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Through the Language Glass, Why the World Looks Different in Other LanguagesIn 1889, EmersonБЂ™s words were assigned as an essay topic to the seventeen-year-old Bertrand Russell, when he was at a crammer in London preparing for the scholarship entrance exam to Trinity College, Cambridge. Russell responded with these pearls: БЂњWe may study the character of a people by the ideas which its language best expresses. French, for instance, contains such words as БЂspirituel,БЂ™ or БЂlБЂ™esprit,БЂ™ which in English can scarcely be expressed at all; whence we naturally draw the inference, which may be confirmed by actual observation, that the French have more БЂesprit,БЂ™ and are more БЂspirituelБЂ™ than the English.БЂ«Cicero, on the other hand, drew exactly the opposite inference from the lack of a word in a language. In his De oratore of 55 BC, he embarked on a lengthy sermon about the lack of a Greek equivalent for the Latin word ineptus (meaning БЂњimpertinentБЂ«or БЂњtactlessБЂ«). Russell would have concluded that the Greeks had such impeccable manners that they simply did not need a word to describe a nonexistent flaw ...» |
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