Responding to the popularity of this morning's post on the politico-lexical economy of fair, here's a list of some earlier LL posts on aspects of the No Word for X meme and its rhetorical deployment [updated for some later ones as well…]: "No word for 'runoff'?", 12/23/2020 "'No words for mental health'", 9/8/2020 "Two few […]
Over the years, we've discussed many cross-cultural comparisons based on the "No Word for X" meme. In the most recent LL post on the subject ("No word for integrity?", 12/31/2008), I asserted that [W]hen someone makes a sociological point by saying that language L has no word for concept C, you'll rarely lose by betting […]
According to Michael J. Jordan, "Corruption in Bulgaria tests EU expansion", Christian Science Monitor, 12/31/2008: As the economy worsened here, so, too, did corruption, says John Heck, who runs an EU-funded, anticorruption project in Sofia. The problems are ingrained deeply into modern Bulgarian society, he says, "Integrity – if you look in the Bulgarian dictionary, […]
Recent article in Scientific American: This Ancient Language Has the Only Grammar Based Entirely on the Human Body An endangered language family suggests that early humans used their bodies as a model for reality By Anvita Abbi on June 1, 2023 From just a small handful of Andaman Islanders, the last speakers of their languages, […]
Randy Alexander reports that during a guitar lesson, he asked his student: Māmā de dìdi de nǚér shì biǎomèi ma？ 妈妈的弟弟的女儿是表妹吗？ "Is your mother's younger brother's daughter your younger maternal female cousin?" The student replied: wǒyě bútài qīngchǔ děngyíxià 我也不太清楚等一下 "I don't quite know either, wait a minute."
Earlier today, Victor Mair was naive enough to believe a BBC "No word for X" story, and spread some of its misinformation in his post "No 'no'". He cited "The language that doesn't use 'no'", by Eileen McDougall, BBC (8/9/22); and at least in the aspect that Victor (and the headline) featured, that article is […]
From S. Robert Ramsey: The Naxi Story of Creation and the Great Flood
Today, on #LinguisticsWithSlava The Russian word for a sports fan is "bolel'shchik." I'll explain in a minute. But first, did you know that for a long time Americans had no word for it? Sports fans appeared in the US in the 1850s, but the word didn't come about until early XX c.. — Slava Malamud […]
[This is a guest post by Mark Metcalf, who makes no claim to having any language proficiency with New Testament Greek.] Since you're an überlinguist, thought I'd forward some thoughts on a recent translation of the Gospels by Sarah Ruden. Wasn't sure if you're interested in New Testament translations, but her introduction is inspiring. […]
Esha Mitra, "India didn't prioritize mental health before Covid-19. Now it's paying the price", CNN 9/7/2020: No words for mental health [,,,] Experts say the historical reluctance to address mental health in India could be partly due to a lack of terminology. None of India's 22 languages have words that mean "mental health" or "depression." […]
At about 22:45 of the BBC discussion program The Moral Maze, Natasha Devon asserts Your browser does not support the audio element. Well it- I- again, one of the problems is language, actually, because in English, we have a very limited emotional vocabulary. When you look at other languages, they- they have a much broader amount of […]
In the following posts, we've been tackling the thorny, multifaceted question of whether Vietnamese has words and lexemes, as opposed to having syllables and morphemes: "Diacriticless Vietnamese on a sign in San Francisco" (9/30/18) "Words in Vietnamese" (10/2/18) During the course of our discussions, the parallel question of whether Sinitic had words or not also […]