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Sikander
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Boulder, Colorado, United Snakes of America
Jan 2000
time: 22:24
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I have to disagree with Raskal's contention that English vocabulary isn't useful / doesn't add to literary richness. Having so many synonyms, many of which are known to the educated speaker means that you can add shades of meaning to sentences that have the same meaning in a literal sense. Thus a sentence can be written with words rooted in Germanic, and it will sound simple or old, while writing with words rooted in French or Latin can sound a lot more sophisticated while conveying the same information.
For poetry the extra words help English close the gap on languages which have far fewer sounds (which immensely simplifies rhyming), and additionally help one to achieve the proper meter. Highly inflected languages like Russian have one significant advantage on English in poetry, which is that they can rearrange the order of their words freely without changing the meaning of a sentence. However objects can be difficult to rhyme in general, as you are often left with few choices in endings, so this tends to even out the word order advantage somewhat.
I would rank English as the equal of many languages in poetry, and superior to most in prose for these reasons. But it can be tough to learn, with plenty of irregularites, some difficult sounds (and a lot of sounds), and some fairly complex grammar as your capabilities progress beyond simple sentences and tenses.
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mindseye
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A Yankee living in Shanghai
Apr 1999
time: 13:24
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Sikander is spot-on, all those "extra" words allow the speaker/writer of English to much more precisely select the shade and tint of meaning intended. Fewer words mean less color. And as Mike H pointed out, many of the phrases Ranskaldan quoted do indeed have very different meanings.
For an example of English vocabulary strength, consider: big, large, huge, immense, mammoth, gargantuan, collosal, goliath, gigantic, great, enormous, vast, massive, etc.
Contrast with Chinese, where it seems you can only say big, very big, really big, extremely big, etc - or so I am told by natives who I've asked (they may have been wrong or misunderstood my question).
Of course, in either language you can also use similes, metaphors, literary references, slang, etc. to add additional flavor. However English seems to me to have the advantage in terms of sheer breadth of vocabulary.
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Alex
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Brasil
Mar 1999
time: 02:24
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I don't think that the number of words or the number of synonyms could be a good indication of how strong or weak a language is.
The most important thing is how that specific language can continually absorb new words and how it can fit those new words in the daily use. English is certainly a very good language for this, and an easy one to learn, too, because its grammatical rules are, in its most basic formulation, really friendly.
mindseye: as for the example you've given, I'd say that Portuguese has the same richness... grande, enorme, gigantesco, gargântuo, homérico, imenso, vasto, colossal, monstruoso... 
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Bereta_Eder
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english is not hard to learn
they're french only simpler
more precise but lacking in nuances
still childish to greek like most languages really
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Nacht
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Amsterdam
May 2002
time: 06:24
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quote:
Originally posted by MikeH
Other languages have a lot ot offer us as well. The classic example being the inuit words for different types of snow that we can't distinguish. |
This is a very stubborn myth.
see http://casino.cchs.usyd.edu.au/csd/...bulary_hoax.htm for example.
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Bereta_Eder
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80% of "english" words come from greek
get a load of this speech, it only uses greek words (with the exception of articles and prepositions)
The First Speech:
“Kyrie,
I eulogize the archons of the Panethnic Numismatic Thesaurus and the Ecumenical Trapeza for the orthodoxy of their axioms, methods and policies, although there is an episode of cacophony of the Trapeza with Hellas.
With enthusiasm we dialogue and synagonize at the synods of our didymous Organizations in which polymorphous economic ideas and dogmas are analyzed and synthesized.
Our critical problems such as the numismatic plethora generate some agony and melancholy. This phenomenon is characteristic of our epoch. But, to my thesis, we have the dynamism to program therapeutic practices as a prophylaxis from chaos and catastrophe.
In parallel, a panethnic unhypocritical economic synergy and harmonization in ademocratic climate is basic.
I apologize for my eccentric monologue. I emphasize my eucharistia to you Kyrie, to the eugenic and generous American Ethnos and to the organizers and protagonists of this Amphictyony and the gastronomic symposia.”
The Second Speech:
"Kyrie,
It is Zeus' anathema on our epoch for the dynamism of our economies and the heresy of our economic methods and policies that we should agonise between the Scylla of numismatic plethora and the Charybdis of economic anaemia.
It is not my idiosyncrasy to be ironic or sarcastic but my diagnosis would be that politicians are rather cryptoplethorists. Although they emphatically stigmatize numismatic plethora, energize it through their tactics and practices.
Our policies have to be based more on economic and less on political criteria.
Our gnomon has to be a metron between political, strategic and philanthropic scopes. Political magic has always been antieconomic.
In an epoch characterised by monopolies, oligopolies, menopsonies, monopolistic antagonism and polymorphous inelasticities, our policies have to be more orthological. But this should not be metamorphosed into plethorophobia which is endemic among academic economists.
Numismatic symmetry should not antagonize economic acme.
A greater harmonization between the practices of the economic and numismatic archons is basic.
