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Average TS developer (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/programmerhumor@lemmy.ml
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[–] 7 points 2 years ago (1 child)

Well, I can't think of an English example from the top of my head, but in German the words for Pear and (light) bulb are the same. So there are some exotic use cases.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    We have plenty of homographs as well, “lead,” “bow,” etc but every once in a while I’m struck by just how massive the vocabulary of English is compared to… well, every other language.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    how massive the vocabulary of English is compared to… well, every other language.

    English doesn't even has definite articles.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    This is giving me stress daymares about Spanish in high school.

    Still, it's an interesting point you make.

    But then again, with definitive articles you have a bunch of things that are not supposed to convey gender conveying gender. Like a toaster... It would suck to have to remember the gender of a toaster, or, well toasters in general.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago* (3 children)

    It's "der Toaster" which makes it masculine. On the other hand, a girl ("das Mädchen") is neuter. The grammatical gender is somewhat arbitrary and does not follow any "real" rules.

    As a German you somehow "feel" if the correct article is used, though.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    It's less about magical feelings but rules that native speakers know but aren't aware of. Toaster is clearly male because nouns constructed from verb+er are always male.

    Also "male gender" is kinda misleading, it's basically a mistake early linguistics made because it was so centered around Indo-European languages. The modern term is noun class, and Indo-European languages share the trait that they have three noun classes, one containing the word for "woman", the other the one for "man", and another the word for "thing". That's where the names come from: Bridges aren't female in German they simply share a noun class with women.

    And girl is neuter in German because all diminutives are. "Deern" is definitely female.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Embarrassingly for someone whose native language is german, I often use the masculine when the neuter should have been used, because they feel the same to me. I never was taught any formal grammar in german, though, so that might play a role.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    We got diff'ernt words fer lightbulb and pear though, I tell ya hwat.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    German has different words, too. Even multiple one depending on accuracy

    • die Birne -> the pear
    • die Glühbirne -> "glowing pear", the light bulb, coming from the shape of the bulb, common, but even Germans see that its dumb
    • die Glühlampe -> "the glowing lamp", coming from the literally glowing filament that is used to produce light, the usual term
    • das Leuchtmittel -> "the thing that shines", no direct translation, closest would be "lamp", to describe, well, a thing that shines, independent of what is used to produce the light, usually used in technical documentation/environment

    German also has multiple other terms to describe a lot of different light bulb shapes and types. Germans can even make up completely new types of light bulbs due to the heavy use of compound words, and every other German can understand that on the fly without further explanation.

    Let me just imagine some.

    • das Bootshausseitenflutlicht -> a floodlight at the side of a boat house
    • die Dreiecksleuchte -> a lamp or light bulb in the shape of a triangle
    • das Hinterhausnachtlicht -> a night light for a part of a tenement house accessible only through a courtyard
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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    That's really cool. For whatever it's worth I was joking. I've always admired German and almost elected to learn it in highschool, but socio-geographically(an off the cuff word combination in English), learning Spanish made more sense, as there are many Spanish speakers. But I digress; thank you for explaining such a neat feature of your language to me. I also must admit that the English word is not totally dissimilar in origin; a light-bulb glows in a lamp, but an onion is a bulb in the ground, so it isn't too different from glowpears.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    That English has more words than other languages is a myth. Idk why but it keeps getting perpetuated so i guess people just believe it to be true.

    Whats more is that its kinda difficult to even narrow down what a word is in a single language, and even more so to find a definition that fits all of them.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)
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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Impressively the babbel article manages to include other commons myths like implying english is some kind of mix language rather than a germanic one when it says "This is largely due to invasions of England by the Vikings and then the Normans" about why English supposedly has more words than other languages. This type of incorporation of loanwords is common in almost all big languages.

    It argues based on dictionaries and effectively debunks why you can't (for comparison I'd like to add that the SAOB of the Swedish Academy lists circa 500k words).

    There's nothing in this article that says English has the most words other than "So, while English is a clear contender for having the most words and German and Turkish have a large capacity for infinite combinations, all languages end up influencing others." Still, there's no justification for the "clear contender" bit other than the Oxford dictionary having more words than Larousse and Littré.

    Feels to me like the article just reinforces the notion (and reality) that you can't even make comparisons like that.

    Nevermind the fact that this idea is a well known myth in linguistics and arguing against it is kind of like arguing against flat earth theory.

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