To those of you who are actively multi-lingual....

[AG31]

If we're taking the question about whether English has more "nuance" than other languages truly seriously, then the only answer possible is that of course it does for the kinds of things English speakers over the past 150ish years have wanted to say in nuanced ways, but not necessarily for things that people in other linguistic cultures have wanted to say in nuanced ways.

Excellent insight!!!!!

 

[AG31]

Epicaricacy.

There's got to be a reason I've never heard of this, and now, hearing of it, I'm deciding to stick with Schadenfreude.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I'm not sure if anyone already said this. In my first post, I mentioned English being a very practical language, but I didn't elaborate. A good example would be the possibility to combine practically any two words into a new compound word. There are compound words in other languages, but the ease with which you can introduce a new compound word and the way it comes naturally is something possibly unique to English.

tooth+brush = toothbrush

mail+box = mailbox

body+guard = bodyguard

tea+pot=teapot

And these are only closed compound words. If you add open (ice cream) and hyphenated (well-being) compound words, yeah, there are so many possibilities.

In many other languages, you have to say, for example, a pot for the tea, or a box for the mail, rather than use one compound word.

 

[big_cane_sugar]

There's got to be a reason I've never heard of this, and now, hearing of it, I'm deciding to stick with Schadenfreude.

I propose epicshadenfreude as the word for when you had to wait a long time for the suffering so then you really, really enjoy it.

 

[MrPixel]

mail+box = mailbox

But that only gets you so far:

mail+man = mailman

mail+woman = mailwoman

mail+person = letter carrier

 

[TheLobster]

There are compound words in other languages, but the ease with which you can introduce a new compound word and the way it comes naturally is something possibly unique to English.

Hardly. When it comes to compounds, English has nothing on German; basically any common noun phrase here would be a compound noun in the bratwurst land. (Because clearly, “bathroom cabinet” is an important enough concept it deserves a place in the dictionary as a single word: Badezimmerschrank).

Indeed, the English examples you cited are old, stable coinages. How do you know? They don’t have a hyphen. If you want to mash two random words together, you need a hyphen or you’ll confuse your readers, thanks to the language’s irregular pronunciation.

This is such an important rule that when Orwell omitted hyphenation in his newspeak neologisms, it sufficed to make them look and sound alien enough so as to have come from a different, purpose-built language.

English is just bad at word creation, which is why it pilfers its vocabulary from everyone else.

 

[big_cane_sugar]

I'm not sure if anyone already said this. In my first post, I mentioned English being a very practical language, but I didn't elaborate. A good example would be the possibility to combine practically any two words into a new compound word. There are compound words in other languages, but the ease with which you can introduce a new compound word and the way it comes naturally is something possibly unique to English.

tooth+brush = toothbrush

mail+box = mailbox

body+guard = bodyguard

tea+pot=teapot

And these are only closed compound words. If you add open (ice cream) and hyphenated (well-being) compound words, yeah, there are so many possibilities.

In many other languages, you have to say, for example, a pot for the tea, or a box for the mail, rather than use one compound word.

Agglutinative languages do that kind of thing much more freely than English.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Agglutinative languages do that kind of thing much more freely than English.

Yeah, I'm not familiar with those languages. I guess it all depends on perspective. The languages I speak are terrible for compound words, hyphenated or otherwise.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Hardly. When it comes to compounds, English has nothing on German; basically any common noun phrase here would be a compound noun in the bratwurst land. (Because clearly, “bathroom cabinet” is an important enough concept it deserves a place in the dictionary as a single word: Badezimmerschrank).

Indeed, the English examples you cited are old, stable coinages. How do you know? They don’t have a hyphen. If you want to mash two random words together, you need a hyphen or you’ll confuse your readers, thanks to the language’s irregular pronunciation.

This is such an important rule that when Orwell omitted hyphenation in his newspeak neologisms, it sufficed to make them look and sound alien enough so as to have come from a different, purpose-built language.

English is just bad at word creation, which is why it pilfers its vocabulary from everyone else.

I don't speak German, so I didn't know any of that.
How about blended or Portmanteau words, though? You know, breakfast+lunch = brunch, situation+comedy = sitcom?
Is German superior in that sense as well?

 

[MrPixel]

Is German superior in that sense as well?

As someone who took German in school (and failed!), I'd describe it better as "excruciating".

 

[AG31]

I'm not sure if anyone already said this. In my first post, I mentioned English being a very practical language, but I didn't elaborate. A good example would be the possibility to combine practically any two words into a new compound word. There are compound words in other languages, but the ease with which you can introduce a new compound word and the way it comes naturally is something possibly unique to English.

tooth+brush = toothbrush

mail+box = mailbox

body+guard = bodyguard

tea+pot=teapot

And these are only closed compound words. If you add open (ice cream) and hyphenated (well-being) compound words, yeah, there are so many possibilities.

In many other languages, you have to say, for example, a pot for the tea, or a box for the mail, rather than use one compound word.

I would think German would be the winner in the "compound" contest. Can't think of any right now, it's been too long. But I have the impression that MOST German abstract words are compounds.

