How long in a language several words for the same notion can cooexist?
1
Sometimes a language can have several words for the same notion.
- How long such a situation can last?
- Is it good for a language to have it?
- Should language bearers and linguists do something about it?
To provide a context I describe an example which inspired me to ask this question. In Ukrainian, we have two words for rose - троянда and роза. They both point to the same flower. Роза has additional meanings, but in case you want to name this flower, they are totally interchangeable, using any of them doesn't bring any additional meaning.
semantics
asked 2 hours ago
YolaYola
1084
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|
show 1 more comment
1
Sometimes a language can have several words for the same notion.
- How long such a situation can last?
- Is it good for a language to have it?
- Should language bearers and linguists do something about it?
To provide a context I describe an example which inspired me to ask this question. In Ukrainian, we have two words for rose - троянда and роза. They both point to the same flower. Роза has additional meanings, but in case you want to name this flower, they are totally interchangeable, using any of them doesn't bring any additional meaning.
semantics
asked 2 hours ago
YolaYola
1084
New contributor
Yola is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
Having slightly different meanings is only one of the reasons synonyms coexist, so I don't think your edited-in example changes anything. I'd assume "троянда" either feels more "native" than "роза" (which I assume is borrowed, directly or indirectly, from Latin?), or feels more "Russian", either of which could presumably give many Ukranian speakers reason to prefer one or the other in different contexts. And certainly they sound quite different, which could at least make a difference in poetry, music, and rhetoric.
– abarnert
1 hour ago
Meanwhile, why are you asking this? Do you think Ukranian would be a better language if you eliminated one of these two words? If so, I'll bet you have a particular on you'd like to eliminate. So ask yourself why you chose that one, and that'll tell you the distinction between the two.
– abarnert
1 hour ago
@abarnert I would like to eliminate роза because it has several other meanings like compass rose. There are other too. While eliminating троянда would remove another root from the language which would make it poorer.
– Yola
48 mins ago
1
But "compass rose" is named that because it looks like the flower. (I mean, I don't know the etymology specifically of the Ukranian term, but it's almost certainly the same as everyone else in Europe, ultimately going back to Latin "rosa ventorum", then dropping the borrowed or calqued "ventorum"/"wind" part when navigation switched to magnetic compasses.) If you eliminated "роза" for the flower, that connection would be gone, which would probably have an impact on both the learnability of "роза" for the compass rose, and the ways you can use it poetically and artistically.
– abarnert
35 mins ago
(Sure, it would be a tiny impact, but changing any single word is almost always a tiny impact…)
– abarnert
34 mins ago
|
show 1 more comment
1
1
1
0
Sometimes a language can have several words for the same notion.
- How long such a situation can last?
- Is it good for a language to have it?
- Should language bearers and linguists do something about it?
To provide a context I describe an example which inspired me to ask this question. In Ukrainian, we have two words for rose - троянда and роза. They both point to the same flower. Роза has additional meanings, but in case you want to name this flower, they are totally interchangeable, using any of them doesn't bring any additional meaning.
semantics
asked 2 hours ago
YolaYola
1084
New contributor
Yola is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
Sometimes a language can have several words for the same notion.
- How long such a situation can last?
- Is it good for a language to have it?
- Should language bearers and linguists do something about it?
To provide a context I describe an example which inspired me to ask this question. In Ukrainian, we have two words for rose - троянда and роза. They both point to the same flower. Роза has additional meanings, but in case you want to name this flower, they are totally interchangeable, using any of them doesn't bring any additional meaning.
semantics
semantics
asked 2 hours ago
YolaYola
1084
New contributor
Yola is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
asked 2 hours ago
YolaYola
1084
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Check out our Code of Conduct.
edited 1 hour ago
Yola
asked 2 hours ago
YolaYola
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asked 2 hours ago
YolaYola
1084
asked 2 hours ago
YolaYola
1084
1084
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Yola is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
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New contributor
Yola is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
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Check out our Code of Conduct.
Having slightly different meanings is only one of the reasons synonyms coexist, so I don't think your edited-in example changes anything. I'd assume "троянда" either feels more "native" than "роза" (which I assume is borrowed, directly or indirectly, from Latin?), or feels more "Russian", either of which could presumably give many Ukranian speakers reason to prefer one or the other in different contexts. And certainly they sound quite different, which could at least make a difference in poetry, music, and rhetoric.
