5 ms·
Also human subjectivity makes it kind of impossible to do this sort analysis in a systematic way that yields an apples-to-apples comparison. How do you properly
by bunderbunder 1y ago
Also human subjectivity makes it kind of impossible to do this sort analysis in a systematic way that yields an apples-to-apples comparison. How do you properly account for slang or figurative language in a way that works consistently across languages when every dictionary you might use is maintained by a different group of people with different editorial standards?
And then, yes, agglutination. What's way more interesting to me than how many words Inuktitut or Chinese have for snow is the way the very structure of these languages illustrates how ill-defined a concept "word" is in the first place. You might think you know what it means in English, and that might transfer reasonably well to other Indo-European languages, but as you go further afield you start to see more and more examples where the concept needs heavy modification to remain useful.