So it is impossible to say for sure that any particular word is not an English word, right?
As I said, there are words in foreign languages that have never been used by an English speaker in an English sentence. One can say for sure that they are not English words. There are also words borrowed a long time ago from foreign languages that appear in every English dictionary that are for sure now English words. Between those two ends of the spectrum though, it gets harder to be sure if something is an English word.
Oh goodie, a challenge. Pick a word, any word from any language of your choice that you definitely can say is not an English word, and we’ll adopt it as one right here, right now. Heck, enenglishize (not a typo) it now, and you’ll have all the credit of having first used it as an English word.
No, yeah, really, I’m serious. It’ll be a fun exercise.
No, it doesn’t become an English word the first time that you use it. It merely appears very low on the spectrum of foreign words that might, at a real stretch, eventually get into a dictionary and thus definitely be known as an English word. Do you understand the idea of a spectrum? If it’s freezing cold outside and it warms up by a thousandth of a degree, it doesn’t suddently become swelteringly hot.
Well then what about “za” which has been approved for use in the Official Scrabble List? You are not correct that “dghaisa” is an approved Scrabble word by virtue of being in a dictionary. To be usable and survive a challenge it must be on the OSL.
The whole idea of these “english” words that are used rather than english words that can actually be used in a conversation became laughable as the candidate from Scottsdale had to have the word “girolle” with its two official pronunciations repeated over and over until the moderator was moved to ask the contestant to “watch his lips” as the pronunciation was made. Then after hearing the definition, the language of origin and both pronunciations at least half a dozen times the contestant was moved to ask “are there any other pronunciations” prompting guffaws from the audience. He then promptly misspelled the word and sat down. It’s a farce.
Can you give me an example of such a word? If you cannot, then, as I said, it is impossible to know for sure whether any particular word is an English word or not.
Wrong. To be useable at Scrabble, it simply has to be in the agreed upon dictionary or word list of the contestants. Thus, if I agree that the unabridged Webster’s is the deciding authority with my opponents, that’s the authority for our game. The “Official Scrabble List” is used for a specific type of competition under the auspices (there’s ANOTHER good foreign loan word!!) of a particular governing body.
Yeah, go back and read what I wrote again assuming that I’m not an illiterate boob. I’m trying to give you the chance to bring in one of “words in foreign languages that have never been used by an English speaker in an English sentence,” and have first use of it. Clearly we have to cooperate with you and use it to get it accepted. Heck, it seems I invented the word “pobe,” but I see I need to rally my fellow Dopers to the cause, as I don’t see that it’s been used since March sometime.
There is for the Spelling Bee; being listed in the *Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged *. :rolleyes:
Spelling bees are just so damn stupid, they nothing whatsoever to do with brains or academic achievment. :mad:
Perhaps on the patio? Well, the mosquitos might be a problem.
With respect, the Spelling Bee isn’t making a determination on what is or is not an “English” word, simply establishing the limits of what they will ask contestants to spell. 
But this can happen to anybody with any word that happens to be unfamiliar to them, whether it’s a widely recognized English word or what you call an “English” word in scare quotes. (And if you don’t think that “girolle” is in fact a recognized English word that can be used in English sentences, you obviously don’t know any cooking fanatics. Girolles (or chanterelles) are a type of mushroom adored by many gourmets, who will cheerfully talk about them by the hour if you let them.)
I still remember the word that ended my own spelling-bee career in eighth grade, the indisputably English “rickey”, which has been attested in the language at least since 1895. I had never heard it before and took a WAG at spelling it: r-i-q-u-e. Oh well. (Mom said that maybe they ought to have been drinking more cocktails in our house.)
DrDeth writes:
> Spelling bees are just so damn stupid, they nothing whatsoever to do with
> brains or academic achievment.
I mostly agree. I suspect though that the type of person who spends an immense amount of time preparing for the National Spelling Bee is the same sort of person who will someday be able to get through medical school, which has the same sort of memorization of a huge, almost random collection of facts. Both spelling rules and medical knowledge aren’t quite random, but the connections are so arcane that it’s quite different from, say, mathematics, where everything fits together into a huge but ultimately ordered pattern.