– abarnert
1 hour ago
Meanwhile, why are you asking this? Do you think Ukranian would be a better language if you eliminated one of these two words? If so, I'll bet you have a particular on you'd like to eliminate. So ask yourself why you chose that one, and that'll tell you the distinction between the two.
– abarnert
1 hour ago
@abarnert I would like to eliminate роза because it has several other meanings like compass rose. There are other too. While eliminating троянда would remove another root from the language which would make it poorer.
– Yola
48 mins ago
1
But "compass rose" is named that because it looks like the flower. (I mean, I don't know the etymology specifically of the Ukranian term, but it's almost certainly the same as everyone else in Europe, ultimately going back to Latin "rosa ventorum", then dropping the borrowed or calqued "ventorum"/"wind" part when navigation switched to magnetic compasses.) If you eliminated "роза" for the flower, that connection would be gone, which would probably have an impact on both the learnability of "роза" for the compass rose, and the ways you can use it poetically and artistically.
– abarnert
35 mins ago
(Sure, it would be a tiny impact, but changing any single word is almost always a tiny impact…)
– abarnert
34 mins ago
|
show 1 more comment
Having slightly different meanings is only one of the reasons synonyms coexist, so I don't think your edited-in example changes anything. I'd assume "троянда" either feels more "native" than "роза" (which I assume is borrowed, directly or indirectly, from Latin?), or feels more "Russian", either of which could presumably give many Ukranian speakers reason to prefer one or the other in different contexts. And certainly they sound quite different, which could at least make a difference in poetry, music, and rhetoric.
– abarnert
1 hour ago
Meanwhile, why are you asking this? Do you think Ukranian would be a better language if you eliminated one of these two words? If so, I'll bet you have a particular on you'd like to eliminate. So ask yourself why you chose that one, and that'll tell you the distinction between the two.
– abarnert
1 hour ago
@abarnert I would like to eliminate роза because it has several other meanings like compass rose. There are other too. While eliminating троянда would remove another root from the language which would make it poorer.
– Yola
48 mins ago
1
But "compass rose" is named that because it looks like the flower. (I mean, I don't know the etymology specifically of the Ukranian term, but it's almost certainly the same as everyone else in Europe, ultimately going back to Latin "rosa ventorum", then dropping the borrowed or calqued "ventorum"/"wind" part when navigation switched to magnetic compasses.) If you eliminated "роза" for the flower, that connection would be gone, which would probably have an impact on both the learnability of "роза" for the compass rose, and the ways you can use it poetically and artistically.
– abarnert
35 mins ago
(Sure, it would be a tiny impact, but changing any single word is almost always a tiny impact…)
– abarnert
34 mins ago
Having slightly different meanings is only one of the reasons synonyms coexist, so I don't think your edited-in example changes anything. I'd assume "троянда" either feels more "native" than "роза" (which I assume is borrowed, directly or indirectly, from Latin?), or feels more "Russian", either of which could presumably give many Ukranian speakers reason to prefer one or the other in different contexts. And certainly they sound quite different, which could at least make a difference in poetry, music, and rhetoric.
– abarnert
1 hour ago
Having slightly different meanings is only one of the reasons synonyms coexist, so I don't think your edited-in example changes anything. I'd assume "троянда" either feels more "native" than "роза" (which I assume is borrowed, directly or indirectly, from Latin?), or feels more "Russian", either of which could presumably give many Ukranian speakers reason to prefer one or the other in different contexts. And certainly they sound quite different, which could at least make a difference in poetry, music, and rhetoric.
– abarnert
1 hour ago
Meanwhile, why are you asking this? Do you think Ukranian would be a better language if you eliminated one of these two words? If so, I'll bet you have a particular on you'd like to eliminate. So ask yourself why you chose that one, and that'll tell you the distinction between the two.
– abarnert
1 hour ago
Meanwhile, why are you asking this? Do you think Ukranian would be a better language if you eliminated one of these two words? If so, I'll bet you have a particular on you'd like to eliminate. So ask yourself why you chose that one, and that'll tell you the distinction between the two.
– abarnert
1 hour ago
@abarnert I would like to eliminate роза because it has several other meanings like compass rose. There are other too. While eliminating троянда would remove another root from the language which would make it poorer.
– Yola
48 mins ago
@abarnert I would like to eliminate роза because it has several other meanings like compass rose. There are other too. While eliminating троянда would remove another root from the language which would make it poorer.
