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a question about language

M

Mongy

Greenlighter
Joined
Mar 23, 2016
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23
so ive been interested in language, spoken and written for awhile, i used to people watch in a city with a thriving university and would here people from many different cultures speak their natice tounge and became interested in the vocalization, the way the language sounded to me, of these languages. it seems as though it is easier to just hear the way a word sounds when you dont understand it...any way recently i began to wonder if there were not some major flaws in translations from one language to another and if it would be better to translate one language into its parent language and then to the parent language of the other language that was meant to be translated to then finally the language....any way that is not the question...i researched a little, read about ancient chinese, nubian, sumerian, and greek and i began to form an idea...what if in the beggining, assuming everyone was mute and could not read some people began to vocalize(maybe singing) and others began to write symbols, it seems to me the chinese, nubian, and sumerian are more meant to be read and the greek more meant to be spoken by . Anyone else have anything to chime in i am not college educated so it is hard for me to write down everything i think about the situation but i find it extremely satisfying to ponder none the less. i researched parent languages and evidently that is a hotly debated topic in the scholarly circles so i just want to know what others think.....also it made me wonder if once people began to speak and write and share ideas, express and establish culture and civilization, if maybe a form of inherent savageness began to grow in mankind that maybe was the precursor to government(true government
), law and order(true law and order) which was and is neccesary to expound the bounds of humanity......and any ideas on pointing me in the right direction of parent languages would be great.
 
Nice ideas.

First, I agree on that "translation is slippery" thing. I mean, except for completely technical texts, translation kills everything. A literary text hinges a lot on the subtleties particular to the language in which it is written for poetic effect. How specific words sound, sentences flow, constructions feel, as well as the tone - for instance, it might be because I am not a native speaker, but I have the impression that in English one is able to transition rather smoothly from formal to informal, while in Portuguese that is totally not the case - the text is either completely square and prudish or instead practically obscene; Vice Brasil try to pull off that "casual but 'intelligent'" vibe but IMO it turned out terrible.

And yes I believe that language was key in allowing us to develop the society we did. Without language communication becomes too primitive and superficial. Primitive because everything not somehow related to "I like/I don't like" becomes impossible to express e.g. imagine explaining to fellow cavemen where you found that banana tree and how they can get there without words or drawings. While there are things that words don't do justice, there are things impossible to express without them. Sometimes me and my gf "not talk" for the fun of it and it is insane, after a while I get this huge urge to get inside her head and find out what she's thinking, as well as to share and get what I'm thinking out of my head.

I think if you surf Wikipedia you'll find plenty of material to read on linguistics. When I was a kid I was fascinated with languages and always visited this site on linguistics (proel.org BTW) though I'm sure nowadays Wikipedia has one thousand times more material than them. Linguists seem to be always trying to trace back the history and genealogy of languages, almost like historians. Particularly most European languages are in the Indo-European group, which embraces the Romance, Germanic (?), Slavic and as well as some middle-eastern languages, so you might wanna look into that? Curiously Hungarian and Finnish are not on this language family so are remarkably different from the western languages. Anyway, and Wittgenstein has some cool stuff to say about language too though it is a little bit different e.g. some thoughts on how we learn the meaning of words, etc... Oh well
 
If I pick some funny vulgar expression from English language, for example, "piece of shit", and translate it literally to my own language (Finnish), it's not necessarily funny anymore. Over here, the translated expression simply describes a concrete physical mass of defecation. In English it sounds funny because it's like "piece of art" or "piece of gold" (something precious), except that it's "shit". At least this is the mental image that I get from it myself, LOL.
 
A piece if shit is more like something not worthwhile or gross/disgusting/despicable.

But if I were to describe some dank bud as "good shit", the connotation of shit is changed.
 
There are very few words that have so many uses and shit.
 
"Shit" is a very malleable (lol) word. Saying "X is shit" is complete opposite of saying "X is the shit". Funny shit.
 
polymath said:
There are very few words that have so many uses and shit.
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i have actually mentioned this shit several times in the past..no joke.

you can take a shit, give a shit, take shit, give people shit, own shit, sell shit, know shit, forget shit, and each time you could be referring to a different kind of shit..
 
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^=D

"No shit, Sherlock" was a phrase that made me feel so grown up back when I was about eleven. To be sarcastic, superior and swear at the same time seemed the pinnacle of adult privilege.
 
Language defines personality somewhat. Certain languages are created to reinforce structure and to the point focus in daily life, like Chinese. English is a very elongated way of using language, it can be articulated with loads of Serotonin and noradrenaline in ways that give way for very anti -depressive expression. Stuff like Spanish or Chinese your meant to have one dialect for communial/narrow living through your Reward center.

I kid you not, my Spanish physics teacher forgot his Accent for one second and he sounded like a gruff totally different alpha male for half a sentence before he strapped back on his "accent dildo".
 
try learning swahili where instead of nouns have two 'genders' they are grouped into categories like 'people', 'long thin things', 'tools, made things', 'things that come in groups', and 'abstractions'. people are class I/II prefix m/wa. one person, mtu mmoja, two people, watu wabili. mGanda is a ganda person, that person speaks kiGanda and lives in uGanda.

on the origin of language:

when the realpeople first came into the new world, they all lived in one place. the wisest among them knew that this was no good, that they would exhaust the land if they all stayed together. but what to do? every night the realpeople built campfires out on the plains, and it was like the stars had fallen to earth, go great were their numbers. the elders came together to discuss this and one ventured, if only we spoke different languages then perhaps we would scatter, and when we came back together, we could exchange foods. another responded, well, we do know brother mockingbird, who knows all of the languages of the birds, perhaps he could help us. so they conferred more and set about making the prayer offering to bring brother mockingbird, who lit on a prickly pear the next morning, saying, yo man, ssup? the elders explained. brother mockingbird told them, yeah, i got dis for ya. how about you, chief, you wanna twist your tongue, too? the elders respectfully declined, keeping the original language. that night, mockingbird flitted from one burnt out camp fire to the next. at each he would take something from his buckskin pouch, holding as if it were full of bees trying to escape, and bury that thing in the ashes, then take something else from the firepit and put that instead into the strange pouch. thus he went from fire to fire until it was all done, then he returned to the chief and gave him the bustling pouch and said, yo, now this shit is on y’all. take that bag out and bury it, burn it and bury it again. thus the elders did, while brother mockingbird sat on his cactus and kibbutzed. then as the sun rose, and the realpeople with it, the found that for each camp fire, those closest to it had a new language that they did not share with any of the other realpeople. they were dismayed, of course, this was a terrible shock – families unable to talk to each other. then brother mockingbird spoke to them all, in every language and none, and said, i have gifted you as your elders requested, but i have also give you my gift, unknown to them. now the realpeople, like me, can learn any language with time and care. SNAP, bitches, ’cause i roll like dat! and he flew away.

so now, rainbow children, when you see a mockingbird, you must tell him, “gracias, arigatoo, xie-xie and shikamoo” to thank him for the gifts of language he gave us.
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