I guess the best example of a foreign word which will never enter English would be a word from Etruscan. Etruscan is a language of Italy which died out about the time of the rise of Latin. Virtually nothing is known about the language’s words, although we know where and when it was spoken. If you insist on a word from a presently spoken language, pick a word from one of the languages of New Guinea. There’s an extremely good chance that the language will die out before there is even a chance for the word to be borrowed into English.
But I suspect I am being set up by this question. If I were to quote a word from a foreign language which has never been used in an English sentence by an English speaker, you would probably say, “Ah hah. So now it has been used in an English sentence.” But, of course, that’s not what I mean by being used in an English sentence. If a linguist recording a hitherto unknown language mentions the word or if a teacher mentions the word to a student, they aren’t using it in an English sentence in my sense. A mere mention of the sound and the meaning of the word doesn’t count unless it’s being used in an English sentence by an English speaker with the same meaning as in the foreign language.
Maybe you have a point. In many Professional level jobs in the US Gov’t they require a 4 year degree- in anything. Underwater basketweaving is fine. The concept seemed to be if you could stick it out for 4 years and write all those papers, you could perform in many bureacratic jobs.
I wouldn’t quarrel with Dghisa being an English word (having looked up its meaning) - as it is a unique vessel, anmd needs to be called something
Question is, what about words like:
Waka (Maori Canoe)
Mana (loosley translated - Reputation)
Tangi (Maori funeral)
Haka (Maori wardance)
All of which I found at Merriam-WebsterUnabridged.com
Are these then English words, and if so why? They are all directly taken from another language and rendered in English, but have direct English equivalents - so what makes them “new” english words.
BTW - I think they should all be words, along with many other terms that have no neccessarily direct translations. I am simply wondering how come they become words when there is already existing equivalents that are no different?
Usage. People who consider themselves to be speaking the English language use it in their speech to other people who consider themselves to be speaking (and listening to) the English language and thus consider those words to be English. You might consider that there are a few things (at least) which have more than one word or description in English already. For example, lad/boy, lass/girl, village/town/hamlet, supper/dinner, and why/how come.
It’s just plain usage.
“Mana” is a technical term in anthropology. It means roughly the supernatural force around a person. “Power” or “reputation” wouldn’t express the entire idea. Anthropologists often borrow terms from obscure languages because using the simplest word as a translation wouldn’t get across the entire complex of meanings in the term.
BZZZZZZT!
Oh, the irony !
Well, there is not any one arbiter of the English language, so your question does not really have an answer. French, for example, has the Academie Francaise which is usually recognized with being an authority on what is or is not a French word.
You could use as a loose definition, I suppose, that the English language is the set of words that appear in the current Oxford English Dictionary (OED), a well-respected reference source on the English language. In that case, if it’s not in the OED, it’s not English.
Or you could expand it by saying that the English language is the set of words that appear in one of these dictionaries:
OED
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged
etc.
But it is easy to think of words that I would bet are not listed as a word in any English language dictionary.
e.g.
the word “français”
the word “verstehen”
the word “mercoledi”
the word “quidquid”
the word “kuanos”
the word “zwertkugora”
etc. etc.
Now, there is no way to guarantee that a word will not one day become part of the English language, using the criteria I have given above, since dictionaries are usually updated with current usage.
Sure it does. It either is or is not possible to say for certain that a particular word is an English word.
But what I was getting at is that, in this thread, two definitions of “an English word” have been set forth. 1) It is in an English Dictionary, and 2) It is in use but not yet recognized. The second definition is sufficiently vague as to cause me to assert that it is impossible to know *with certainty *whether any particular word is an English word. While it may be true that there are words in other languages that are definitely not English words, identifying them with certainty is problematic.
That satisfies the first definition, but not the second. Also, a bet is not a certainty.