Quote:
Originally Posted by Clarste
"Western mind?" The Greeks are pretty famous for all their words for different kinds of love. Philia, eros, agape, etc.
Basically, all languages make different distinctions. Eskimos famously have some absurd number of words for different kinds of snow (not sure how accurate that is, but it's not implausible). Ancient Greek (again) has various words for different categories of knowledge that English doesn't distinguish between. I wouldn't be surprised if English has a variety of words for something that there's only one word for in some other language.
|
I definitely agree. I think English probably is the language with the biggest number of synonyms in it, mostly because a lot of words are borrowed/adopted into it and just because it has so many different ways to say things. I would definitely say Greek or Latin come pretty close, but not quite just because they are older and haven't had as much time (relatively speaking) for newer terms and words to develop.