Shades of language
I was wondering about translatability (is this a word?) between languages.
In english there is the word "wall" that people use for a number of things but in portuguese, f. example, "wall" can have many meanings like parede (room's wall, in a house), muralha (castle or fortification wall), muro (wall separating property or a piece of land), murete (a small "muro") etc.
I was thinking that if "wall" is colour X, then portuguese has more shades of it. Also there must be some "colours" that some language has but others don't.
try also these ones:
tabique; tapume; adarve; barbacã; bastião; parapeito; braga; maracha; muramento; machorro; vedação.
Thank you.
I was thinking in single words like wall, which in english is used for different things while those same different things in portuguese get their own, separate word.
F. examp. bastião could be "bastion" or "stronghold" but not wall. But Muramento and vedação could be different synonims of wall. Parapeito is "ledger" (I think).
bastião= s. m.,
trincheira;muro que serve de anteparo ao ângulo saliente de uma fortaleza;baluarte;
parapeito=s. m.,
muro, anteparo, resguardo, etc. , à altura do peito;
I always hear that you cannot translate saudade. I'm sure that must be some language, somewhere (Papua, Central Australia, Caucasus?...) that has a word for that precise meaning. I've also heard once, from a romanian professor being interviewed for portuguese TV that the Romanian language has an exact equivalent of saudade.
Autres exemples : Fr <rivière> [RivjER] et Fr <fleuve> [fl9v] se traduisent par An <river>.
That is interesting. Does that mean that by analysing the "genetic" code of those languages we can conclude that Romans+Latin languages mean Civilization and the english language is the barbaric daughter of hut-dwelling, spear-throwing people?...
Or how about the many different word we have for different type of snow in Quebec:
Avalanche, blizzard, bourrasque, rafale, glace, gel, grêle, flocon, iglou, poudre, congère, tempête, verglas, givre, neige,
I not a specialist, but I don't think you can say the Anglo-Saxons had "legal" "codes". They certainly had law (like Dane Law), a set of traditions and costume (costumary?) law, codified in later times. But I think that when one talks about "legal codes", at that time, one should refer only to Roman Law. That's a Legal Code with capital letters, literaly ingraved in marble. Not so for the Anglo-Saxons, who remained a barbaric, non-literate people for a long, long time. They had their law, evolving through the times, but the Romans had "the" Law.
P.S: of course when you have something permanently engraved in stone, it risks becoming rigid as the time passes by. The Anglo-Saxon law is more adaptable perhaps to changing times but Roman Law provides a strong, stone-hard legal base for any civilization, as well as permanent, historical link with generations past.
Viri Amaoro:
Perhaps the Anglo-Saxons were primitive compared to the Romans, but you can't say they were non-literate. In fact they were pioneers in the Germanic world when they started to write in their native tongue instead of Latin. Because Norway and Iceland were christened from England, we also go this tradition for writing in the native tongue and thus could develop a native written language and a native literature (e.g. sagas) far earlier than the Danes or the Swedes, who were christened from Germany, where everything was written in Latin.
Hello Fredrik
Well, of course the Icelanders and other had a tradition of literacy and literature, but so did the Greeks - much before and to unsurpased heights. The Germanics didn't built Parthenons or Coliseums either. On the other hand you did keep your languages. It remains open if being latinized was good or bad. Icelanders also created the first democratic (sort of) parliament in the world, or so I've read. But no big ruins.
««But I think that when one talks about "legal codes", at that time, one should refer only to Roman Law. »»
When you consider just the Roman empire, because the the Code of Hammurabi was much older and even the codex of Ur-Nammu is known for being the oldest one.
And you have to admit that ancient Europe was highly influenced by its eastern neighbors. After all, the dominant religion of modern Europe is Middle Eastern in origin, as are its crop plants. Farming was invented in the Middle East as well, and where would Europe have been without agriculture? And the flowering of Greek civilization was really spawned by contact with Egypt's civilization; ancient Greek statuary shows that correllation perfectly. And let's not forget the Phoenicians, from whose alphabet the Latin one was originally derived....