– Yola
48 mins ago
1
1
But "compass rose" is named that because it looks like the flower. (I mean, I don't know the etymology specifically of the Ukranian term, but it's almost certainly the same as everyone else in Europe, ultimately going back to Latin "rosa ventorum", then dropping the borrowed or calqued "ventorum"/"wind" part when navigation switched to magnetic compasses.) If you eliminated "роза" for the flower, that connection would be gone, which would probably have an impact on both the learnability of "роза" for the compass rose, and the ways you can use it poetically and artistically.
– abarnert
35 mins ago
But "compass rose" is named that because it looks like the flower. (I mean, I don't know the etymology specifically of the Ukranian term, but it's almost certainly the same as everyone else in Europe, ultimately going back to Latin "rosa ventorum", then dropping the borrowed or calqued "ventorum"/"wind" part when navigation switched to magnetic compasses.) If you eliminated "роза" for the flower, that connection would be gone, which would probably have an impact on both the learnability of "роза" for the compass rose, and the ways you can use it poetically and artistically.
– abarnert
35 mins ago
(Sure, it would be a tiny impact, but changing any single word is almost always a tiny impact…)
– abarnert
34 mins ago
(Sure, it would be a tiny impact, but changing any single word is almost always a tiny impact…)
– abarnert
34 mins ago
|
show 1 more comment
1 Answer
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Every language is chock full of synonyms—hundreds or thousands of them.
Usually, those synonyms have some difference. They might:
- … have slightly different connotations (usually "baby" includes toddlers, but "infant" doesn't),
- … be usable in different sets of constructions (compare "eat" and "consume"—only the latter requires an object),
- … be in different registers (compare "hello" and "hi"),
- … differ only in euphony (one sounds better next to certain words but worse next to others),
- … differ only when speaking across dialects (to an English speaker whose dialect has both "eggplant" and "aubergine", they're identical—but having both lets you talk to someone from Los Angeles who only knows "eggplant" and to someone from London who only knows "aubergine"),
- … etc.
But they're still clearly "words for the same notion".
So, to answer your questions:
How long such a situation can last? Well, not quite forever, because no word lasts forever with the same meaning. Eventually one of the two synonyms will probably shift in meaning until they're no longer synonyms, or die out, or the language itself might die out… but certainly for centuries.
Is it good for a language to have it? Probably. Otherwise, language evolution would presumably work harder than it does to eliminate synonyms. It's possible that this is just a defect in the human "language organ", or in human society, but it doesn't seem likely. (Also, consider that having a pair of synonyms gives the language the raw material to adapt one of them in a new need arises, without losing the other one.)
Should language bearers and linguists do something about it? Definitely not. It's not up to linguists to try to forcibly change languages. As for normal speakers, they can try, but (a) there's no good reason to, and (b) it almost never works.1
1. If you're wondering why I said "almost", there is at least one counter-example: Ataturk's modernization of Turkish. But there were a lot of special circumstances there, like the fact that the official language they were modernizing wasn't actually spoken by anyone but the elites.
answered 1 hour ago
abarnertabarnert
1,561112
Thanks! I like your answer and upvoted it. I updated my question to address your answer, namely i would like to point out that in my situation two words for this notion are totally interchangeable.
– Yola
1 hour ago
add a comment |
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1 Answer
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1 Answer
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oldest
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2
Every language is chock full of synonyms—hundreds or thousands of them.
Usually, those synonyms have some difference. They might:
- … have slightly different connotations (usually "baby" includes toddlers, but "infant" doesn't),
- … be usable in different sets of constructions (compare "eat" and "consume"—only the latter requires an object),
- … be in different registers (compare "hello" and "hi"),
- … differ only in euphony (one sounds better next to certain words but worse next to others),
- … differ only when speaking across dialects (to an English speaker whose dialect has both "eggplant" and "aubergine", they're identical—but having both lets you talk to someone from Los Angeles who only knows "eggplant" and to someone from London who only knows "aubergine"),
- … etc.
But they're still clearly "words for the same notion".
So, to answer your questions:
How long such a situation can last? Well, not quite forever, because no word lasts forever with the same meaning. Eventually one of the two synonyms will probably shift in meaning until they're no longer synonyms, or die out, or the language itself might die out… but certainly for centuries.
