you think nobody bemoans our lack of fluency in those languages nowadays. It isn't that long ago that knowing Latin was almost a prerequisite for calling yourself educated. I do believe that we miss out on a lot of nuances by not being able to read Latin or Greek. But I also accept that, pragmatically, we can't all be learning these languages anymore, so yeah, I'm not one of those grumpy Latin teachers. That doesn't mean it's not still a loss.

Barrin92 6y ago

The specificity and formality of honorifics in Korean or Japanese goes way beyond the formal 'you' (speculating you may be German, Du/Sie?) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorifics_(linguistics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorifics_(linguistics) Korean has seven different levels of speech depending on the level of casualness one engages in and the Japanese language has features to raise or lower the status of the addresse as well encoding different feelings in the language. There is no analog for this in English, and also not really in Western culture. There's a very distinct notion of politeness in several Asian cultures that has no corolarry in Western societies because we don't tie it formally into social status. There's also a lot of other issues. A lot of major religious traditions rely on revealed scripture whose meaning is only precisely accessible through a particular language. In Islamic theology this would be Arabic and for Jews it is Hebrew of course. It would be an extreme cultural loss for billions of people to lose this access to their traditions.

azangru 6y ago
> There's also a lot of other issues. A lot of major religious traditions rely on revealed scripture whose meaning is only precisely accessible through a particular language. In Islamic theology this would be Arabic and for Jews it is Hebrew of course. It would be an extreme cultural loss for billions of people to lose this access to their traditions. I don't see it as a problem in the slightest, and not just because I personally think religious traditions are better left behind. No-one these days speaks classical Latin or ancient Greek; and yet we have some knowledge about the ancient tradition through commentaries and translations (regardless of how imprecise those translations are). We do not experience this as a tragedy or as an extreme cultural loss, despite us not being able to read those texts. Nor is anyone bemoaning the inaccessibility of Beowulf and the inadequacy of existing translations. And if someone is especially interested in the topic — well, there are always scholars who are free to learn those languages and to study the originals.
- Tainnor 6y ago
  You clearly haven't talked to Latin or Greek teachers if you think nobody bemoans our lack of fluency in those languages nowadays. It isn't that long ago that knowing Latin was almost a prerequisite for calling yourself educated. I do believe that we miss out on a lot of nuances by not being able to read Latin or Greek. But I also accept that, pragmatically, we can't all be learning these languages anymore, so yeah, I'm not one of those grumpy Latin teachers. That doesn't mean it's not still a loss.