After wading through some dozens of entries on google about concept of words, semantics of words, word's concept depending from the context, proverbs, idioms and so on...

Some things I thought! to have learned...

First in the own language: a word is only recognizable if the majority of the users of the language have, if reading it, the same concept in their mind. And most such words one can find in the dictionaries of that language, mostly a dictionary of the "standard" language. Dialect words are only restricted to one region and only recognized by speakers of that region.

To translate words one looks in a dictionary of your language to see if that word has the same concept of the one in that other language. But the same word can have different meanings (concepts?) in the context of expressions in your own language and you have to find if the words have the same concept in the context of another language or have to be replaced by another word which gives the same context.

I suppose that idioms and proverbs are easier to translate, while there are a lot less of them than words and as they are so recognizable it is easy to find the equivalent in that other language.

As I remember the days of the Latin lessons...we had to make "translations" from Latin to our language...but we had also , they called it "themas" from our language to Latin...and those "themas" I found everytime more difficult than the translation...
What translators here on board think about that? Easier from your own language to the foreign one or vice versa?
Of course perhaps in my case many English ones don't understand my "English translations" , but you can always hire a native English one  to correct your utterings in "real" English as the grandson does for his texts...

Some related items that I yesterday found as about technical and scientific translations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics
http://www.differencebetween.net/language/difference-between-word-and-term/
http://www.kevinhendzel.com/translation-is-not-about-words-its-about-what-the-words-are-about/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untranslatability


And btw: With all my knowledge of yesterday, I wouldn't have found a correct translation for Comic Monster's Churchill sentence, as nordmann and MM did...

PR

I mentioned on one of the other threads today that my late next-door neighbour's son who had an English father and a Columbian (as in South American) mother quickly picked up English during family visits to England (when the children were younger the family lived in South America though the Dad came back to England - without his wife sadly, later on).  I attended primary school during the 1950s and there was a contingent of children whose parents were displaced Poles or had been fighting with the free Poles.  These children of Polish parentage seemed to go back and forth between speaking Polish amongst themselves and English with their other schoolmates and teachers with alacrity.  I can remember a Hungarian boy being there also (post 1956) though I don't remember there being a Hungarian community as such.  A friend of mine from at home rather than at school had a German Mum and English Dad and she could skip easily from one language to the other.  (I had different home and school friends with attending a Catholic school and Catholicism being at least in the UK a minority form of Christianity)

My partner, who was fluent in French, Flemish/Dutch and English, could easily switch between the three and I was always most impressed by that ability, but now, although by no means fluent in French, I can switch back and forward reasonably well between French and English in normal casual conversation. What I find difficult is when someone suggests that to mutually improve our language skills, I should speak French while they speak English (or visa versa), or to try and translate for someone else (ie a third person) in a conversation. That's particularly hard because in normal dialogue both parties tend to use and repeat exactly the same words and expressions to each other (albeit while they may have slightly different understandings of the words they usually have a mutual general understanding of the overall concepts being discussed), however if two people are conversing but each using a different language, it introduces a whole new level of comrehension complexity. I find my brain has to be in either English, or French, mode, and so I am very impressed by those that can do simultaneous translation (ie hearing one language but at the same time speaking another). Furthermore some ideas, concepts and expressions are almost unique to a specific culture/language and so a simple direct translation - such as given by a dictionary - often falls short of the full story. 

For a trivial example: hot water in many French homes is provided by a cumulus, that is a hot water tank heated by what in England would probably be referred to as an electric immersion heater ... but what would be the simple one word English translation of that? Similarly everyone in France (provided they are eligible, of course) has a Carte Vitale which is the small plastic card showing that one has health care rights under the national health insurance system. The word 'vitale' means 'vital', as in 'essential for life' but in this case it's just the card's logo/title/name and when referring to the 'Carte Vitale' (and depending on the context) one can be referring to the whole system in the abstract; or specific aspects of the system; or just the plastic card itself, which is in any case actually called a 'carte d'assurance maladie'. Similarly if in English I said that someone was given their P45 or 'their cards', most UK residents would readily understand, provided they had familiarity with the whole employment system, but what's the one-or-two word equivalent in, say French, where a completely different system applies? Then there are the more subtle and abstract concepts that are largely cultural and have no direct word-for-word equivalence in another language; for example the German, freude and indeed schadenfeude, or the Dutch, melig.

MM and LiR, too late to make an elaborated reply, although I have that many comments.
MM has you know that well the Belgian situation for you it will be more easy to understand my comments and thank you btw for your complete survey. Perhaps still time to make some preliminary comments.

