FEELINGS (Abstract Notions) + JOHN

[Bryan Gordon]

It often happens that a language doesn't have a concept that another
language does happen. This doesn't necessarily mean that the concept
is "not important" to the culture, but it does mean that in past
historical time the concept was unimportant enough not to develop a
concept word.

People create new concepts all the time, though, and they often invent
words for them. We invent words in English so often it makes our heads
spin. When they brought Hebrew back from the grave, they took hundreds
of words for things that hadn't existed in 2000 years, and twisted
them into words for things that exist now.

Both of these - the English way and the Hebrew way - are possible ways
to come up with words for new concepts.

In terms of the particular concept in question, an interesting
strategy would be this (assuming that there are no fluent speakers to
ask):

a) Look at the words you want to tie to this concept, like "feels
good" "feels helpless" "hurt one's feelings". What do they have in
common? Likely some of them but not all have some stem or pattern in
common.

b) Look at other concepts in the language. How are they formed from
similar stems and patterns?

c) Use something similar.

This way you avoid having too much English borrowing by using stems
and patterns that come from the same language. The French had no word
for "email", so they invented one based on words they already had:
"courier électronique", or the abbreviation "courriel". Of course most
people say "e-mail" anyway. But who knows? "Courriel" could catch on
eventually. Of course it's much easier to "force" a word to catch on
when it's only a few people you have to convince instead of hundreds
of millions.

Look at umbrella concept words we already have. "Furniture" is a weird
word if you think about it. It describes a bunch of wood and
upholstery constructs that seat either your food, your things or your
tush. Languages closely related to English have no word like this.
German says "Möbel" which is a word for a single piece of furniture,
not for the concept as a whole. Clearly "Möbel" which comes from
"mobile" (furniture is more mobile than larger wood constructs like
houses for instance) is not even similar to "furniture", which comes
from "furnish". At some point in the past someone who spoke English or
Norman French decided that they needed a word to unite chairs, shelves
and tables, and they decided to use a variant of a verb that meant
"provide" or "accomplish" at the time. They must have thought of
furniture as things you "provide" to the interior of your dwelling, or
as things which "provide" surfaces to get stuff done, or something
like that. We may never know. But that's the way this stuff works.

There's also nothing wrong with pulling a concept word out of left
field like "furniture" from "provide". "Feelings" in English is the
same thing: sadness and hope have little to do with "feeling"
something with your fingers, but that's where the word comes from
anyway. It doesn't have to be the same in every other language. A good
idea I just came up with is "mouth-shapes" to reflect how feelings
show up on our mouths. All languages are free to do whatever they
want.

Note: this kind of "tinkering" with a language is seen by some people
as "tampering" and really irks them! There's a common philosophy that
the way the most conservative speakers speak a language, or the way
the last fluent speakers spoke the language if there are none, is the
only right way. But living languages are NEVER spoken the same way by
all generations. When they brought Hebrew back from the dead, many
people were quaking with anger at how the holy words were being used
to describe everyday modern life and how they weren't "the same" as
the original words. But language doesn't stay the same if it needs to
stay alive. "Tinkering" is an important way to have what you call
"mature conversation in any language", Jimm.

In terms of your question whether it's not worthy of discussion, of
course it is!

In terms of your question whether it's a legitimate concern: that
depends on who's concerned. If the people using the language want to
have a word for a concept, they need to create one. If they have this
desire, then it's a legitimate concern.

What are other people's thoughts on tinkering?

Thanks for this Jimm: it's good to think of languages as living things
being revitalised every now and then instead of the usual view in
linguistics of stale objects to be described and studied!

2007/11/29, Jimm GoodTracks <goodtracks at peoplepc.com>:
>
>
> First, the word is that John is well and attending to every day life stuff
> as we all do.
>
> Second, I got to thinking about the word "Feelings".  In IOM, there are
> words for "feel" as in touch; there are also words, often adjectives that
> can be rendered as intransitive (stative) verbs, i.e., feel ... (good, bad,
> sick, helpless, angry, relieved, ignored).  I have "hurt someone's feelings"
> and "feel like...(whatever...sleep, standing, speaking).
> But a word for the genre, I find nothing.  I looked up cognate languages for
> "feelings" and what little I found, tend to give results similar to what I
> have in IOM.  I looked in Johannes' Hochank, Carolyn's Osage, Mark's Omaha,
> Buechel's Lakota and Williamson's Dakota.  Noone seems to take up the
> subject of Abstract Notions.
>
> Maybe it is not worthy of discussion, or not a legitimate concern.
>
> I dont recall that the list has had discussions on abstract notions.  Unlike
> the nouns of material stubstance, they tend to be a bit elusive.  But they
> are indispensible to mature conversation in any language.
> Jimm
>
>