Differences between BCS and English

Milena
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Differences between BCS and English

Postby Milena » 2009-04-16, 5:29

Hi!! I'm new to this website so I'm not sure what to expect, but from the posts I've read everyone seems helpful and intelligent :)

So I was thinking about linguistic determinism recently ["Linguistic determinism is the idea that language shapes thought." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_determinism] and it seems clear to me how particular languages would shape one's mind much differently from English (Kaluhli, Samoan, Chinese, Nepali, etc).

Actually I came across this website today and it was really interesting [http://www.cerezo.name/archives/000005.html]... so take the following example:
"In Tzeltal, the general word for EAT is TUN, but it changes depending in what it is eaten: K’UX for beans, LO’ for bananas, WE’ for tortillas and bread, TI’ for meat and chilis, TZ’U’ for sugarcane and UCH’ for corngruel and liquids."

So I think that if your language creates such a distinction among the types of food you eat, that your mind will also emphasize this distinction. Inversely, in most European languages we have one word for "to eat". Maybe this limits us in how we perceive eating, and how little we distinguish between eating various foods? Just food for thought.

So I've come here with a question. What are some language differences between BCS and English? Here's one that I'll consider: in Serbian there's no word equivalent to "boyfriend"; there's "decko" or "momak" but those are simply words meaning boy or man. Neither of them imply a relationship without context. I'm not sure what implications this has, but it's interesting.

If you would, fellow multilingual "linguists", give me more examples like this? I would love to ponder the implications of language differences.

:D

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Re: Differences between BCS and English

Postby voron » 2009-04-17, 8:34

Hi, Milena!

I can think only of grammatical differences at the moment.

For example, think how BSC distinguishes 3 levels of demonstrative pronouns and adverbs
(ovo, to, ono; ovako, tako, onako ... ) while English uses only 2.

Also, think how some constructs change subject and object in BSC:
I like you- sviđaš mi se
I miss you - nedostaješ mi, fališ mi

As for the word 'boyfriend', I guess its expressed as 'boy' or 'guy' in most (if not all, except English) European languages?

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Re: Differences between BCS and English

Postby Sane Helle » 2009-04-24, 11:53

Hello Milena and Voron!

This is very interesting indeed, and I am convinced that language shapes thought (to a certain extent).
I have a fresh example in mind: the notion of painting. In English, as in French, people tend to use the word "to paint" extensively, no matter what or how they paint. However, BCS speakers make a difference between art painting, wall painting, and painting as in applying colour on something.

Here are the words used in BCS:
- farbati / bojati = to paint (to colour) --> boja = colour
- ličiti (hr) / krečiti (sb) = to paint walls
- slikati = to paint art / to take a picture

So, as you can see, the linguistic distinctions are quite different from English. The fact that slikati means both painting and taking a picture did confuse me a little at the beginning. And slika can be a painting, a picture, an image, a photo etc... depending on the context.

Funny to say, I was discussing linguistic determinism just yesterday with my boyfriend. We were talking about the notion of begging. In English, it can be understood as asking for money (action done by a beggar), or insistently asking for anything ("Come with me, I'm begging you!"). I guess that native English speakers understand the difference between those two, but still, in an English speaking mind, the notion of begging applies to both contexts. In French, however, we use two different words: mendier and supplier.

As for boyfriend, the French language doesn't have a specific word, but, similarly to English, it uses two words to form the notion : petit(e) ami(e) = literally "little friend".
Although, in colloquial French, you hear more often copain (m) / copine (f) which means "friend". The difference between "ami" et "copain" (as meaning "friend") is one in the intensity of the relationship. "Ami" implies a real, strong friendship whereas "copain" is more casual.