For me it has a lot to do with the time, the exposure and the intensity you are in contact with a foreign language, which is crucial for the aptitude to have a grip on all the "finesses" (nuances?) of a foreign language.
For instance I speak perfectly two dialects: East and West-Flemish, as I started from childhood on with East-Flemish, during 14 years and then a sixty years each hour of the day with West-Flemish. I agree they are both Dutch dialects, but even for natives there are big differences. Of course there are only five Dutch dialects in the North of Belgium, with the other three Antwaarps, Brabants and Limburgs. But while Antwaarps and Brabants are very related, even with the Brabants at the other side of the border with the Netherlands (only differing in the "holland accent" due to the different school education of the last 150 years (before there was no general school system, nor in France))
But I was in Sicily together with people from Limburg and we could communicate in Dutch, but when they spoke among each other I couldn't understand only from time to time a word.
Of course in Germany as it is a bigger country you have dozens of dialects, as I guess in Britain too.

And I would add a big factor to learn and understand a language is the will to learn. I know many older Spanish ones don't want learn a foreign language while they find that Spanish is a world language and it are the others who have to learn Spanish.
We have now since some months a Venezolan girl as hirer and in the beginning she spoke and understood no Dutch. But now when I spoke with her this morning she can understand what I say and repeat to prove that she understood it. She said well "uur" as in the German "Uhr" (hour). Don't the "u" of the French "sur" exist in Spanish as in English?
But yes she has had 16 hours a week Dutch at school and want to learn the language to live  here and to get a job, that is quite a difference with me, who learned only Spanish for pleasure and who was only during vacancies submerged in the Spanish language...

PR

MM and LiR, already again 11PM overhere and I have still to start...

Perhaps some comments on MM's difficulties:
"What I find difficult is when someone suggests that to mutually improve our language skills, I should speak French while they speak English (or visa versa), or to try and translate for someone else (ie a third person) in a conversation. That's particularly hard because in normal dialogue both parties tend to use and repeat exactly the same words and expressions to each other (albeit while they may have slightly different understandings of the words they usually have a mutual general understanding of the overall concepts being discussed), however if two people are conversing but each using a different language, it introduces a whole new level of comrehension complexity. I find my brain has to be in either English, or French, mode, and so I am very impressed by those that can do simultaneous translation (ie hearing one language but at the same time speaking another)."

I should speak  French, while the, I suppose, native French person would speak English. That would in my opinion a bad conversation while both would perhaps make that many faults in their foreign language that it would become from both side a difficult to understand language.
This can only work in my opinion if they both are nearly native speakers after both had a long exposure to both their native language?
But vice versa? Both speaking their native language and so each learns to understand the other's foreign language? And from the context they learn the specific wordcombinations of each foreign language?
For me, it is better that one speaks his original native language and the other repeats and add some words of his own vocabulary in that foreign language and the other correct where necessary. At least so  I learned to speak fluently German and nearly every ten sentences I asked: Ist dass richtig in Deutsch? And of course days and days exposure and praxis.

As for seamless changing of one language to another.  I think one underestimates the human brain. I read how many languages one human could master. I don't remember how many, but it were dozens. Especially for Germanic and Romance languages. If one know from both groups one language, it is easely to understand and certainly read them all. And if you for instance know German, Spanish and Russian you have the Slavic languages en plus, those Slavic ones also similar...

But yes: seamless changing of language...when we were in meeting in Belgium with the factory of Britain (some (50 miles above London), the factory of France and we, we all spoke English. But some discussions aside, we had in French with the Frenchman. And discussing among each other we did in our West-Flemish dialect (not understandable for one who had learned Standard Dutch). But it is of course not nice and polite for those, who know only English...I had at least this feeling when discussing with Germans and they aside discussing in their dialect, which I partly understood, not knowing if they were laughing with me or praising me...
But we, the West-Flemings, could seamlessny (adverb ) change from one language to another and in the meantime listen to what the others said...
When I was with my boss and my mother rang up, speaking "East-Flemish" (as she never in her life learned the other dialect) I changed in East-Flemish in a second and then in intervals to my boss in West-Flemish again. But of course I was grown "native" in both dialects overtime.
My mother mentioned it and I heard it later too. People from Ronse on the languageborder, could easely in the same conversation, perhaps due to the subject about what they were discussing changing from East-Flemish dialect to French and vice versa.
My partner was probing some cloths and in the meantime I was chatting with the seemingly Indian woman in the shop. She was speaking a reasonable Dutch to me without hesitation and suddenly she had a phone call in I guess Urdu (later she confirmed that it was a kind of Urdu of the more thant hundred languages and dialects) and she could in between speak with a new customer come in the shop, and in Dutch.