Parallel to this, we have to synchronize and harmonize more and more our economic and numismatic policies panethnically.
These scopes are more practical now, when the prognostics of the political and economic barometer are halcyonic.
The history of our didymous organisations in this sphere has been didactic and their gnostic practices will always be a tonic to the polyonymous and idiomorphous ethnical economics. The genesis of the programmed organisations will dynamize these policies. I sympathise, therefore, with the aposties and the hierarchy of our organisations in their zeal to programme orthodox economic and numismatic policies, although I have some logomachy with them.
I apologize for having tyrannized you with my hellenic phraseology.
In my epilogue, I emphasize my eulogy to the philoxenous autochthons of this cosmopolitan metropolis and my encomium to you, Kyrie, and the stenographers.''
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Bereta_Eder
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thats the guy who did it BTW
Prof. Xenophon Zolotas was a well-known Greek economist. The speeches that follow were given to a foreign audience, at the closing session of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, on September 26, 1957 and on October 2, 1959. Prof. Zolotas held the positions of the Governor of the bank of Greece and the Governor of the Funds for Greece, at that time. “I always wished to address this Assembly in Greek, but I realized that it would have been indeed Greek to all present in this room. I found out, however, that I could make my address in Greek which would still be English to everybody. With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I shall do it now, using with the exception of articles and prepositions only Greek words.'”
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Bereta_Eder
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He showed off
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Bereta_Eder
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BTW speaking of languages here's a monumental task
(written... funily enough)
It's all Greek to him
Athanasios Anagnostopoulos is compiling the biggest-ever compendium of the Greek language, with the aim of producing a work to match the Oxford English Dictionary, writes Helena Smith
Friday March 1, 2002
In the shadow of the Acropolis, alongside the theatre where the likes of Aeschylus and Sophocles and other ancient playwrights first put on their shows, Athanasios Anagnostopoulos is hard at work.
With his erudite demeanour and wild, wavy white hair, this kindly linguist looks every bit like a modern-day Plato - a fitting resemblance for a man who has set himself the monumental task of compiling the biggest-ever compendium of the Greek language, from before Homeric times until today. In a linguistic odyssey that has taken him back over 3,000 years he has collected more than 50m words.
"Greek may be Europe's oldest continuously spoken language, and the language that gave birth to letters that signified vowels, but it is also surprisingly poorly researched," he says in his neoclassical offices at the foot of Athens' holy hill.
A surprising amount of English words - some 80% - derive from the 24-letter Greek alphabet. But, he explains, "tens of thousands of Greek words" have gone through different stages and acquired different meanings, which in part accounts for the language's supple syntax and extraordinarily rich vocabulary.
"Our goal, now, is to trace the evolution of every single Greek word from its first appearance in a written text, say in the 4th century BC, to the present."
The giant database that he has set out to create - electronically recording the entire corpus of every Greek writer on CD Rom - will not only chart the unbroken continuity of spoken and written Greek but, he says, enhance global understanding of the language's historical course.
In so doing, it will go a long way towards preserving the record of a history that helped form western civilization.
To fulfil this Herculean mission, Anagnostopoulos and his 15-strong team of linguists and philologists have spent the past five years meticulously scanning more than 3m pages of stories, newspaper articles, books and magazines.
Mr Anagnostopoulos, a former Harvard librarian, has spent decades trawling hundreds of libraries, rare book collections and antique bookshops around the country.
So far, over 20,000 works have been logged on 5m digital pages in a project that was an unexpected crowd-puller at the last Frankfurt book fair.
"This," says the eminent Greek writer Vasillis Boutos, "will undoubtedly be the Parthenon of the Greek language ... the biggest library of its kind in the world."
The Greeks' desire to understand their own language has itself fuelled heated debate. Since the creation of the modern Greek state in 1830, differences over whether to pursue a "purist" or common form of the language sparked bloody violence when thousands rioted on the streets.
But Anagnostopoulos, who has the support of the Greek state, is not mincing his words. Unlike every other attempt to catalogue the language, his team intends to chart it from its origins as a syllabic script, Linear B, to today's demotic Greek.
"Homer is considered the teacher of all Greeks, but he in fact drew on more than 600 years of highly developed language," says Anagnostopoulos.
"The distinct feature of this compendium is that we will be embracing the language in its entirety moving from ancient times through the Byzantine period to the folk tradition and modern Greek masters."
Already, Greek buffs and academics have waxed lyrical over the ability the Thesaurus has given them to cross-reference words, and phrases, throughout the ages.
Although far from finished, Anagnostopoulos says the compendium has also facilitated the teaching of modern Greek on schools. "By tapping into a computer and tracing a word language stops being such an abstract thing - in the classroom the thesaurus can be a very powerful tool."
But, more than anything, once the database is completed Anagnostopoulos says modern Greek will finally be able to acquire a comprehensive dictionary along the lines of the Oxford English Dictionary.
"Once we get to the root of our language, by tracing the course of each and every word, we will be able to get a dictionary as well."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere...,660424,00.html
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20-12-2002 09:58
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