Re: Tricky translations

Sai Emrys wrote:

> First, a short quote from David Peterson:
>
>
>>One simple example is that Megdevi had separate roots for
>>"ghost", "spirit" and "soul".  What exactly did these things mean?
>>They meant *exactly* what they mean in English: nothing more,
>>nothing less.  And what do you think the adjectival form of "spirit"
>>was?  That's right: "spirititual".  Same meaning as English.
>
>
> So, some brainstorming please: what would be good example sets of
> words and concepts like this - ones that would force you to pick apart
> the assumptions of your native language(s)?
I forgot to change the address to send this to the Conlang list... Sorry
about that.

"Rock" and "stone". English makes idiomatic distinctions between these,
but these are more or less arbitrary. "Stone" for instance is used in
construction, while "rock" is found underground, even though these are
exactly the same thing. Small fragments can be called "stones" or
"rocks". Tirelat makes a different distinction, necessitated by the fact
that nouns can be either countable or uncountable, but not both. "Rock"
and "stone" are both translated as "kamar" (uncountable) for stone or
rock as a material (in construction or naturally occurring in the
earth), while the individual pieces of "rock" or "stone", like boulders
and pebbles, are "cik" (countable).

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