PR

I don't know if it applies to sign languages other than British Sign Language, but the (deaf) lady who teaches the class I attend explained (on Monday) that deaf people don't really use idioms the way hearing people do.  She asked about the meaning of barking up the wrong tree - a deaf person would just say he or she had the wrong idea, I think.  Also, she coughed and so we explained the saying "a frog in the throat" and then "mad as a box of frogs".  But although deaf people don't have idioms in the same way hearing people do the sign for "zip it" is made over the non-dominant hand rather than over the lips.

I signed up for Norwegian language classes when I arrived in the country and our class was a really happy and eclectic mix of nationalities, cultures and personalities, all united in "making a go" of both the language and fitting in to this new society on which we had inflicted ourselves.

Except of course for a certain nationality (you can probably guess which one), whose sole representative in the class started out glumly pessimistic and cynical about the whole exercise, and went downhill from there. By the time we were all cramming and revising in advance of sitting the national "speech test" (a big deal in Norway, your right to stay on in the country can depend on passing it) the poor lad was floundering badly, still insisting on using his native tongue, and ever more disdainful of the paltry efforts of the rest of us to "beherkse språket".

The poor teacher, who by now had given up on getting even the most basic "Hello, My Name Is ..." phrase into the lad's skull, threw her hands in the air one day and asked him just why he so stubbornly resisted acquiring even the most basic linguistic skills, knowing that to fail the forthcoming exam actually placed his career, his relationship, and quite a lot else in jeopardy. He answered that in fact he was typical of his countrymen and "we just aren't good at foreign languages".

To which she replied, "Why? After all you came to Norway speaking one".

You may have had an unfortunate experience, nordmann, I know lots of English people (taking a stab and guessing the nationality in question in your class) who enjoy learning languages.  nordmann is of course right that there are some people who seem to glory in their lack of learning but is that a trait that is limited to the English?  This British man living in Poland (I think he has a Polish significant other) is making a stab at speaking Polish - though since my Polish is limited to the words for "please" and "thank you" I can't vouch for his accent.  

Samuel Johnson springs to mind, LiR - namely when he was asked to comment on the new Quaker phenomenon of allowing women to preach:

"[It] is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

nordmann, as LiR, I suppose, it was an exception, as I know also a lot of Englishmen, who do their best to adopt to the local language. But as if there are English speaking people in the group and as most of the others have English as second language the whole group tends to speak English. The same as they come to Belgium. Everybody is speaking English to them. I think it was GG (Gil), who told me, when trying to speak French in Brussels, they answered in English, while I suppose it was a perfect bilingual Flemish Dutch/French, who heard the non native French.
I had the same in Normandy, when they heard my non native French, they started in English, but their English was that bad, that I said I was a Belgian from the North, but that I perfectly understood French, if they only wanted to understand my non native French...
Those from the Flemish region, who have now a kind of superiority feeling, due to the constant Flemish nationalist indoctrination, not that bilingual anymore and do now the same as at the start of the Flemish social/language movement end of the 19th century. The "hautain" denigrating of the upperclass of the North of Belgium to speak the second Belgian language. Even in the Fifties of the Twentieth century there were a lot of denigrating remnants of the French cultural superiority and I have seen them evolute in my lifetime till the present situation, I think also very much linked to the economic better situation in the North of Belgium after WWII and the detoriating of the "old" industry in the South.
nordmann, apart from the language question, I think you recognize these situations of the 19th-20th century in Belgium into your own native Irish ones, I suppose?

No as I mentioned up my thread there is no difference between "humans" learning another language. It is only the will to achieve, which is important.  And of course that is not helped by any denigrating "hautaine" attitude...

Kind regards, Paul.

Lady, you are right with English people, that as every other mortal can learn foreign languages.
As I only understand some Russian (Polish is also a Slavic language, but perhaps understandable for the Russians but not for me) I put from the subtitle function an English translation on it and for once one could follow what was said. And I hope it is "English irony", while it is a quite jingoistic eulogy of the "eternal" Poland...
From the link about us:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpl8Texk5r2cxebg1K1AQFQ
A Poilish one grown up in Britain of Jewish roots?

Kind regards, Paul.

The human brain has no physical barrier to learning as many languages as its owner wishes - once one accommodates one variable set of grammatical rules and their associated vocabulary then, when one thinks about it, "foreign" languages are simply add-ons to the existing reservoir, albeit new additions that one then has to remember to "group" in terms of intelligible usage. It can be easier of course if the "new" language one learns contains an innate similarity with that which one has already absorbed, but even then there is a strong linguistic (and semantic) argument that in fact such similarity between languages can lead to even more complication and obfuscation of whatever divide should be retained between them in one's mind, so much that it can even encourage corruption of semantic intelligibility which, if not controlled, renders the acquisition useless anyway. For some people therefore it helps, having learnt Spanish for example, to then try their hand at Portuguese. For others however the acquisition is helped if the "new" language bears little or no similarity with one's mother tongue at all (such as any European tackling Cantonese, for example).

