Re: Vocabulary concept mismatches

Mark J. Reed wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 04, 2004 at 07:48:27PM -0600, Herman Miller wrote:
>
>>One of the things that's really interesting about languages, but not
>>well documented in dictionaries, is the fact that the meanings of words
>>don't match precisely from one language to another.
>
>
> ?  I'd say this is very well-documented, in bilingual dictionaries and
> in the literature in general.
Oops, I left out a word. I meant to say "not _always_ well documented in
dictionaries".

Certainly some dictionaries are better than others in that respect. Some
even give sample translations that illustrate different meanings of
words. But some dictionaries for less familiar languages just give a
list of translations without any indication of when to use one word as
opposed to another.

> I don't think this is an under-investigated region.  But there are
> always all sorts of new ways you can divide things up or combine
> together when coming up with a conlang lexicon.  It seems more dividing
> up goes on than combining together, though.
I'm sure there's been a lot of investigation on this subject, but that's
not much help when looking at a dictionary of an unfamiliar language.

Actually, both dividing and combining are useful in conlanging; I'm not
sure which is more common. Looking at the Tirelat vocabulary, I see a
lot of words with definitions like "cruel, harsh"; "ocean, sea"; "swamp;
marsh", "bottle, jar"; "persist, remain"; "rough, uneven, jagged" and so
on. But then there are also English words with two or more Tirelat
equivalents, and instances where two English words correspond with two
Tirelat words. English for instance has "rock" and "stone", which are
used in very idiomatic ways but mean roughly the same thing; Tirelat has
"kamar" as a material (uncountable), and "tsik" as a distinct object
(countable).