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One thing that strikes me about this list is the fact that these English-language favorite categories are often used to make judgments about other languages (and their speakers, of course). I work on Hopi, a language once thought to have no word for "time" -- which it does have, though time probably ranks quite low on the list of Hopi preferred conversational topics. People have made all sorts of strange judgments about a culture believed to lack our sense of time.<br><br>Regarding the second-place noun in the list: in my work on modern Mexicano (otherwise known as Aztec, Nahuatl) I found no native word for "person", instead the language uses the Spanish loan "cristiano". I don't know how this lexical caregory was treated in pre-European-conquest times. But note that the English word "person" is also a loan, though it has been used in English in the sense of "human being" since 1225 (according to the OED).<br><br>--Ken<br><br><b><i>"David K. Barnhart"
<dvdbrnhrt@yahoo.com></i></b> wrote:<blockquote class="replbq" style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"> <!-- Network content --> <div id="ygrp-text"> <div>--- In <a href="mailto:lexicographylist%40yahoogroups.com">lexicographylist@<wbr>yahoogroups.<wbr>com</a>, "John Roberts"<br> <dr_john_roberts@<wbr>...> wrote:<br> ><br> > It is not often that lexicographers feature on the BBC news website but <br> > there is a posting there today where they do. The OUP have<br> researched what <br> > are the most common nouns in the English language. The most common is <br> > "time". This is partly because of the scores of expressions in English <br> > featuring
time. But it is mainly because English speakers like to<br> talk about <br> > time a lot.<br> > <br> > TOP 10 NOUNS<br> > 1 Time<br> > 2 Person<br> > 3 Year<br> > 4 Way<br> > 5 Day<br> > 6 Thing<br> > 7 Man<br> > 8 World<br> > 9 Life<br> > 10 Hand<br> > <br> > But I found the most interesting comment was this:<br> > <br> > "The thing that struck me when I put together this list was that 90%<br> of the <br> > top 100 words were one syllable, and that a large proportion were<br> actually <br> > from Old English, meaning the <br> <br> basic words we use all the time in basic <br> > sentences are from before the Norman Conquest," he said. "We always<br> put the <br> > focus on new words, changing language and words from other<br> countries, but in <br> > reality the basic language we use has been the same for hundreds and <br> > hundreds of years."<br> > <br> > This means that at a fundamental level the
English language hasn't<br> changed <br> > much for over 2000 years.<br> > <br> > John Roberts<br> ><br> <br> It seems interesting to me that _time_ is also the first noun in The<br> American Heritage Word Frequency Book (1971) and in The Brown Count<br> (1967). <br> <br> Regards,<br> David K. Barnhart<br> <br> <a href="mailto:Lexik%40highlands.com">Lexik@highlands.<wbr>com</a><br> <br> </div> </div> <span width="1" style="color: white;"></span></div></div></blockquote><br><p>
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