Either way, when one claims one is "incapable" of learning a new language one really isn't using the word "capable" correctly at all, in any language. And yes, cultural barriers are erected often which hinder acquisition of a new language (such as when "foreigners" insist on addressing you in your own tongue, or via a "lingua franca"). But by far the most severe barrier of that nature is the one that is self-inflicted. It would have been easy for me, for example, to claim the "English defence" in my own instance - here in Norway for instance it is very difficult to get people not to practice their own English on you if you let them. However here, as I also found elsewhere (mostly Germany and Greece), there is also a huge appreciation on most people's part when you make the effort to communicate with them in their own language.

Of course, to do this one leaves oneself open to terrible unintelligibilty and a lot of consequential derision and humour at your expense (and even, it must be said, overt racism at times directed at you in which your "mangling" of the language is subjectively interpreted by such bigots as a wilful affront to their identity). So it helps if one already has accommodated the notion that one isn't the member of a "master race" in which that which is familiar is "correct" and everything else "foreign". Besides the initial will to learn a language (which is of course the absolute requirement) a bit of courage is required, a lot of self-deprecation at times, and a continuous commitment to the actual effort involved which will often seem to yield no gain at all. Some cultures produce people who, in the main, are well suited to adopt that Sisyphean stance. Some are not.

nordmann, I join Temperance in her eulogy about the high quality of your messages, nearly essays. And yes I agree with all what you said. And I have perhaps less "practical" experience of spoken communication as you, except German, but yes that is the way it is. And thanks again, as I, despite all my experiences, still learned something from you.
Kind regards, Paul.

Yes, nordmann does have a flair for explaining things.

Paul, in the "Message for Caro" thread where I referred to waffling in my lost post, I was not of course casting aspersions at Belgian waffles as cakes/bread (I'm never quite sure which) but to "waffling on" - talking, (or in this case typing), at unnecessary length and maybe not keeping to the subject of the post, instead of sticking to the key facts.  https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/waffle

Lady, for once I knew the meaning of "waffle" in English. Otherwise I would
put it between my famous " " " (contrary to the American between inverted commas)  
But yes each time I see the word I think about the Dutch and English word for "wafel".
And as we are on the language board I searched for the etymology
https://www.etymonline.com/word/waffle
And it seems to come from the waf waf of a puppy

Kind regards, Paul.

nordmann,

"It can be easier of course if the "new" language one learns contains an innate similarity with that which one has already absorbed, but even then there is a strong linguistic (and semantic) argument that in fact such similarity between languages can lead to even more complication and obfuscation of whatever divide should be retained between them in one's mind, so much that it can even encourage corruption of semantic intelligibility which, if not controlled, renders the acquisition useless anyway. For some people therefore it helps, having learnt Spanish for example, to then try their hand at Portuguese. For others however the acquisition is helped if the "new" language bears little or no similarity with one's mother tongue at all (such as any European tackling Cantonese, for example)."

You are right in both cases in my experience too. How closer the two languages are, I mean here the own language and the foreign one, how more difficult it is to differentiate. If the two close languages are both foreign ones to the speaker of his language, I suppose it is even more difficult. And I said "speaker", as in my opinion it is good to first read a lot, before the speaking, but of course you need first have a very good notion about the pronunciation of these languages. As I for instance type these words here, my mind see them at the same moment in the right pronuciation (of course my "right"   pronunciation). And not as I as 8 year old read already grown up Dutch language novels and when the English people were driving in their "twoseater" I didn't know what it was and read "t-wo-se-ater"...

But I come back to my mentioning of the worth of the time of exposure and using the language. After some years one can become "embedded" in a certain language. I have for instance no problem to speak the two very close East and West Flemish dialects, with all the subtle finesses, after an exposure and use of 15 years for the first and 60 years for the second, but as you rightly said I have more difficulties to speak the correct Northern Dutch as I not always speak Dutch. The same with my German, where I had also a big exposure and use, but there is it perhaps easier as there the difference is higher as between the Dutch and its dialects. And as I can only speak Hoch Deutsch...but I can understand for instance the Spanish of the Spanish "newsreader" and in the same case the Italian, as they are close to French, which I very well understand because I am so long used to it. And of course reading them also, as the rules of spoken Spanish and Italian are much more easier than in English...

And yes in the second case when the languages differ a lot, for instance Dutch and Russian it is more difficult to learn, but once one has the grasp of the new language his pronunciation and use will be exact and close to the "standard" spoken Russian or as in your case the Canton Chinese...

