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English, unlike the 'symbolic' languages they studied, doesn't have narrow cultural roots; it agglomerates Proto-Indo European, Germanic, Celtic, Italic, and ot

English, unlike the 'symbolic' languages they studied, doesn't have narrow cultural roots; it agglomerates Proto-Indo European, Germanic, Celtic, Italic, and others. Chinese and Japanese are far more monocultural, and developed somewhat linearly. It would be very interesting to see research on the inverse: native English speakers who experience dyslexia in other languages. Also research on non-symbolic language dual learning (e.g., German speakers who learn English).

green-bottle 6y ago
I feel that you are making a mistake that many native language speakers make in saying that their language has a complex nonlinear history compared to other languages which they happen to not know much about. It just seems so for native speakers as they know a lot more about the history of their language than others. English speakers seem particularly susceptible to it since its lineage has been extensively studied. It may also just seem so to me since I hang around primarily in the English speaking Internet.
- wegwerfbar 6y ago
  > I feel that you are making a mistake that many native language speakers make in saying that their language has a complex nonlinear history compared to other languages which they happen to not know much about. But it also seems to actually be the case for english https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/06/28/english-loanword-champion-world/FdWfKxOeBE47uNgcV1ApcI/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/06/28/english-loanwor... “ In the Max Planck Institute’s World Loanword Database, Mandarin Chinese has the lowest percentage of borrowings of all 41 languages studied, only 2 percent. (English, with one of the highest, has 42 percent.) In part because of the difficulty of translating alphabet-based languages into Chinese characters” English just does has more loanwords than most other european (and proto-indo-european) languages. And this isn’t an artefact of spanish or german or what have you having been studied less. (Though I fully admit that giving Japanese as an example of a more monocultural language in this context is a poor choice given how many non-native words it borrowed from Chinese).
  - stakkur 6y ago
    >> Though I fully admit that giving Japanese as an example of a more monocultural language in this context is a poor choice given how many non-native words it borrowed from Chinese Japanese did (and does) use Chinese characters. But Japanese, in fact, is a perfect example of a language that developed in a very monocultural way; it developed in a single region, and: "Japanese is classified as a member of the Japonic languages or as a language isolate with no known living relatives " from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_language#Current_theories_and_possibilities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_language#Current_theo... A 'language isolate' is a language that has no known genealogical relationship with other outside languages. Japanese developed as a fairly isolated language. Only since the 1850s has the Japanese borrowing of loanwords really took off, and those are mostly limited to English words for technology and other more 'modern' objects.
    - wegwerfbar 6y ago
      Hi, thanks for your reply. Your remarks about its genetic lineage and development in a single area are spot on and relevant. > Only since the 1850s has the Japanese borrowing of loanwords really took off, and those are mostly limited to English words[...] Are you sure you meant to say English? [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Japanese_vocabulary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Japanese_vocabulary - though even the article you linked specifically says it has a large portion of Chinese loans ]. Though Chinese borrowing started in the 4th century into Japanese, so - are you saying Japanese borrowings from Chinese particularly accelerated in the 1850s (If you could find some source for this claim, it’d be appreciated - I wasn’t able to find one and it seems unlikely, given that this was the point at which it started to lean more European in terms of its borrowings)? To my knowledge English borrowings in Japanese are modern (after WW2). I’m confused!
    - jhanschoo 6y ago
      Being a language isolate or not doesn't say anything about how diverse the influences of a language's current structure and vocabulary, or its speakers' societies, might be. See my cousin comment.
jhanschoo 6y ago
There are a lot of incorrect premises in this comment. > Chinese and Japanese are far more monocultural, and developed somewhat linearly. > it agglomerates Proto-Indo European, Germanic, Celtic, Italic, and others And ultimately, Germanic, Celtic, Italic and others are all PIE languages. By that dime, you will also find in Mandarin words that come from intercourse with the various Chinese dialects (e.g. 尷尬) and its Classical Chinese roots (飲食, vs. 吃 and 喝), as well as its neighbours; e.g. reborrowing (和平 from japanese 平和). Since modernization, you will find calques from European languages, or transliterations. It's also easy to find lots of Buddhist concepts that have entered the language. With Japan not being a regional power for most of its early history, you have even more diverse influences. On the native language you have an extensive and violent borrowing from Chinese in several waves that have completely transformed the language not unlike English's borrowings from Norman, French, and Latin. And of course, the Buddhist vocabulary as well. Then from Portuguese traders you have several borrowings from them, and from its friendship with Germany, more borrowings from them. And these days, you have wasei-eigo, English words reinterpreted into Japanese with somewhat different meanings. Their development only looks "linear" when viewed from a position of ignorance.
deleted 6y ago
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green-bottle 6y ago

