Yes, definitely, even in concrete things. I mean, even physical objects are conceptualised differently according to the language available (or used) to refer to them, and abstractions (I suppose) must be more subject to difference. I'd really like to hear what words strike you as being untranslateable from Chinese languages to English. (Of course the immediate problem is that you can't put them into English - but even just an idea?) And it's not just the names of things, either, but the grammar that can be used about them - for example pronouns, and how they're gendered or otherwise distinguished - what is and isn't implied by a pronoun - what can and can't be said. (The loss of the implications of the thou/du/tu pronoun from English for example, or the way some languages that don't habitually use a word that can be directly translated as "I".)
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2014-02-20 08:55 am (UTC)And it's not just the names of things, either, but the grammar that can be used about them - for example pronouns, and how they're gendered or otherwise distinguished - what is and isn't implied by a pronoun - what can and can't be said. (The loss of the implications of the thou/du/tu pronoun from English for example, or the way some languages that don't habitually use a word that can be directly translated as "I".)