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<div>Dear Andrew,</div> <div> Interesting point about a language - A - being able to express a meaning that is a word in another language -B- although there is no specific word as such in A. For example, Madrugar means to get up in the early hours of the morning, Trasnochar means to go to bed very late. </div> <div> Spanish has three words: clave, tecla and llave whereas English makes do with one - Key. </div> <div> Another fascinating aspect is how Spanish perceives a clear difference between la mar and el mar<BR><BR><B><I>Andrew Dalby <akdalby@hotmail.com></I></B> escribió:</div> <BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid"><TT>--- In
lexicographylist@yahoogroups.com, rtroike@... wrote:<BR>><BR>> <BR>> One point that often gets overlooked in such discussions, but which<BR>> lexicographers should be especially sensitive to, is the correspondence<BR>> between "words" in Language X and "phrases" in Language Y.<BR>> <BR>> In this category, for example, is the encoding of age relative to<BR>speaker<BR>> for male and female siblings in Chinese (and many other languages):<BR>> <BR>> Chinese English<BR>> Male Female Male
Female<BR>> <BR>> Older gege jiejie<BR>> brother sister<BR>> Younger didi meimei<BR>> <BR>> (I like to use this in class to illustrate Pike's notion of "emic" vs<BR>> "etic".)<BR>> <BR>> Emically, English distinguishes only two categories by sex. Korean<BR>actually<BR>> goes Chinese one better by emically encoding sex-reflexivity of<BR>speaker in<BR>> different terms (for older siblings at least), thus increasing the<BR>number<BR>> of potential cells in the etic grid.<BR>> <BR>> Looking at this, one could conclude that
English is woefully<BR>impoverished<BR>> in this obviously (from an East Asian point of view) extremely<BR>culturally<BR>> important distinction of relative age, and a "strong Whorfian" looking<BR>> myopically at this would simply conclude that "English has no term for<BR>> 'older brother' or 'younger brother', etc." So while it would indeed be<BR>> true that there would be no entry in the dictionary, this does not mean<BR>> that English speakers are somehow incapable of expressing this<BR>distinction.<BR><BR>That would have to be a very strong Whorfian indeed. It's true that<BR>Whorf said 'Chinese has no word for "word"', but I don't think he ever<BR>said that Chinese speakers would be incapable of expressing the<BR>distinction.<BR><BR>The stronger-than-Whorf Whorfian, if such there be, would (unless very<BR>myopic) also add that the incapacity you describe only applies to<BR>monolingual English speakers. All who were bilingual in the East Asian<BR>language that
makes the distinction, would be capable of expressing it.<BR><BR>To take a different example, French has no word for 'clock'. It has<BR>different words approximating to 'alarm clock', 'grandfather clock',<BR>'shelf clock', etc. If you go into a French shop and choose the wrong<BR>word, the average French speaker may not be easily able to understand<BR>what you want. But (a) a French speaker who also knows English will<BR>find your problem easy to solve, and (b) any French speaker, once you<BR>get into a philosophical discussion about it, will easily accept that<BR>there is a possible concept, more specific than 'timepiece' and less<BR>specific than 'reveille-matin', for which another language may have a<BR>simple word, and will then be able to express the concept to another<BR>French speaker.<BR><BR>Andrew<BR><BR><A href="http://perso.wanadoo.fr/dalby/">http://perso.wanadoo.fr/dalby/</A><BR><BR><BR><BR></TT></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><p>
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