▲ | daviddragan1 4 days ago | |||||||
I actually had this exact theory but I didn't know it was already a thing. see how Chinese is good for maths, french are melancholic, English is materialistic and world dominant etc. for instance take Romanian, which is vulgar (common, as spoken by peasants) Latin. Romanian is much more expressive and precise than English on matters pertaining to housekeeping and farming (peasant activities in general), whereas English is by a mile more suited and expressive in upper-class discourse (negotiations and reasoning of a more abstract or theoretical form; subtle social dynamics). I think to some extent because say Romanian biases heavily towards agriculture in its lexicon, it is an inherent impediment to try to achieve great scientific discoveries in such a language, whereas English or Chinese are evidently better suited. perhaps this raises the question then of wether a globalised language like English would offer greater fairness and freedom of expression, or wether composite languages are for emerge to eg take advantage of German technicality with English managerial interdynamics and French artistry (English already borrows heavily from French and Latin, and is a Germanic language to begin with so is that why it's now the global default language? is it because it's already a semi-composite language?) | ||||||||
▲ | theGeatZhopa 4 days ago | parent [-] | |||||||
Chinese can't invent new words. It's really difficult to invent new characters holding the new meaning one wants to express. For example the word computer 电脑 (Dian nao) consist of the word for electric/electricity and the word brain. Both together gives the meaning "computer". While English, German, and other 130 languages I googled, somehow represent the verb "to compute / to calculate" .. in Chinese it's the "electronic brain".. the calculator is then ji suan ji (计算机) -> calculating machine. The other things you mentioned are pure cultural influenced. Like "the Chinese is better suited to achieve great scientific discussions" which is actually achieved by accumulation of knowledge and learning. Another example, the best mathematicians are in France, Russia.., ..., and US by most. Gambia also has "one" mathematician.. while English being official. Shouldn't then there be more Gambian mathematicians? ... It's "culture" preventing the accumulation of knowledge, or, at least not teaching it amongst the pupils. | ||||||||
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