And perhaps as we are on the crossing of the Romance-Germanic language border and in West-Flanders Ostend had daily contact with British people as Ostend was in the time nearly an English "town"...and in the Belgian industry a heavy German footprint with technical representants only speaking German (a bit as the British, although to be honest some  of the British spoke a bit of French)...


Kind regards, Paul.

As the subject of this thread is perhaps also related to the similarities between languages, especially of the same group, as for instance the Germanic and Romance languages, I will collect here my "questions" about language overhere...

For instance, when I yesterday thought to start a thread about the liberation of Europe starting with operation Torch and later with Overlord, I first in my mind, as Dutch speaking one, had to think for the word in English for "bevrijding" (German: Befreiung) as I wanted to say: "befreeing" (and I think every Brit would understand that?) and suddenly, as many times happens, thinking about the French word "libération" I had the translation...

When Vizzer, spoke lately about a joke about "tirement":
"Congratulations to Green George (on your election) and Trike (on your retirement). 
I always think that the word should be 'detirement' as those of us who are euphemistically described as being in 'gainful employment' are actually in tirement. On the other hand one who opts to go from detirement back into tirement has surely chosen retirement."


I had a feeling as Flemish dialect speaking one, that Vizzer was speaking with "tirement" about "exhaustion", while "retirement" comes from the French "rétirer" retreat and as such along the way meaning: retreat from active duty. (as the Dutch: terugtrekken in the same meaning)
And I had a look to the French "détirer" and it means: "stretch out" (as the Dutch: uitrekken in the same meaning)
And indeed in English: tired is "exhausted", but it is in contradiction with "retired", as there it means "tiré": drawn (Dutch "getrokken") French: rétiré

And nevertheless for me with my Flemish dialect feeling the "tired" meaning "exhausted" was not strange to me and I found why (I think)
In Flemish we have an equivalent for "tired", not existing in Dutch, and perhaps in the near future will gone at all:
From "trekken" (draw), trok, past tense, getrokken past participle.
Expression in Flemish: hij ziet er "getrokken" uit, hij ziet er "moe" uit: he looks tired
And that "getrokken" at the same time also the same meaning as the French "tiré"
I have to seek it back but I found it also in the dialect of "Vilvoorde" (near Brussels)

Kind regards from Paul.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190903-linguistic-fluency-proficiency-second-language-learning
From the site:
There are many ways of categorising someone's linguistic skills, but the concept of fluency is hard to define.
And further:
I can relate all too well to overestimating one's own abilities. A "heritage speaker" of Italian, I'd been living in Italy for two years when I overheard a receptionist refer me to as "that foreigner, who doesn't speak Italian". I was confused, then gutted. That one casual sentence launched a journey that resulted being forced to acknowledge that while I had grown up speaking Italian at home and was fluent, I was not by any means proficient.

My comments on the article.

I think out of my experience one can never become proficient in a second language. If I understand the word "proficient" well?

And for instance the example in the article, which quote you can read above...
What Italian language the "receptionist" was speaking? You have perhaps the RAI  Italian speaking and the more colloquial Italian language?
One is perhaps too exacting when one tries to define "proficient"
I suppose a lot of real native speakers aren't de facto also not "proficient" in their language.
To take the example of the Dutch language that I best know. You have for example the Dutch spoken in the Netherlands and that spoken in Belgium.
When the Northern Dutch say some four words, the Southern Belgian Dutch speaking one can already hear that it is a Dutchman. And the same I guess the other way around. I suppose it has to do with the teaching of the language in the schools. These schools starting to speak gradually another language in the North after the separation in the 17th century.

I guess as I read the term that I am only "proficient" in my dialect from the South West of Ghent, that I learned from birth on and among natives from that region...

All to say that I find that some language teachers are too exacting, while the differences in speaking even among regional speakers of the standard language is a bigger difference than between the would be proficient speakers.

As the granddaughter now lives in Switzerland, you have to hear the difference between a German and a Swiss speaking both the "standard" German language, the "Hochdeutsch"...

Kind regards from Paul.

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With the term: "schoolmeester-schoolmeesteres" that I mentioned to nordmann I wondered if it in French would be then: maîtresse as we learned in the time in the French lesson: maître...but now it seems to be also "instituteur" and perhaps that we learned that too...
Did some research on the mighty google and see it didn't recognize at first "schoolmeesteres" as the word perhaps don't exists anymore in standard Dutch?
But: De jonge schoolmeesteres. 1740. By Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin.
And in the English subtitle they say: The young schoolmistress. And indeed it seems to still exist in English.