Is it good for a language to have it? Probably. Otherwise, language evolution would presumably work harder than it does to eliminate synonyms. It's possible that this is just a defect in the human "language organ", or in human society, but it doesn't seem likely. (Also, consider that having a pair of synonyms gives the language the raw material to adapt one of them in a new need arises, without losing the other one.)
Should language bearers and linguists do something about it? Definitely not. It's not up to linguists to try to forcibly change languages. As for normal speakers, they can try, but (a) there's no good reason to, and (b) it almost never works.1
1. If you're wondering why I said "almost", there is at least one counter-example: Ataturk's modernization of Turkish. But there were a lot of special circumstances there, like the fact that the official language they were modernizing wasn't actually spoken by anyone but the elites.
answered 1 hour ago
abarnertabarnert
1,561112
Thanks! I like your answer and upvoted it. I updated my question to address your answer, namely i would like to point out that in my situation two words for this notion are totally interchangeable.
– Yola
1 hour ago
add a comment |
2
Every language is chock full of synonyms—hundreds or thousands of them.
Usually, those synonyms have some difference. They might:
- … have slightly different connotations (usually "baby" includes toddlers, but "infant" doesn't),
- … be usable in different sets of constructions (compare "eat" and "consume"—only the latter requires an object),
- … be in different registers (compare "hello" and "hi"),
- … differ only in euphony (one sounds better next to certain words but worse next to others),
- … differ only when speaking across dialects (to an English speaker whose dialect has both "eggplant" and "aubergine", they're identical—but having both lets you talk to someone from Los Angeles who only knows "eggplant" and to someone from London who only knows "aubergine"),
- … etc.
But they're still clearly "words for the same notion".
So, to answer your questions:
How long such a situation can last? Well, not quite forever, because no word lasts forever with the same meaning. Eventually one of the two synonyms will probably shift in meaning until they're no longer synonyms, or die out, or the language itself might die out… but certainly for centuries.
Is it good for a language to have it? Probably. Otherwise, language evolution would presumably work harder than it does to eliminate synonyms. It's possible that this is just a defect in the human "language organ", or in human society, but it doesn't seem likely. (Also, consider that having a pair of synonyms gives the language the raw material to adapt one of them in a new need arises, without losing the other one.)
Should language bearers and linguists do something about it? Definitely not. It's not up to linguists to try to forcibly change languages. As for normal speakers, they can try, but (a) there's no good reason to, and (b) it almost never works.1
1. If you're wondering why I said "almost", there is at least one counter-example: Ataturk's modernization of Turkish. But there were a lot of special circumstances there, like the fact that the official language they were modernizing wasn't actually spoken by anyone but the elites.
answered 1 hour ago
abarnertabarnert
1,561112
Thanks! I like your answer and upvoted it. I updated my question to address your answer, namely i would like to point out that in my situation two words for this notion are totally interchangeable.
– Yola
1 hour ago
add a comment |
2
2
2
Every language is chock full of synonyms—hundreds or thousands of them.
Usually, those synonyms have some difference. They might:
- … have slightly different connotations (usually "baby" includes toddlers, but "infant" doesn't),
- … be usable in different sets of constructions (compare "eat" and "consume"—only the latter requires an object),
- … be in different registers (compare "hello" and "hi"),
- … differ only in euphony (one sounds better next to certain words but worse next to others),
- … differ only when speaking across dialects (to an English speaker whose dialect has both "eggplant" and "aubergine", they're identical—but having both lets you talk to someone from Los Angeles who only knows "eggplant" and to someone from London who only knows "aubergine"),
- … etc.
But they're still clearly "words for the same notion".
So, to answer your questions:
How long such a situation can last? Well, not quite forever, because no word lasts forever with the same meaning. Eventually one of the two synonyms will probably shift in meaning until they're no longer synonyms, or die out, or the language itself might die out… but certainly for centuries.
Is it good for a language to have it? Probably. Otherwise, language evolution would presumably work harder than it does to eliminate synonyms. It's possible that this is just a defect in the human "language organ", or in human society, but it doesn't seem likely. (Also, consider that having a pair of synonyms gives the language the raw material to adapt one of them in a new need arises, without losing the other one.)
Should language bearers and linguists do something about it? Definitely not. It's not up to linguists to try to forcibly change languages. As for normal speakers, they can try, but (a) there's no good reason to, and (b) it almost never works.1
1. If you're wondering why I said "almost", there is at least one counter-example: Ataturk's modernization of Turkish. But there were a lot of special circumstances there, like the fact that the official language they were modernizing wasn't actually spoken by anyone but the elites.
answered 1 hour ago
abarnertabarnert
1,561112
Every language is chock full of synonyms—hundreds or thousands of them.
