Some time ago, I´ve read in a Nietzsche´s book, that he believed Germany had so many philosophers because Deutsch would be a language which favors the philosophical thinking.
Do you believe that some languages is better for some specifc activities? Or is this some sort of stereotype?
Are you trying to involve us in a language chauvinism? You have succeded! English is better in expressing thought and science than Russian. But Nabokov believed that Russian is better then English in expressing an emotion Italian is extermely melodical. Einstein used to say that the language (German for him) and the words as such meant nothing in the process of his reasoning: " First there comes a thought, and it has no words associated with it". Relativity…
I can say that since I read comfortably in a number of languages, I find that all languages can express all thoughts, but some appear more elegant or expressive in certain situations, but this might just be in the eye of the beholder.
Russian is very good for swearing in, also I think for discussing the mystical and the intuitive. English is a very good language for being calm and factual in. I don’t think Japanese, with its built-in politeness and lack of personal pronouns, is a very good language for having an egotistical rant in, although I would be happy to be proved wrong on this
Haha, agree with skyblueteapot – if you want to swear, do it in Russian. And it will be exceptionally dirty and not at all suited to polite company. :)) There’s almost a separate Russian language just for swearing.
I think all languages have a wide variety of good production in all areas, so if some country excels in some of them, there are other influences like cultural heritage instead of merely language characteristics.
Maybe Nietsche was trying to involve us in a language chauvinism!
I do not quite agree with the opinion on the Russian language is better suited to swear. It seems to me that it is pleasant to listen to Pushkin’s “Ruslan and Ludmila”. Although I do no imagine how Russian is perceived by other speakers. I agree with Steve, that beauty of language depends of individual perception.
Yeah, but ‘Ruslan and Ludmila’ is not written in ‘mat’ (for non-Russian speakers: ‘mat’ is the general term for Russian profanity). :))
ok, there are many indecent words in American vocabulary, but it not means that this language is for profanity )))