But further in Dutch: I found it as in Flemish-French dictionary
http://tiny.cc/e4ejdz
"maîtresse d'école"...
But here  ...
https://www.mijnwoordenboek.nl/vertaal/NL/FR/meester
"1) leraar op een basisschool - maître (d'école) (le ~)
vijf juffen en twee meesters - cinq maîtresses et deux maîtres
 
Yes, and now I see: "juffen"...nowadays they say in school: "juf", but in our time, now more than seventy years ago, we had to say "juffrouw" (mistress?).
And there was only one in our nunschool and she had, as I see it now, a daring short skirt to just under her knees...and we had to put our finger in the air and say "juffrouw, juffrouw". For the nuns it was "ma soeur, ma soeur" (my sister) and later I think it was "zuster" (sister)...

Kind regards from Paul.

You began this thread, Paul, with a pretty accurate statement regarding how, semantically, the chances of adoption and perpetual use of a word in any language is assisted by that word imparting as close as possible a common and consistent meaning in the perception of those using it. This is true, but a second rule of semantics also applies - that the more specific meaning that can be packed into as memorably concise a group of sounds as possible the more likely then that this group will solidify into a word that is not only memorable but useful enough to encourage re-use. Or, to put it another way, the more information that can be imparted semantically in as short a word as possible the more chance the resulting word will be taken up and used by people thereafter.

Words tend to lose currency when an ambiguity enters their semantic usefulness in this regard. A very typical example of this is when a language adopts words from elsewhere that coincidentally have a very similar or identical form to one already existing, and especially if the imported semantic intent is close but not quite identical to the one previously in use. In these cases the linguistic effect can be rather unpredictable, but normally ends up with either a total dropping of one of the usages altogether, or the introduction of a spelling variation to advertise which subtle semantic interpretation is intended (only really useful in written use of the word). However in cases where both versions are still useful enough to co-exist even despite the confusion this can cause then the solution is to assist the semantic intent through use of context, delivery, or even just tone of delivery, to point the perceiver in the correct semantic direction.

But that is just semantics, as they say. In reality there is another very powerful force working on popularity of terms that has little or nothing to do with semantic conciseness whatsoever, and that is the language's role as the communication agency employed to reflect wider social mores as they alter and evolve, as well as society's requirement to verbally elucidate with the tools to hand events and concepts that are "new" or which have newly acquired importance. No matter how semantically concise a word may be, if it falls foul of social mores that discourage use of racist or sexist terms (to cite just two typical examples of rapidly evolving social mores within modern society), then vernacular language will quickly adapt to these pressures too and the semantic usefulness that once encouraged use of some terms will now in fact very often work against their continued use at all. A semantic exactness that included denoting a person's sex, for example, automatically singles out such words for revision or abandonment based on what society's values now require.

So, when it comes to sexist terms and an increasing awareness that modification of a word to impart the fact that a woman is being specifically indicated might be superfluous data according to current social mores, then the logical next step in linguistic development is simply to drop the superfluous usage altogether. And anyway, once that social more itself has gained currency then, unless a form also exists to indicate a man, any further use of a neutral term (previously sufficient to infer "male") will only cause semantic confusion itself as long as both forms exist. Total abandonment of the superfluous term then is not only desirable but crucial in ensuring the semantic integrity of the generic term thereafter.

English, because of the way it developed, is a language constructed from other languages in the past, almost all of which followed that basic Indo-European trait of imparting gender to concepts for reasons having little or nothing to do with an actual requirement to denote sex. However that same development, due also to the large number of such contributory tongues at its core, also encouraged quite early in the process of devising its modern manifestation the abandonment of this facet altogether (or nearly altogether - boats for example retain a feminine gender when addressed in pronoun form). There were simply too many conflicting gender associations being imported along with the words to be useful any longer in achieving semantic clarity. Where words were modified in the past to denote female sex in order to comply with current social mores demanding such distinction, it has become a relatively simple matter in recent times, under new current mores, to simply revert to the generic term and leave it at that. Despite the semantic usefulness of having such a simple qualifier to denote sex, once the requirement to know which sex applies has been deemed socially irrelevant (or even objectionable on the grounds that it fosters sexist thinking) then it has been no great difficulty for people to adapt their language use accordingly and simply drop the now superfluous term. Or at least it's a work currently in progress - "schoolmistress" has long been abandoned, "actresses" are a dwindling bunch as the term "actor" as sufficient for needs gains currency, whereas I doubt we'll ever see "seamstresses" replaced by "seamsters" any time soon.

