Brunnen

In diesem Fall

Languages mostly work with the capacity they've been given - or rather - with the capacity they give to ideas. The only time languages start looking lacking, incomplete or unevolved is when translations are needed. The situation is similar to us homo sapiens watching back to the skulls of homo erectus and what we see is a "developing ancestor" with brain "not fully developed". Thus, we judge a different truly functional system with our standards. Come on, homo erectus didn't evolve to become us, its meaning of life was not to be a tool to create us.

Still, even if translations aren't needed, languages sometimes clearly show imperfections and gaps in their thought expression and diversity capabitilies. Here are some examples taken from the Finnish language.
I wrote a text that includes many examples of words with more than one meaning and have then translated the text in two different ways.

"Minun koirani!, huusi neiti nähdessään irlanninsetterinsä hyppäävän veteen. "Ei hätää, naapurini ui noutamaan koirasi!" lohdutti tapahtumaa vierestä seurannut rouva. "Näetkö hänet punaisessa paidassa? Hän näyttää tuovan koirasi rantaan".

This could text could mean

1) "My dog!, screamed a lady as she saw her Irish setter jumping into the water. "No worry, my neighbour is swimming to save your dog!" comforted a lady who had been watching the incident. "Do you see him in the red shirt? It seems he is briring your dog onto the shore".

2) "My dogs!, screamed a lady as she saw her Irish setter jumping into the water. "No worry, my neighbour swam to save your dogs!" comforted a lady who had been watching the incident. "Do you see her in the read shirt? It seems she is bringing your dogs onto the shore".

I guess some Indo-European-speakers find it disburbing not to know if the saviour was she or he. For Finns, that information apparently has never mattered too much.

For a Finn, English language too has some lacks. One of such words is jaksaa. In Swedish it's orka. It means a state where you're tired (mentally or physically) to do something or anything.

Mä en jaksa! = I don't have the energy to do it / I cannot do it.

But the translation is lacking. By using "have the energy to do sth" it gets too scientific. Jaksaa doesn't necesarily have a thing to do with energy. It was used well before people became aware of that field of physics. And the verb can is just too simple, besides, it also means the lack of ability.

As said in the beginning, all languages function in their own field and in their own environment where they are the perfect match. This leads to the question: What consequences did colonialism have on people in Africa, Australia and the Americas when they were adviced or forced to speak a language that had evolved in a different environment? Honestly spoken, I would not be able to imagine that French or English was spoken in Finland. Red mailboxes along wintery, snowy, slippery roads in small villages with texts "Depardieu", "Costeau" or "Sarcossy".

posted by Anicko @ 1:11 PM