I feel that you are making a mistake that many native language speakers make in saying that their language has a complex nonlinear history compared to other languages which they happen to not know much about. It just seems so for native speakers as they know a lot more about the history of their language than others. English speakers seem particularly susceptible to it since its lineage has been extensively studied. It may also just seem so to me since I hang around primarily in the English speaking Internet.

wegwerfbar 6y ago
> I feel that you are making a mistake that many native language speakers make in saying that their language has a complex nonlinear history compared to other languages which they happen to not know much about. But it also seems to actually be the case for english https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/06/28/english-loanword-champion-world/FdWfKxOeBE47uNgcV1ApcI/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/06/28/english-loanwor... “ In the Max Planck Institute’s World Loanword Database, Mandarin Chinese has the lowest percentage of borrowings of all 41 languages studied, only 2 percent. (English, with one of the highest, has 42 percent.) In part because of the difficulty of translating alphabet-based languages into Chinese characters” English just does has more loanwords than most other european (and proto-indo-european) languages. And this isn’t an artefact of spanish or german or what have you having been studied less. (Though I fully admit that giving Japanese as an example of a more monocultural language in this context is a poor choice given how many non-native words it borrowed from Chinese).
- stakkur 6y ago
  >> Though I fully admit that giving Japanese as an example of a more monocultural language in this context is a poor choice given how many non-native words it borrowed from Chinese Japanese did (and does) use Chinese characters. But Japanese, in fact, is a perfect example of a language that developed in a very monocultural way; it developed in a single region, and: "Japanese is classified as a member of the Japonic languages or as a language isolate with no known living relatives " from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_language#Current_theories_and_possibilities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_language#Current_theo... A 'language isolate' is a language that has no known genealogical relationship with other outside languages. Japanese developed as a fairly isolated language. Only since the 1850s has the Japanese borrowing of loanwords really took off, and those are mostly limited to English words for technology and other more 'modern' objects.
  - wegwerfbar 6y ago
    Hi, thanks for your reply. Your remarks about its genetic lineage and development in a single area are spot on and relevant. > Only since the 1850s has the Japanese borrowing of loanwords really took off, and those are mostly limited to English words[...] Are you sure you meant to say English? [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Japanese_vocabulary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Japanese_vocabulary - though even the article you linked specifically says it has a large portion of Chinese loans ]. Though Chinese borrowing started in the 4th century into Japanese, so - are you saying Japanese borrowings from Chinese particularly accelerated in the 1850s (If you could find some source for this claim, it’d be appreciated - I wasn’t able to find one and it seems unlikely, given that this was the point at which it started to lean more European in terms of its borrowings)? To my knowledge English borrowings in Japanese are modern (after WW2). I’m confused!
  - jhanschoo 6y ago
    Being a language isolate or not doesn't say anything about how diverse the influences of a language's current structure and vocabulary, or its speakers' societies, might be. See my cousin comment.

jhanschoo 6y ago

There are a lot of incorrect premises in this comment. > Chinese and Japanese are far more monocultural, and developed somewhat linearly. > it agglomerates Proto-Indo European, Germanic, Celtic, Italic, and others And ultimately, Germanic, Celtic, Italic and others are all PIE languages. By that dime, you will also find in Mandarin words that come from intercourse with the various Chinese dialects (e.g. 尷尬) and its Classical Chinese roots (飲食, vs. 吃 and 喝), as well as its neighbours; e.g. reborrowing (和平 from japanese 平和). Since modernization, you will find calques from European languages, or transliterations. It's also easy to find lots of Buddhist concepts that have entered the language. With Japan not being a regional power for most of its early history, you have even more diverse influences. On the native language you have an extensive and violent borrowing from Chinese in several waves that have completely transformed the language not unlike English's borrowings from Norman, French, and Latin. And of course, the Buddhist vocabulary as well. Then from Portuguese traders you have several borrowings from them, and from its friendship with Germany, more borrowings from them. And these days, you have wasei-eigo, English words reinterpreted into Japanese with somewhat different meanings. Their development only looks "linear" when viewed from a position of ignorance.

deleted 6y ago

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