 

[big_cane_sugar]

I don't speak German, so I didn't know any of that.
How about blended or Portmanteau words, though? You know, breakfast+lunch = brunch, situation+comedy = sitcom?
Is German superior in that sense as well?

I know almost nothing about German but Chinese must be the champion of this.

 

[AG31]

If you want to mash two random words together, you need a hyphen or you’ll confuse your readers, thanks to the language’s irregular pronunciation.

Would that it were so. In the last 10 or 20 years mashed together words have exploded. Had a discussion with hubby about whether it was OK to write world view instead of worldview.

 

[TheLobster]

I don't speak German, so I didn't know any of that.
How about blended or Portmanteau words, though? You know, breakfast+lunch = brunch, situation+comedy = sitcom?
Is German superior in that sense as well?

Probably around the same? I’m not sure what language quality would make it easier to harder to coin those, considering they’re just blends which don’t have to obey the regular rules of word morphology.

As for examples, this blog lists a few, and makes the distinction between them and regular German compounds.

 

[AG31]

Agglutinative languages do that kind of thing much more freely than English.

Had to go look it up. Fascinating!

 

[big_cane_sugar]

Had to go look it up. Fascinating!

And bewildering if you're trying to learn one of them lol

 

[big_cane_sugar]

People complain about the mismatch between English spelling and pronunciation but I have come around to the position that it's actually a strength because it preserves the roots in the written forms and therefore gives clues as to the meaning and nuance to the use. As an example, all the words using "nat" as root:

nature
native
nation
etc. -- innate, natal, and of course cognate (lol sorry)

In each of the first three examples the "t" has a different sound because of the following vowel but the "nat" root is preserved in the spelling, which can be useful in complex or unfamiliar words ("neonatal") and it is somewhat unfortunate when it is lost ("renaissance"). One advantage of a language like Chinese is that while the pronunciation of a particular character can change almost unpredictably over time and space the root meaning can survive a very long time and into a lot of very different contexts.

 

[redgarters]

A single unique wonderful tale attracted me like a magnet, and, believe it or not, I translated it word for word using a paper dictionary.

That is dedication. Wow.

On the OP's question, I find it hard to compare languages like that, they are just too different. English is a good language to write in, but my native language is plenty nuanced as well, having been around for more than a thousand years remarkably little changed compared to most others. The main problem is that the only few hundred thousand people who understand my language are a rather restricted audience.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I don't speak German, so I didn't know any of that.
How about blended or Portmanteau words, though? You know, breakfast+lunch = brunch, situation+comedy = sitcom?
Is German superior in that sense as well?

"Brunch" is just a loan-word directly from English AFAIK, "das Brunch".

But "früh" (early) + "stück" (piece/slice) combine to make "Frühstück" (breakfast) and "Mittag" (midday) + "essen" (food) gives "Mittagessen" (lunch).

Leo gives me three options for "sitcom":

"die Situationskomödie", which matches the English "situation" + "comedy".

"Fern" (distant) + "sehen" (see) come together to make "Fernsehen"/"Fernseher" = "television", which then pairs with "komödie" (comedy) to make "die Fernsehkomödie".

Or just "die Sitcom" as a loan-word again.

German is really enthusiastic about combining words. My favourite is "tortoise": Schildkröte, literally a shield-toad.

 

[iwatchus]

"Brunch" is just a loan-word directly from English AFAIK, "das Brunch".

But "früh" (early) + "stück" (piece/slice) combine to make "Frühstück" (breakfast) and "Mittag" (midday) + "essen" (food) gives "Mittagessen" (lunch).

Leo gives me three options for "sitcom":

"die Situationskomödie", which matches the English "situation" + "comedy".

"Fern" (distant) + "sehen" (see) come together to make "Fernsehen"/"Fernseher" = "television", which then pairs with "komödie" (comedy) to make "die Fernsehkomödie".

Or just "die Sitcom" as a loan-word again.

German is really enthusiastic about combining words. My favourite is "tortoise": Schildkröte, literally a shield-toad.

I do not know German at all, but the examples you give are what I would consider compound words, not portmanteaus, which should drop some of the letters when combining. More mailman than , like brunch or skort.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I do not know German at all, but the examples you give are what I would consider compound words, not portmanteaus, which should drop some of the letters when combining. More mailman than , like brunch or skort.

Ah, missed that distinction.

German does also form portmanteaus (Kofferworts), e.g.:

"Geheime" (Secret) + "Staatspolizei" (State Police) -> "Gestapo"

"Verschlimmerung" (to make something worse) + "Verbesserung" (to make something better) -> "Verschlimmbesserung" (an 'improvement' that makes things worse).

But AFAICT, it's much more enthusiastic about compound nouns.

 

[Jorunn]

I speak several European languages past the ‘tourism’ stage, but French always baffled me. Having spent the summer there, the longer immersion helped me understand the way the language is used. By that, the subtle changes to the endings of words and sentences, the timbre of the voice, accents, stretching words, changes in volume, etc.

These same things exist in English, but are in constant use in France.