7 ms·

It’s interesting to me how comparatively impoverished Anglish seems. Here’s to promiscuity!

tomxor 4y ago
Is that mainly due to it being based upon a historical snapshot of English? that by definition never evolved further. If it had the same huge population of English speakers over hundreds of years (i.e was a living language) then it may also have evolved a diverse range of words without the need to absorb other languages - not that I care for it. On a slight tangent, I've noticed when translating from English to Chinese (mandarin) many of the equivalent literal translations do not have a unique single purpose word where English does. So it can sound much like this Anglish e.g the literal translation of "thigh" is just "big leg", and this is not a one off. I have no idea why this is.
- gfaure 4y ago
  That's because that _is_ the word (大腿) for thigh — native speakers don't perceive it as "big leg", which would be 大的腿 instead. This is exactly analogous to "little finger" in English.
  - nick123567 4y ago
    Except we call that one Pinky
    - Veen 4y ago
      Americans do. It’s not common in the UK.
- deafpolygon 4y ago
  In Dutch, as an example we have a word called zoetwater - which if you translate it literally, is "sweet water". But it is the word for 'freshwater' in English [as opposed to saltwater], not some kind of sweet water. Even though zoetwater could be literally translated, no one really knows it means freshwater in English. There is advertisement for 'fris water' or 'vers water', which means fresh water correctly.
  - zirgs 4y ago
    Turns out that we aren't the only ones that call freshwater "sweet water".
  - aden1ne 4y ago
    "fris" is closer to "chilly", tho.
    - deafpolygon 4y ago
      Yea, that's true - in the sense that it's "chilled", or "cool" (i.e. a frisdrank) but not in the sense that it's cold (koud) or chilly outside.
      - englishrookie 4y ago
        Well, you can say "het is fris buiten", meaning "it's chilly outside".
  - culebron21 4y ago
    Same in Romance languages: it acqua dolce vs acqua salata, es agua dulce/salada, pt agua doce/salada (all meaning sweet/salt water).
  - pja 4y ago
    Fresh, non-salt water used to be called sweet in English too, but that term has fallen out of use for some reason.
    - deafpolygon 4y ago
      TIL. Thanks, I wasn't aware of that.
  - kseistrup 4y ago
    Fun fact: If you follow an extreme lowcarb diet (e.g., Atkinson, where you aim at getting 25g of carbs or less daily) for a long time, some things that didn't have a sweet taste before get a sweet tinge. One of them is water. I remember thinking “Oh, that's why it's called ‘zoetwater’ in Dutch!”
mc32 4y ago
There are lots of languages that are more insular than English. Do you consider them to be impoverished, why so? All a language needs is to provide the ability to communicate to its speakers.
mkotowski 4y ago
Opinion of a Polish guy: In my eyes, English is pretty bloated, when seemingly almost every concept can have three or more alternative words, each from a different source. It is all matter of perspective, I suppose. :) I think such feeling can be caused by languages that rely strongly on creating compound words rather than borrowing a new ones (example from the site: Dictionary > Wordbook).
- wolfram74 4y ago
  The counterargument is that lots of words allow for precise concision. wordbook can be ambiguous, as almost all books are filled with words. Is wordbook specifying that this book is a word book as opposed to a picture book? wordkenbook might be less ambiguous, but maybe this referring to all nonfiction books using words? all that being said, I think uncleftish[0] beholding is an amazing piece of text and a good exercise for young physicists [0]https://groups.google.com/g/alt.language.artificial/c/ZL4e3fD7eW0/m/_7p8bKwLJWkJ?pli=1 https://groups.google.com/g/alt.language.artificial/c/ZL4e3f...
  - lifthrasiir 4y ago
    > wordbook can be ambiguous, as almost all books are filled with words. Is wordbook specifying that this book is a word book as opposed to a picture book? wordkenbook might be less ambiguous, but maybe this referring to all nonfiction books using words? Your description only applies to a word phrase "word book". The lexicalized word "wordbook" would have its own meaning (presumably one of your suggestions), just like "dictionary" does, but without requiring additional foreign morphemes.
    - atchoo 4y ago
      I was curious about "thesaurus" given that is not a dictionary but still a "word book". According to Google Translate, apparently Wörterbuch also means thesaurus so OP is correct, it is more ambiguous than dictionary. The first suggested translation for thesaurus is... thesaurus... so much for compound words eh?
pantalaimon 4y ago
To me as a native German speaker it feels more homely, but that’s because it’s most of the time pretty much a direct translation of the German words.
danjac 4y ago
Compared to what? German is a rich language with a wealth of literature from novels to philosophy and science/technology, utilizing a much smaller set of root words. English is a very bloated language compared to its European neighbours - it's almost two languages in one. That doesn't make English bad per se, but it makes it more challenging for foreigners to learn.

