language is a barrier for scientific progress.

[Athelwulf]

I think this would fit best here in Linguistics rather than Free Thoughts, if you don't object, Fraggle. Peace. :m:

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

I don't think you can attach any more affixes onto German words than you can onto English words. Highly agglutinative languages such as Finnish are more capable of this.

I don't think he means suffixes so much as simply shoving words together. That's an analytic language more than an agglutinative one. Chinese typically joins three, five is common, and I think the communists have probably set a record with their newspeak jargon. I think German is at the same level, including the newspeak jargon of the old DDR. We rarely put together more than two in English, even when we form scientific words out of mangled Latin and Greek.

[Esperanto] even has native speakers.

Cool. My wife is the biggest George Soros fan, I can't wait to share this. I knew about people raising their children speaking Esperanto back then but I had never seen one identified.

 

[valich]

Esperanto is a dead language that isn't worth the time to learn because no one uses it anyways. The way technology is moving right now with automatic translation engines available for almost every language, at least every commonly used language, there is, or very soon will be, no reason for anyone in the world to bother learning any other language to translate their research work. You can simply use an internet translation engine to translate it into any language commonly used in the world. The way it stands right now, almost all noteable research work includes an English abstract, but very soon this will also be unnecessary.

 

[Athelwulf]

Esperanto is a dead language that isn't worth the time to learn because no one uses it anyways.

This isn't at all true. I may somewhat see your point when you say it's not worth the time to learn it, but everything else I must disagree with.

The way technology is moving right now with automatic translation engines available for almost every language, at least every commonly used language, there is, or very soon will be, no reason for anyone in the world to bother learning any other language to translate their research work. You can simply use an internet translation engine to translate it into any language commonly used in the world.

Automatic translators are gonna have to get a lot better than they are right now before I'll believe there's no reason for anyone to bother learning another language in order to translate stuff.

 

[valich]

Agglutinated. Yes, that is the word I meant to use but it slipped my tongue - limited memory. Surprised you should mention Finland, but there's been a lot of research into canine genetically inherited disorders that have been coming out of both The Netherlands and Finland lately that I've taken notice of:

LOPADOTEMACHOSELACHOGALEOKRANIOLEIPSANODRIMHY-
POTRIMMATOSILPHIOPARAOMELITOKATAKECHYMENOKICHLEPIKOSSYPHOPHATTOPERIST

German: Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz (Law on the transference of the obligations of alertness of the labelled of the meat of bull and the designation of the bovine ones, dwells or less)

German: EinePersondiebereitistirgendeinenMißbrauchzum- erstemMalzuvergebeneseinezweiteZeitzuduldenaber nieeinedritteZei

German: DONAUDAMPFSCHIFFAHRTSELEKTRIZITAETENHAUPTBETRIEBSWERKBAUUNTERBEAMTENGESELLSCHAFT (80 letters), "the club for subordinate ...
members.aol.com/gulfhigh2/words11.html

Finnish – ~210,000 letters long word that represents the human mitochondrial DNA (Guinness Book of Records): http://www.hut.fi/~jpakkane/sana.html
http://www.plastic.com/article.html;sid=04/06/24/06335692

Finnish – Longest Word for Agglutination: official Guinness world record is Finnish epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydellänsäkäänköhän "Wonder if he can also ... with his capability of not causing things to be unsystematic". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agglutination

English? For a protein: Methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylserylleucylphen-
ylalanylalanylglutaminylleucyllysylglutamylarginyllysylgluta-
mylglysylalanylphenylalanylvalylprolylphenylalanylyalylthre-
onylleucylglcycylaspartylprolylglicylisoleucyglutamylgluta-
minlserylleucyllysylisoleucylaspartylthreonylleucylisoleu-
cylglutamylalanylglyclyalanylaspartylalanylleucyglutamylle-
ucylgluycylisoleucylproluylphenylalanyserylaspartyprolylleu-
celalanylaspartylglycylprolylthreonylisolleucyglutaminylaspa-
raginylalanythreonylleucylarginylalanylphenylalanylalanylal-
anylglycylvalylthreonylprolylalanylglutaminylcysteinylphen-
ylalanylglglutamylmethionylleucyalanylleucylisoleucylarginyl-
glutaminyllysylhistidylprolyuthreonylisoleucylprolylisoleuc-
ylglycylleucylleucylmethionyltyrosylalanylasbaraginylleucyl-
valylphenylalanylsparaginyyllysylglycylisoleucylaspartylglut-
amylphenylalanylyltyrosylalanylglutaminylcysteinylglutamyll-
ysylvalylglycylvalylspartylserylvalylleucylvallalanylaspart-
ylvalylprolylvalvlglutaminylglutamylserylalanylprolylpheny-
lalalrginylglutaminylalanylalanylleucylarginylhistidylasp-
araginylvalylalalprolylisoleucylphenylalanylisoleucylcystei-
nylprolyprolylaspartylalanylaspartylaspartyspartyleucylle-
ucylarginylglutaminylisoleucylalanylseryltyroslglycylargin-
ylglycyltyrosylthreonyltyrosylleucylleucylserylarginlalanyl-
glycylvalylthreonylglycylalanylglutamylasparaginylarginyla-
nylalanylleucylprolylleucylaspaaginylhistidylleucylvalylalan-
yllysylleucyllysylglutamyltyrosylasparagimylalanylalanypro-
lylprolylleucylglutaminylglycylphenlalanylglycylisoleyucyls-
erylalanylprolylaspartylglutaminylvalyllysylalanylalanylisol-
eucylalspartylalanylglycylalanylalanylglycylalanylasoleucylse-
rylglycylserylalanylisoleucylbalyllysylisoleucylisoleucylgluta-
mylglutaminylhistidylasparaginylisoleucylglutamylpronylglu-0
tamyllysylmethionylluecylalanylalanyoeucyllysylvalylpheny-
lalanylvalylglutamilylprolylmethionyllysylalanylalanylthreo-
nylarginylserine. (chem. in Mrs Byrne's Dict. See appendix 2) http://www.webspinning.com.au/home/lambertj/public_html/long.html

