Why can't anything be 100% clearly translated?

We all do-- Doreen's fashionable 'thinking' sounds like a good pair of gibberish.

I know this from history, not this thread.

Then that would be more a philosophical problem of 'qualia' , a term used to describe the subjective experience of existence.

You and I, for example, would not experience the sound of a skull smashing to pieces the same way.

This is not a linguistic problem-- this is why I do no agree that it is a colloquialism.

A colloquialism would be some snarky word or phrase use to describe the event of a skull being crushed, and it would would vary from place to place.

Doreen is using the word wrong.

 

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Doreen certainly hasn't used the word "colloquial" in the sense it is generally used. But as I sketched out above, I can think of a use in which it would make sense.

There are people who call Latin a dialect of Sanskrit. From a Sanskrit-centred perspective, this is justified.

 

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Allright.

How so?

 

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And how does it relate to Doreen's misuse of 'colloquialism'?

 

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That's my favorite. But honestly, most of those confusions can be avoided by different word choice.

And English is not the only language with homophones, ie words that are spelled or sound similar but have different meanings.

 

Fraggle:

You weren't.

You and I know precisely what you did. You, like a million other people, caught the slightest glimpse of this Sapir-Worf hypothesis and began repeating it-- without thinking-- because it appealed to this need you have to romanticize foreigners.


You might as well prattle about the billion words that Eskimos have for snow.
"OOOhhhhhh", say it with me "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh":

Eskimos, unlike, say, the American with 'slush' "flurry" and "sleet", have so many words for snow that its exotic and fascinating!

Why? Because they eat blubber and hunt seal with their molars?

If I were to tell you that computer programmers have dozens of words for fonts-- Helvetica, Times New Roman, Gaelic, Sans serif, Your Mother-- you'd find it boring and wonder that such a thing should be worth intellectual discussion.

But if "Computer Programmer" was the name of some savage in Borneo that ate his Durian fruit with his anus, why, you'd be suffocating these forums with emotionally stimulating chunks you selected out of a theory you never questioned because of the exotic perspectives of savages you wished to believe in.

There's nothing 'automatic' about language.

What is the past or the future but a series of evening and mornings strung along an eternity of tomorrows and yesterdays?

Who were these people?

Anthropologists? Linguists? Or mere hippies still trying to find themselves among brutes?

You're still going off the haphazard, chaotic mess of hearsay.

By the by--

Where in "Hmmm ok I don't see that at all but ok" do you find the word 'word' meaning 'palabra'?

You're reading yourself into the translation. The closest, most literal translation of the following in Spanish:
"Hmmm ok I don't see that at all but ok"

Is:

"Hmmm...ok, no lo veo para nada, pero ok"

Puerto Ricans, Costa Ricans, Columbians, and Mexicans-- just to name a few-- all have "ok" in their vocabulary.

I hear that you, as a moderator, used to go around editing people's posts just to butcher what they wrote with your "corrections".
You're doing that here, meddling that busy little body of yours into people's work like a nosy teacher hacking, twisting, slashing, distorting something to fit your view of correctness.

There was no need to put 'palabra' in there.

 

2010 minus 50 is 1960.

There weren't any hippies in 1960?

Live with it.

My own 'reputation' follows me around like a lost, hungry piranha.
Goes from frustrating to boring, but you deal with it.

Ah, teachers, social workers, and health care workers-- in other words, overpaid, underworked dilettantes who barely skim the surface of things before pretending an understanding of it.

I would value the work of an anthropologist like Ekkehart Malotki or Steve Pinker, professor of cognitive neuroscience at none other than MIT, over the presumptions of some starry-eyed social worker getting fat off the state.

True

But you didn't.

You, unintentionally perhaps, complicated it. Then again, Polonious never intended the long wind of his mind.

Like defacating, one doesn't "intend" what comes perfectly natural.

I appreaciate the effort, but only I say what goes for gendanken's needs around here.

I don't think this adds or detracts from the discussion, so to continue this point is counterproductive.

I say anyone else reading this should breathe life into this sagging thread and just pull my finger.

 

You're my favorite iconoclast

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Gasp!

Fraggle's an icon?
I con't imagine you worshipping at his scrotum.

 

Fraggle:

SHAME on you.

GOD, if I could get my hands on this forum-- do you realize that language is the most accessible science in the world?

Unlike physics or chemisty, every human does it-- he breathes and eats it, thinks it, fornicates with it, everything a man does is contaminated with the wonderful scent of language.


If you even had a lick of the spiritual fire that singed the eyebrows of the poorest wretch that wrote for a living, this place would blind with the energy emblazoned in any topic dealing with such an explosive as Language.

I bet that if you were to do this, you'd have as many proles in here as they do in Free Thoughts.

Ah.

Sorry, I'm a little too young to know.

Well, people here do and you can hear the maw of their mind snap shut because I'm a 'bitch'.

Ooohhh.

No, the dictionary definition of that is 'for suckers'

 

With respect to any sophisticated thought, it is easy enough to get drawn into disagreements over the meaning when dealing with the work in one language. Language is often susceptible of more than one interpretation and the author may not have been clear in his or her own thinking to start with. When the author is no longer around to clarify his or her thoughts, the problems become intractable...and even if the author is there, who is to say that the author's interpretation is more correct than a reader's? If the goal is truth, then the author's thoughts are irrelevant except where they are closer to truth. If the goal is entertainment, then neither need be thought of as more correct, since entertainment value is subjective.

These problems are compounded when dealing with a separate language, as it adds a new layer of possible error into the mix. Words do have subtle shades of meaning that can be added or lost. If you believe that reaching the "original intent" of the author is important, that additional layer is detrimental to that effort.

 

There is a reason why the Hebrew bible commands, not to add or subtract anything. Hebrew is a very pristine language, with only 22 letters, inclusive of numerals and music notes. Examining its litrary style, it surpasses the likes of Shakespear with its never dated phrases and metaphors [Let there be light has manifold meanings and applications], and it appropriately begings with IN THE BEGINNING, followed by the word, GOD. Here's a hint what this language highlights:

 

More rubbish from you. And a link is required for cut and paste quotes.

 

If you wish to really impress me, I can make it very easy for you. Please post a Canaanite alphabtical book predating the Hebrew: you should have 100's - I ask for just one. Or any other language you wish. I think that is a reasonable request.

o
There was no problem of a cencus in the millions - how come? The Hebrew alphabets are also numbers, yet you say I am confusing alphabets with numbers - that does not sound right.

The Josephus documents, as well as some ancient Greek archives, say the Greeks got their alpha beta from the Hebrew alef bet. Most European fostered links and encyclopedea say Phoenecian. I say, which ever one can prove an earlier hard copy wins.

No dispute about commerce being a strong reason for inventing numbers. But this does not account for litrary, gramatical, alphabetical writings.The oldest alphabetical book I know of is the Hebrew bible - book meaning a continueing multi-page narrative.

I've of course read such descriptions. However, I also checked them out, and I find you are not addressing the impacting factors here. Where is the Phoenecian alphabetical books - which museum? With regard Egypt, do I have to remind you, they did not have alphabetical books when the Israelites left - nor did they speak Hebrew - so how could the latter have derived from there? Fundamental factors must apply.

 

No link available. I got that from a pamplet in a lecture series. Which part is rubbish - you never said?

 

The vast majority of it, as shown by Fraggle (and your subsequent misunderstanding or misreading of his reply). Including this:

THAT is a purely subjective opinion.

On the other hand, posting unsubstantiated rubbish does appear to be your forte.