Is that mainly due to it being based upon a historical snapshot of English? that by definition never evolved further. If it had the same huge population of English speakers over hundreds of years (i.e was a living language) then it may also have evolved a diverse range of words without the need to absorb other languages - not that I care for it. On a slight tangent, I've noticed when translating from English to Chinese (mandarin) many of the equivalent literal translations do not have a unique single purpose word where English does. So it can sound much like this Anglish e.g the literal translation of "thigh" is just "big leg", and this is not a one off. I have no idea why this is.

gfaure 4y ago
That's because that _is_ the word (大腿) for thigh — native speakers don't perceive it as "big leg", which would be 大的腿 instead. This is exactly analogous to "little finger" in English.
- nick123567 4y ago
  Except we call that one Pinky
  - Veen 4y ago
    Americans do. It’s not common in the UK.
deafpolygon 4y ago
In Dutch, as an example we have a word called zoetwater - which if you translate it literally, is "sweet water". But it is the word for 'freshwater' in English [as opposed to saltwater], not some kind of sweet water. Even though zoetwater could be literally translated, no one really knows it means freshwater in English. There is advertisement for 'fris water' or 'vers water', which means fresh water correctly.
- zirgs 4y ago
  Turns out that we aren't the only ones that call freshwater "sweet water".
- aden1ne 4y ago
  "fris" is closer to "chilly", tho.
  - deafpolygon 4y ago
    Yea, that's true - in the sense that it's "chilled", or "cool" (i.e. a frisdrank) but not in the sense that it's cold (koud) or chilly outside.
    - englishrookie 4y ago
      Well, you can say "het is fris buiten", meaning "it's chilly outside".
- culebron21 4y ago
  Same in Romance languages: it acqua dolce vs acqua salata, es agua dulce/salada, pt agua doce/salada (all meaning sweet/salt water).
- pja 4y ago
  Fresh, non-salt water used to be called sweet in English too, but that term has fallen out of use for some reason.
  - deafpolygon 4y ago
    TIL. Thanks, I wasn't aware of that.
- kseistrup 4y ago
  Fun fact: If you follow an extreme lowcarb diet (e.g., Atkinson, where you aim at getting 25g of carbs or less daily) for a long time, some things that didn't have a sweet taste before get a sweet tinge. One of them is water. I remember thinking “Oh, that's why it's called ‘zoetwater’ in Dutch!”

mc32 4y ago

There are lots of languages that are more insular than English. Do you consider them to be impoverished, why so? All a language needs is to provide the ability to communicate to its speakers.

mkotowski 4y ago

Opinion of a Polish guy: In my eyes, English is pretty bloated, when seemingly almost every concept can have three or more alternative words, each from a different source. It is all matter of perspective, I suppose. :) I think such feeling can be caused by languages that rely strongly on creating compound words rather than borrowing a new ones (example from the site: Dictionary > Wordbook).

wolfram74 4y ago
The counterargument is that lots of words allow for precise concision. wordbook can be ambiguous, as almost all books are filled with words. Is wordbook specifying that this book is a word book as opposed to a picture book? wordkenbook might be less ambiguous, but maybe this referring to all nonfiction books using words? all that being said, I think uncleftish[0] beholding is an amazing piece of text and a good exercise for young physicists [0]https://groups.google.com/g/alt.language.artificial/c/ZL4e3fD7eW0/m/_7p8bKwLJWkJ?pli=1 https://groups.google.com/g/alt.language.artificial/c/ZL4e3f...
- lifthrasiir 4y ago
  > wordbook can be ambiguous, as almost all books are filled with words. Is wordbook specifying that this book is a word book as opposed to a picture book? wordkenbook might be less ambiguous, but maybe this referring to all nonfiction books using words? Your description only applies to a word phrase "word book". The lexicalized word "wordbook" would have its own meaning (presumably one of your suggestions), just like "dictionary" does, but without requiring additional foreign morphemes.
  - atchoo 4y ago
    I was curious about "thesaurus" given that is not a dictionary but still a "word book". According to Google Translate, apparently Wörterbuch also means thesaurus so OP is correct, it is more ambiguous than dictionary. The first suggested translation for thesaurus is... thesaurus... so much for compound words eh?

pantalaimon 4y ago

To me as a native German speaker it feels more homely, but that’s because it’s most of the time pretty much a direct translation of the German words.

danjac 4y ago

Compared to what? German is a rich language with a wealth of literature from novels to philosophy and science/technology, utilizing a much smaller set of root words. English is a very bloated language compared to its European neighbours - it's almost two languages in one. That doesn't make English bad per se, but it makes it more challenging for foreigners to learn.