Usually, those synonyms have some difference. They might:
- … have slightly different connotations (usually "baby" includes toddlers, but "infant" doesn't),
- … be usable in different sets of constructions (compare "eat" and "consume"—only the latter requires an object),
- … be in different registers (compare "hello" and "hi"),
- … differ only in euphony (one sounds better next to certain words but worse next to others),
- … differ only when speaking across dialects (to an English speaker whose dialect has both "eggplant" and "aubergine", they're identical—but having both lets you talk to someone from Los Angeles who only knows "eggplant" and to someone from London who only knows "aubergine"),
- … etc.
But they're still clearly "words for the same notion".
So, to answer your questions:
How long such a situation can last? Well, not quite forever, because no word lasts forever with the same meaning. Eventually one of the two synonyms will probably shift in meaning until they're no longer synonyms, or die out, or the language itself might die out… but certainly for centuries.
Is it good for a language to have it? Probably. Otherwise, language evolution would presumably work harder than it does to eliminate synonyms. It's possible that this is just a defect in the human "language organ", or in human society, but it doesn't seem likely. (Also, consider that having a pair of synonyms gives the language the raw material to adapt one of them in a new need arises, without losing the other one.)
Should language bearers and linguists do something about it? Definitely not. It's not up to linguists to try to forcibly change languages. As for normal speakers, they can try, but (a) there's no good reason to, and (b) it almost never works.1
1. If you're wondering why I said "almost", there is at least one counter-example: Ataturk's modernization of Turkish. But there were a lot of special circumstances there, like the fact that the official language they were modernizing wasn't actually spoken by anyone but the elites.
answered 1 hour ago
abarnertabarnert
1,561112
edited 52 mins ago
answered 1 hour ago
abarnertabarnert
1,561112
answered 1 hour ago
abarnertabarnert
1,561112
answered 1 hour ago
abarnertabarnert
1,561112
1,561112
Thanks! I like your answer and upvoted it. I updated my question to address your answer, namely i would like to point out that in my situation two words for this notion are totally interchangeable.
– Yola
1 hour ago
add a comment |
Thanks! I like your answer and upvoted it. I updated my question to address your answer, namely i would like to point out that in my situation two words for this notion are totally interchangeable.
– Yola
1 hour ago
Thanks! I like your answer and upvoted it. I updated my question to address your answer, namely i would like to point out that in my situation two words for this notion are totally interchangeable.
– Yola
1 hour ago
Thanks! I like your answer and upvoted it. I updated my question to address your answer, namely i would like to point out that in my situation two words for this notion are totally interchangeable.
– Yola
1 hour ago
add a comment |
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Having slightly different meanings is only one of the reasons synonyms coexist, so I don't think your edited-in example changes anything. I'd assume "троянда" either feels more "native" than "роза" (which I assume is borrowed, directly or indirectly, from Latin?), or feels more "Russian", either of which could presumably give many Ukranian speakers reason to prefer one or the other in different contexts. And certainly they sound quite different, which could at least make a difference in poetry, music, and rhetoric.
– abarnert
1 hour ago
Meanwhile, why are you asking this? Do you think Ukranian would be a better language if you eliminated one of these two words? If so, I'll bet you have a particular on you'd like to eliminate. So ask yourself why you chose that one, and that'll tell you the distinction between the two.
– abarnert
1 hour ago
@abarnert I would like to eliminate роза because it has several other meanings like compass rose. There are other too. While eliminating троянда would remove another root from the language which would make it poorer.
– Yola
48 mins ago
1
But "compass rose" is named that because it looks like the flower. (I mean, I don't know the etymology specifically of the Ukranian term, but it's almost certainly the same as everyone else in Europe, ultimately going back to Latin "rosa ventorum", then dropping the borrowed or calqued "ventorum"/"wind" part when navigation switched to magnetic compasses.) If you eliminated "роза" for the flower, that connection would be gone, which would probably have an impact on both the learnability of "роза" for the compass rose, and the ways you can use it poetically and artistically.
– abarnert
35 mins ago
(Sure, it would be a tiny impact, but changing any single word is almost always a tiny impact…)
– abarnert
34 mins ago