4 ms·

I have heard speculation that the abundance of synonyms may originate with the Japanese language. I was told that in Japanese (which I don't speak), you might u

I have heard speculation that the abundance of synonyms may originate with the Japanese language. I was told that in Japanese (which I don't speak), you might use a different word for "one" when saying "one cat" versus "one house" or "one country," and that the word choice would be made based on which one "sounds best" in that context. IF that's true (can anyone confirm?), it might have seemed fitting to Matz that using "collect" vs "map" would be an aesthetic choice for the programmer.

masklinn 15y ago
It probably has more to do with these words (or syntaxes) meaning the same thing in the various languages Matz got inspiration from (Perl and FP languages use `map`, Smalltalk uses `collect`). One of the personality traits Ruby got from Perl was being a grab-bag of a bunch of stuff.
JMStewy 15y ago
This is true, and it's not unique to Japanese (Chinese does it too). But I'm not sure the existence of this specific feature in the language supports any particular generalizations about a "Japanese mindset." To English speakers, using different counters for different classes of nouns is a pretty strange feature, but I'd imagine no stranger than the Japanese might consider our plurals. Japanese (and Chinese) don't inflect nouns for plural agreement at all. From there, imagine how English's seemingly random collection of irregular plurals must seem (feet, oxen, halves, deer, women, mice, children, dice, larvae, alumni, bacteria, etc). I wonder what features of English-origin programming syntax they might link to this bizarre collection of special cases :).
- yangman 15y ago
  To English speakers, using different counters for different classes of nouns is a pretty strange feature... Strange, perhaps, but present. To a native Chinese and Japanese speaker like myself, the list of collective nouns for animals in English is staggering, almost mindblowing, and appears absolutely arbitrary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_collective_nouns_by_subject_A-H http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_collective_nouns_by_sub...
- mechanical_fish 15y ago
  But I'm not sure the existence of this specific feature in the language supports any particular generalizations about a "Japanese mindset." It doesn't, of course! I thought about making that point explicitly, but eventually decided that the OP was obviously a big joke so I might as well go along with it. ;) One of the most fun things to do in linguistics class is to identify the supposedly-unique features of odd foreign languages and then find them in English. Using tone to convey meaning? I think you might be able to come up with some kind of example. Using clicks as phonemes? Tsk, tsk, tsk. And so on. And English has formal and informal modes. There's studies showing that, like, people speaking to each other informally, like, use all these, um, little interjections, for which they are sometimes mocked as inarticulate. But put them in a different social situation, and their speech tends to become more formal and those "likes" disappear. English has lost most of German's fancy gender and case-marking systems, but there are fascinating residues left over. I forget the detailed examples; hopefully I kept my notes from that class.
cdavid 15y ago
Ah, but they are not synonyms, since you cannot use one for the other: you cannot use the counter for animal for things (except for puns - I let you guess what it means to use the counter for long, thin things to count guys). I am no specialist in Japanese, but my understanding is that a likely reason for the various counters in Japanese is linked to the absence of singular/plural and male/female distinction in nouns, verbs, etc... I don't know about Chinese, but in Japanese, you can omit a lot of words which would be mandatory in western languages (e.g. the subject). As for the OP, this is most likely cultural bias: latin has similar traits as far as grammar goes (verbs can go pretty much anywhere, for example).
drdaeman 15y ago
> I was told that in Japanese (which I don't speak), you might use a different word for "one" when saying "one cat" versus "one house" or "one country," True, but partially. CJK languages have a property that a numeral alone is not enough to quantify noun and a special "counting suffix" is required. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_counter_word http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_counter_word

masklinn 15y ago

It probably has more to do with these words (or syntaxes) meaning the same thing in the various languages Matz got inspiration from (Perl and FP languages use `map`, Smalltalk uses `collect`). One of the personality traits Ruby got from Perl was being a grab-bag of a bunch of stuff.

JMStewy 15y ago

This is true, and it's not unique to Japanese (Chinese does it too). But I'm not sure the existence of this specific feature in the language supports any particular generalizations about a "Japanese mindset." To English speakers, using different counters for different classes of nouns is a pretty strange feature, but I'd imagine no stranger than the Japanese might consider our plurals. Japanese (and Chinese) don't inflect nouns for plural agreement at all. From there, imagine how English's seemingly random collection of irregular plurals must seem (feet, oxen, halves, deer, women, mice, children, dice, larvae, alumni, bacteria, etc). I wonder what features of English-origin programming syntax they might link to this bizarre collection of special cases :).

yangman 15y ago
To English speakers, using different counters for different classes of nouns is a pretty strange feature... Strange, perhaps, but present. To a native Chinese and Japanese speaker like myself, the list of collective nouns for animals in English is staggering, almost mindblowing, and appears absolutely arbitrary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_collective_nouns_by_subject_A-H http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_collective_nouns_by_sub...
mechanical_fish 15y ago
But I'm not sure the existence of this specific feature in the language supports any particular generalizations about a "Japanese mindset." It doesn't, of course! I thought about making that point explicitly, but eventually decided that the OP was obviously a big joke so I might as well go along with it. ;) One of the most fun things to do in linguistics class is to identify the supposedly-unique features of odd foreign languages and then find them in English. Using tone to convey meaning? I think you might be able to come up with some kind of example. Using clicks as phonemes? Tsk, tsk, tsk. And so on. And English has formal and informal modes. There's studies showing that, like, people speaking to each other informally, like, use all these, um, little interjections, for which they are sometimes mocked as inarticulate. But put them in a different social situation, and their speech tends to become more formal and those "likes" disappear. English has lost most of German's fancy gender and case-marking systems, but there are fascinating residues left over. I forget the detailed examples; hopefully I kept my notes from that class.

cdavid 15y ago

Ah, but they are not synonyms, since you cannot use one for the other: you cannot use the counter for animal for things (except for puns - I let you guess what it means to use the counter for long, thin things to count guys). I am no specialist in Japanese, but my understanding is that a likely reason for the various counters in Japanese is linked to the absence of singular/plural and male/female distinction in nouns, verbs, etc... I don't know about Chinese, but in Japanese, you can omit a lot of words which would be mandatory in western languages (e.g. the subject). As for the OP, this is most likely cultural bias: latin has similar traits as far as grammar goes (verbs can go pretty much anywhere, for example).

drdaeman 15y ago

> I was told that in Japanese (which I don't speak), you might use a different word for "one" when saying "one cat" versus "one house" or "one country," True, but partially. CJK languages have a property that a numeral alone is not enough to quantify noun and a special "counting suffix" is required. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_counter_word http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_counter_word