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Translation - art & business » Lighter side of trans/interp »
Off topic: 15 Funny, Peculiar, or Just Plain Interesting Language Facts
Thread poster: LingoTrust
LingoTrust
LingoTrust
Local time: 01:18
Apr 16, 2013

Want to read some interesting language facts?

For instance, did you know that Victor Hugo’s Les Miserable contains one of the longest sentences in the French language 823 words without a period.

Or, The only MLB team to have both its city’s name and its team name in a foreign language is the San Diego Padres.

Instead of posting them all here, here is the... See more
Want to read some interesting language facts?

For instance, did you know that Victor Hugo’s Les Miserable contains one of the longest sentences in the French language 823 words without a period.

Or, The only MLB team to have both its city’s name and its team name in a foreign language is the San Diego Padres.

Instead of posting them all here, here is the link to read the entire list:
http://www.lackuna.com/2013/04/09/15-funny-peculiar-or-just-plain-interesting-language-facts/ ▲ Collapse
 
LEXpert
LEXpert  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 00:18
Member (2008)
Croatian to English
+ ...
Er... re. no. 9: Apr 17, 2013

What about the rather obvious "wife/husband"?
 
esperantisto
esperantisto  Identity Verified
Local time: 08:18
Member (2006)
English to Russian
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
Sometimes total nonsense Apr 17, 2013

No. 3 is nonsense. You might equally say that English or Italian does not require punctuation. And some 1,000 years ago they did not have any. Moreover, Latin, or Ancient Greek, or Slavonic did not have spaces between words. However, they all do now. And today’s Chinese does have a punctuation, although limited as compared to European languages.

No. 12 is nonsense. I can read a text written in old Belarusian or old Russian 500 years ago, though, of course, not without difficulties.
 
Ty Kendall
Ty Kendall  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 06:18
Hebrew to English
No 9 Apr 17, 2013

Rudolf Vedo CT wrote:

What about the rather obvious "wife/husband"?


I think they are referring to word forms sharing the same root (although they haven't worded it very well at all) and some of the other points are dubious at best.

No 12 is ridiculous. English schoolchildren read and understand Shakespeare perfectly well. Even Chaucer (700 years ago) is relatively accessible without much difficulty (for adults). You really have to go back about 1000 years before reading becomes problematic. Not to mention that this point cannot be extrapolated and generalized across languages.

No 3 may be technically correct, but the same could be said of most languages, if not all.

[Edited at 2013-04-17 08:52 GMT]
 
LingoTrust
LingoTrust
Local time: 01:18
TOPIC STARTER
No 12 is ridiculous. Apr 17, 2013

Yes, you are right. Number 12 was edited to be more accurate.




[Edited at 2013-04-17 13:51 GMT]
 


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15 Funny, Peculiar, or Just Plain Interesting Language Facts


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