American Chemical Society Abstract: ACETYL¬SERYL¬TYROSYL¬SERYL¬ISL¬PHENYL¬ALANYL¬VALYL¬PHENYL¬ANYL¬ASPARTYL¬PROLYL¬ISOLEUCYLEINYL¬THREONYL¬SERYL¬SERYL¬LEUYL¬GLUTAMINYL¬THREONYL¬GLUTAMIYL¬GLUTAMINYL¬VALYL¬GLUTAMINYLLYL¬TRYPTOPHYL¬LYSYL¬PROLYL¬PHVALYL¬ARGINYL¬PHENYL¬ALANYL¬PRL¬TYROSYL¬ARGINYL¬TYROSYL¬ASPAEUCYL¬ISOLEUCYL¬THREONYL¬ALANYASPARTYL¬THREONYL¬ARGINYL¬ASPVALYL¬GLUTAMYL¬ASPARAGINYL¬GLEONYL¬ALANYL¬GLUTAMYL¬THREONYLNYL¬VALYL¬ASPARTYL¬ASPARTYL¬ALSERYL¬ALANYL¬ASPARAGINYL¬ISOLETAMYL¬LEUCYL¬VALYL¬ARGINYL¬GLYL¬GLUTAMINYL¬ASPARAGINYL¬THREORYL¬GLYCYL¬LEUCYL¬VALYL¬TRYPTONE (a protein).

Maori, New Zealand: TAUMATA¬WHAKA¬TANGI¬ HANGA¬KOAUAU¬O¬TAM ATEA¬TURIPUKAKA¬PIKI¬ MAUNGA¬HORO¬NUKU¬P OKAI¬WHENUA¬KITANA¬ TAHU (A hill in New Zealand. This Maori name was in general use, but is now generally abbreviated to Taumata. The name means: the summit of the hill, where Tamatea, who is known as the land eater, slid down, climbed up and swallowed mountains, played on his nose flute to his loved one).

 

[valich]

I don't think he means suffixes so much as simply shoving words together. That's an analytic language more than an agglutinative one. Chinese typically joins three, five is common, and I think the communists have probably set a record with their newspeak jargon. I think German is at the same level, including the newspeak jargon of the old DDR. We rarely put together more than two in English, even when we form scientific words out of mangled Latin and Greek.Cool. My wife is the biggest George Soros fan, I can't wait to share this. I knew about people raising their children speaking Esperanto back then but I had never seen one identified.

Chinese typically joins two. Sometimes three. I'm fairly fluent verbally in communication but never use five. Don't know of any five, although when looking up scientific words in Chinese dictionaries I do come across way more than that.

 

[RoyLennigan]

Don't forget that 75% of our communication bandwidth is non-verbal. Facial expression, body language, tone of voice, etc. Cops, con men, and other people who make a living by reading lies and deceit do it by reading that bandwidth. No different choice of language will change that.

Even still, non-verbal communication is a human language that is based upon subjective interpretation--i.e. it cannot be translated, by the human mind, into pure truth. To strike at the core of the problem, it is the human mind itself that is the reason we cannot convey experiences exactly. We are simply not physically capable of that kind of information processing.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Chinese typically joins two. Sometimes three. I'm fairly fluent verbally in communication but never use five. Don't know of any five.

Ji qi jiao ta che, motorcycle. Gong gong qi che, bus.

 

[valich]

In putonghua, no one calls a motorcycle that. We say: mo-tou-che. Offhand, I can't think of any five.

Wo shi Zhong-guo ren. Ni ne? Wo hen xi-huan xue-xi Zhong-guo hua. Ke-shi, yin-wei wo shi Mei-guo ren, wo zhen-de hen ben. Mei-guo ren dou yi-yang.

Count the words in common everyday conversation: not just throwing out one our two single word examples. I change my statistics. Chinese is 60-70% non-agglutinated single-syllable words. ~30-40% two. ~5% three. ~5% more than three. Adding "de" is not agglutination.