But the relative ease of such adaptation in the English vernacular is not quite the same in other European languages, I've noticed. Those, for example, which have retained strong use of gender within their grammatical constructs contain an extra barrier to this process therefore that must also be overcome in the minds of their speakers. Brains that have been trained to almost automatically calculate gender into the equation when formulating a string of words in making themselves understood must now, if they are also to accede to the linguistic demands the same social more places on them, employ two filters rather than the one that is required among English speakers (or speakers of any other language or dialect that has already relegated or eliminated gender from its vernacular - I'm looking at you Bergen people). One filter assesses whether the word may offend the social more discouraging sexism, and the second has to evaluate if this then inhibits its semantic payload by offending or ignoring the gender rule that language's grammar still employs.

I see it here in Norway a lot in fact. Norwegian contains some gender rule still, though when compared to French for example has managed to deploy the "neutral" gender to far more of its nouns than both of the others combined. However this has actually caused something of an extra complication for those employing this double-filter when attempting to speak lucidly and still conform to language consistent with current social values. The fact that female gender nouns which have survived in that grammatical form are both persistent and relatively few in Norwegian actually means that the proclivity to abandon, or even slightly change their delivery, is much less likely. And because of this innate desire therefore to preserve the distinction other words indicating female sex also have to be thoroughly checked prior to delivery to ensure that abandoning their use doesn't ambiguate their semantic payload. And as such calculations are performed at split second speed in the action of verbally communicating, the "safe" option of simply persevering in their use seems to win in most cases. In written text, or in verbal communication conducted in the context of addressing the social more itself, then one is inclined to see this manipulation of the vernacular to avoid superfluous gender assignment in action, but in general oral discourse one is far more likely still to experience continued use of terms that social mores currently would encourage to be regarded as archaic.

The only problem with all this of course is when, as in my case, one actually agrees with this particular social more. One is conscious then that in an uncomfortably high number of instances one finds oneself relaxing adherence to the linguistic rule it encourages simply in order to maintain semantic clarity in the language one is using at that moment to communicate points not directly related to this more at all. I assume, Paul, that this is more or less where you are too in relation to language use. However I would still recommend that you evaluate your actual need to employ suffixes designed to infer a female member of any profession, and especially that you don't find yourself ever feeling a need to add a prefix "lady" before any job name to denote the sex of the worker in question. It's bad enough that one's vernacular steers one unwittingly into casual sexism, without also proactively contributing through intentional combinations of words in order to render what the vernacular had already obligingly neutralised into a superfluous gender-specific term again.

nordmann,

where to start with? 

Thanks first of all for your detailed reply. And I have to confess that you know a lot more of langauge than I.

And yes I agree that I am still in the old fashioned way of attributing a gender to people, when speaking about a male or a female person, to indicate to the listener about whom I am speaking. And in the English language, as you are starting from a more neutral modus (nurse (female and male), the transition of the oldies (although it depends not only from age, as I guess you are older than me) to the new mores is perhaps easier in the Anglophone world than for instance, what I best know, the French, Dutch, German world. But to be honest, when you use "nurse", you have afterwards alter to speak about a "he" or a "she"? But that is perhaps not so denigrating as directly starting: with verpleegster, Pflegerin, she-nurse?
And yes, in my case and perhaps in other one's too, it comes I think not from the logical reasoning of our mind, but rather from an inner deep (genetically?) to differentiate between men and women? Something as to show what gender that we are, versus the outside world? And as such not easy to become conform to the new mores? And I promise to show improvement, having in mind what you said.

But in French they are a bit strict about language use as on the Passion Histoire forum. I try to write correct French perhaps more correct than the French themselves. As some use many times the "infinitif" for the "participe passé", what hurts me a lot. The same for the gender of the words, by which the whole sentence as to accord to the gender of a word, as "persé and persée". I spent hours to be sure that I used the correct gender, now I have an apart window to seek for a given word on the computer. But over the years I know now already a lot of words as a real Frenchman. For instance: un documentaire and not une...
But I realize that even in my mother language Dutch, I still many times hesitate: is it "het venster" or "de venster" (window). The same in German. But as you say, it is not that important as it not alters the sense of the sentence;
And each language evolutes, even French...as I learned on the French forum that now more and more the "passé simple" is abandoned and only the "imparfait remains. Of course some "forumeurs" don't agree with such a degradation fo the French language..

But I am prepared to change my attitudes as I see the grandchildren are less and less gender related in their behaviour...but I, the whole schooltime, boys only, and that schooltime is nevertheless a big part of your life...

Yes and the mores are changing to more gender neutral and anti-sexism...
BTW; I apologize for my easy joking about the word "maîtresse" in French. And yes in Dutch you have a "meesteres" in a session of sado-masochism, as the partner looks at in TV documentaires. Nowadays you have documentaires about nearly everything.
But yes changing mores even in the toy shop...
https://www.thelocal.fr/20190924/french-government-cracks-down-on-sexist-toys
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/20/toyshop-sexism-children-gender-stereotyping
And as I read in the local paper (it seems to be a rather European event?)
they said that "experts" said that even between our cousins the monkeys, that gender related existed also. I was rather sceptical as they speak of "experts", as I know what to expect...but see with what word combinations I found in google:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2583786/

Kind regards from Paul.

