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Old 12-05-2013, 10:01 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Postman View Post
Indeed, although at times I find even the vast vocab of English lacks a word to adequate and precisely describe a concept or feeling.

Also, I've heard and observed myself that English tends to be a rather cold, judgemental language. While there are many words for hatred, how many are there for 'love'? Plus there aren't really words in English for different kinds of love. Like agape love, romantic love.etc. Affection or something ain't the same. Plus words like 'evil' have a much more severe connotation in English than their equivalent translations in say Hebrew.

English is far from perfect - no language is (after all words can be a clumsy way of describing the world, but they are indispensable to civilisation. I like to think of them as a poorly built staircase, or tower). And yes, they are products of their environment. Since English isn't confined to England anymore, it is now evolving into different global strains. The internet merely adds to this fragmentation into countless complex strains of it.
English is a pretty adaptable language as well. I favor more than my own native language, to tell you the truth. I feel that English is more flexible than Spanish. An above poster (think it was Bettafish) was also right, in that Japanese and Spanish share the same problem that English and Chinese don't: to describe something, Japanese and Spanish need a whole mouthful of syllables to express an idea or object, Chinese and English do not.

Regarding adaptation, I think each English has its own adaptive share of words. Like US English would tend to have more Spanish vocabulary peppered into it than UK or Australian English. The differences are less now, I think, thanks to the internet and Hollywood

 
Old 12-05-2013, 11:21 PM
 
Location: Melbourne, Australia
9,556 posts, read 20,799,067 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by theunbrainwashed View Post
English is a pretty adaptable language as well. I favor more than my own native language, to tell you the truth. I feel that English is more flexible than Spanish. An above poster (think it was Bettafish) was also right, in that Japanese and Spanish share the same problem that English and Chinese don't: to describe something, Japanese and Spanish need a whole mouthful of syllables to express an idea or object, Chinese and English do not.

Regarding adaptation, I think each English has its own adaptive share of words. Like US English would tend to have more Spanish vocabulary peppered into it than UK or Australian English. The differences are less now, I think, thanks to the internet and Hollywood
Yes, I don't know any other languages so I can't say for sure. It'd be interesting to compare though.

Yes, I think our exposure to American media has made us familiar with a lot of Mexican food items (well we have more Mexican food here now) like tacos, nachos, burritos, enchiladas, salsa, and also Spanish phrases like 'adios', 'amigo', 'hombre', 'vamos', 'gracias'.
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