I’m not sure “et” is what Kyla was referring to. If it is, then this word is nearly superfluous - Ben Gurion actually wanted to get rid of it!
Maybe Kyla was referring to “ze” or “Ha’ze”, but that is just the same as “This”. Kyla - what were you referring too, anyway?
In any case, what I miss is an English version of “Davka” (not translatable - used by itself, means something like “Just to spite you!”; in “Davka ken” (ken=yes) can be used as contradictory yes - like “si” in french which has already been mentioned above)
Interesting thread. The two that I feel most strongly are the contradictory yes and the xor. But another thing that I think no one has mentioned is the paucity of verb tenses. We have only the present (which is more accurately described as timeless, since it can also be used for past and future) and past (which is sometimes–totally incorrectly–called the imperfect, when it is actually perfective in meaning). I leave the subjunctive aside since as an inflection it exists only in the 3rd person singular present (with the sole exception of “were” in the 3rd sing. past) and is nearly moribund in the US and totally so in England. To make up for that we have just about the most complicated system of compounding words to express gradations of tense, and aspect. Compare, for example, “will go”, “going to go”, “will be going”, “going to be going”, “about to go”, etc. Note that there is no reason whatever to single out one of the above and call it “the” future. In fact, if I were to teach one of them in an ESL class, it would be the “going to go” form, since it avoids the shall/will question. Contrast French with 7 inflected tenses (ok, only five are actually used usually), Latin with, IIRC, 9, and Arabic, which, I learned recently, has 14 (although verbs don’t usually actually implement all of them).
I was referring to the et. Ze is useful! How could you say “it” or “this” without ze?
I once had an argument with a rather obnoxious and know-it-all Israeli-American who insisted that et was translatable and meant “the.” I pointed out that ha means “the,” but couldn’t win her over.
Noone Special, I totally forgot about davka! Great word. Another Hebrew word that doesn’t seem to have a real equivalent is balegan. I don’t know if “fucked up chaotic mess” really carries the same meaning, and it certainly takes longer to say. Oh, and stam. I find myself saying it in English conversations sometimes because there’s no good equivalent.
Actually, I would like to correct myself. It’s a direct object marker.
I wouldn’t call it superfluous. I am currently trying to learn Spanish, and I would kill for a word that made determining direct objects easier.
I think “aren’t I?” would be the English upper class usage.
“Amn’t I?” is standard Irish English and doesn’t feel archaic at all.
English doesn’t have a distinction between inclusive “we” (me and you and someone else) and exclusive “we” (me and someone else, but not you). Does any language have this?
As in:
Q: “Why did you [do some da*n fool thing…]?”
A: “Davka!” (“Just for spite” “because I felt like it” “Who are you to ask me anyway”… you non-Hebrew speakers get the idea…)
???
Specifically doesn’t work here!
Also, even in you example. “davka” has a querrulous undertone missing from the much more “objective-sounding” specifically
Kyla
The word “et”, while useful in normal speech, is actually syntactically meaningless! The sentence “Ani rotze et hasefer” (I want the book) can be meaningfully re-written as “Ani rotze hasefer”. Sounds weird to me, as a native speaker, but completely legitimate Hebrew! As I said, about 50 years ago, Ben-Gurion actually campaigned to have the word removed from the language (one of the things he failed at, as the streets of Tel Aviv can attest to day in and day out)
English lacks pronouns that indicate social/class relationships. Neither does it have pronouns that are traditionally restricted to use by a certain gender. Based on the situation, when “I”* talk to you do I refer to myself as watashi? boku? ore? atashi? atai? oira? sessha? washi? yo? When I refer to “you,” do I use anata? anta? sochira? kimi? omae? onushi? kisama? teme?
English does not have separate words for hot water and cold water.
I couldn’t agree more… I guess we all name what we see. And I get to live this day in and day out!
Oh, and Kyla - just a minor nit - it’s balAgan. Your description of the word in English only begins to do justice to the situations we try to describe using it
Are there ANY infixes in English which aren’t periphrastic? (y’know, sweary)
I’ve always always wanted a word in English to distinguish between girlfriend (partner) and girlfriend (chum who happens to be a girl). Likewise, boyfriend.
Jomo covered the bases on Hungarian, but I’d just like to add (unless it’s been added and I missed it) that the unusual thing to an English speaker about Hungarian pronouns is that in the third person there is no gender distinction (i.e. no “he/she” dichotomy). Makes issues of sexism in language more-or-less moot, but causes untold pronoun mix-ups for Hungarians speaking in English. It’s not unusual for even fairly advanced English speakers to occassionally switch between “he” and “she” midsentence, or to talk of a male subject and use the female pronoun.
Some languages (like Slovenian, and IIRC, most if not all Slavic languages at some earlier time) have a third number distinction besides singular and plural: the dual. Whether this is a useful feature or not is debateable, but judging by the gradual loss of this feature in Slavic languages, I would venture not.
Why is there no formal “you” in english, as in Spansish - “usted”, and no PROPER plural second person pronoun - “vosotros, ustedes”? And why does English, like Spanish and French and Italian, come from Latin, yet unlike the other three, not assign genders to nouns? It seems as if it should, seeing as the languages closest to it do.
And I get to live this day in and day out!