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Re: Differences between BCS and English

Postby Mallrat » 2009-10-14, 13:51

How about the fact that BCS has 3 grammatical genders and english none (only exception being the words "he, she & it")?
I currently live and study in Germany and I get to meet a lot of English-speaking students who (most of the time) have really big problems with that. I mean, they just can't understand how a word like "Stadt" (city), for example can be referred to as "she". And there are many more examples to this thing.
Another way to look at this problem is to compare languages that have all three grammatical genders, for example. For example, in Russian the word for city is masculine, but, as said, feminine in German. It's quite confusing, I must say.

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Re: Differences between BCS and English

Postby eltigre » 2009-11-12, 9:18

*BCS has 7 cases. EN none. EN has only remainings of the cases in pronouns (he,him,) (she-her).
*BCS has no articles.
*BCS has no continous and simple tenses. Instead of that it has perefective and imperfective verbs. This is quite a big problem for anglophones.
*BCS has 3 grammar genders, unlike EN.
*Adjectives in BCS have 3 grammar genders+undetermined
and determined forms (i.e. crven-crveni) with different declansion.

*BCS has pitch accent-some words have different meanigs with different pronounciation.

*BCS has much more regular orthography and therefore much simpler to spell than EN

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Re: Differences between BCS and English

Postby esquerrana » 2010-11-11, 12:50

Hi everyone,

I found this thread interesting and thought about posting something I've been thinking about. Myself I'm a Finnish native speaker, and Finnish makes no grammatical distinction between gender, so for example we have only one word, "hän", for she/he or in BCMS ona/on. Nouns don't have gender either. English is somewhere inbetween, but the following example is still valid for the English/BCMS differences:

For me as a Finnish speaker it's crazy to think that when you for example ask a teacher what size her/his class is, the teacher has to think of the gender of the students: (s)he might answer for example "šest", "šestoro" or "šestorica" (that is, "six only women", "six of mixed gender" or "six only men"). In a lot of situations like this you have to be a lot more aware of the gender of the people involved. Where in English you would ask a simple question "Where were you yesterday?" in BCMS you need to first decide of which gender the target group of your question is composed of:
"Gde ste bili / bile juče?" This difference and thus the thinking process of indentifying the female and male members of the group is not needed in English (or Finnish).

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Vladimir
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Re: Differences between BCS and English

Postby Vladimir » 2010-11-14, 20:43

esquerrana wrote:Hi everyone,

I found this thread interesting and thought about posting something I've been thinking about. Myself I'm a Finnish native speaker, and Finnish makes no grammatical distinction between gender, so for example we have only one word, "hän", for she/he or in BCMS ona/on. Nouns don't have gender either. English is somewhere inbetween, but the following example is still valid for the English/BCMS differences:

For me as a Finnish speaker it's crazy to think that when you for example ask a teacher what size her/his class is, the teacher has to think of the gender of the students: (s)he might answer for example "šest", "šestoro" or "šestorica" (that is, "six only women", "six of mixed gender" or "six only men"). In a lot of situations like this you have to be a lot more aware of the gender of the people involved. Where in English you would ask a simple question "Where were you yesterday?" in BCMS you need to first decide of which gender the target group of your question is composed of:
"Gde ste bili / bile juče?" This difference and thus the thinking process of indentifying the female and male members of the group is not needed in English (or Finnish).

Yeah, this is funny thing in our language, but believe me, it's not that big deal when you know or when you learn the language, cause after learning you don't need to think that much over what you will say, will it be in feminine, masculine or neutral gender.

And cause I'm studying Greek and I know that they have similar "problem" in their language, you only make this kind of decision depending on word which goes after the number/adjective etc.

And one more thing, for me, if I saw a group of girls walking down the streets and I intend to ask them: Gde ste bili juče? they would understand me, even though the bili is in masculine plural form, so there is some exceptions.

It's not that difficult when you understand the point of genders. Perhaps, in Finnish you don't have genders, so you just need time to get used to them, which is not that hard if you want to learn some language.

And one more thing, interesting thing, for us, when a foreigner or someone who doesn't know the language that good mixes genders, it sounds so funny, and cute at the same time :D and you can tell that he/she is a foreigner :P


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