It has long been acceptable in English to use the pronoun "they" when referring to an individual - especially when talking about persons unknown (for example a perpetrator of a crime whose identity has yet to be established so this pronoun use, as you can imagine, figures prominently in criminal investigations and legal trials). It has also been useful traditionally when discussing a person whose sex is irrelevant to the point being made or even a potential distraction from that point (for example when prognosticating individual achievement such as in "one day someone will find a cure for cancer and they will be rightly feted by all humanity"). Having said that, its use as a sexually neutral reference has also been frowned upon in cases where social mores dictate that gender requires reference (such as in referring to known individuals or individuals in roles traditionally associated with either sex). This latter grammatical convention, especially for example in recent times where such sex-based role assumptions are often incorrect, has led however to something of a quandary when choosing pronouns in some circumstances. Use of "they" might be seen as lessening, for instance, correct recognition of a person's achievement if discussing a female who has excelled in a field previously associated with males. And even in discussion where the sex is unknown, but mention of which carries a residual requirement to be specified had it be known, then although "they" is completely correct grammatically the tendency has been to use "he or she" or similar.

Lately there has been a concerted campaign emanating from certain quarters, most recently from those with an interest in the broader "self identification" gender issue that demands greater public attention than heretofore, to drop "he" and "she" (and especially "he or she") altogether from use and simply use "they" for everyone.

Personally I can see the logic in that and would certainly avail of that convention willingly should it gain traction, but I also think that the English language would be the poorer in losing an ability to quickly denote gender in pronoun form. Besides it still having a rather self-evident function in matters where distinction between individuals on point of gender may still avail of such a handy shorthand method of achieving this, there is a semantic consideration too when formulating nuanced point with the most economic use of sound - an aspect of language which is always almost miraculous the more one examines it, how much information can be imparted overtly and subliminally between two people using just a handful of sounds that the human mouth can produce. The nuanced subtlety involved in this communication is enhanced through the introduction of gender conventions in many languages, which after all need not be considered as sexual gender anyway - "gender" is simply a word we use to describe a convention in which some languages even present "man" as a feminine concept and "woman" as male. This convention carries semantic payload in its own right, a layer of implied meaning above or beneath the definition of the words themselves to which the convention applies.

English has already abandoned this particular convention, presenting almost all nouns in neutral form, and achieves such nuance now mainly through extended vocabulary, a word count that far exceeds most other languages and especially modern versions of those from which English itself was derived. The introduction through a new convention of neutralising the last possible method of denoting gender in that language at all might, in my view, be one neutralisation too far at the expense of what in linguistics is referred to as "semantic diction" (not the words being expressed but the actual translated meaning conceptually that is perceived by the listener/reader).

In other languages however which preserve noun genders, and especially those that most obviously do not correlate this gender necessarily with the sex of individuals, then in fact I would see such a drive to neutralise pronouns as no bad thing whatsoever. The semantic impact would be minimal, and in fact traditional use of grammatic gender may even in fact enhance the nuance available through use of the neutralised pronoun in conjunction with nouns anyway. So, speaking purely from the point of view of semantics, one could even be so bold as to say that speakers of these languages have even less justification for retaining sexist phraseology in their vernacular than English speakers.

nordmann,

thank you very much for your elaborated reply and your sugesstions. I read it all.

Kind regards, Paul.

I was uncertain whether to put this comment on this thread or one of the threads appertaining to religion.  I managed to attend the French conversation class today.  One member of the group has a daughter who lives in France and he brought a copy of a leaflet about a ruined abbey in eastern France near where his daughter lives.  I had quite forgotten that monasteries and abbeys were closed in France (or at least placed under the suzerainty of the state) at or about the time of the French Revolution.  I remember someone (was it Vizzer?) mentioning closing of many monasteries in Spain in the 19th century.

Anyway, that was giving a bit of background.  I had to ask the meaning of one word "courtil" in the leaflet.  I should have known that really because I was a secretary to a conveyancing lawyer at one time and "courtil" means 'curtilege'.*  At one time there were a lot of words in 'legalese' which were (as I'm sure you all know) derived from Norman French so I should have been able to guess its meaning.  This question may have been addressed before but what is the difference between an abbey and a monastery (other than that an abbey has an abbot or abbess).

In colloquial English if someone has felt the word "She" is being used ambiguously - or perhaps disrespectfully where it would be more polite to call a person by name - the question "Who's she,[shortened from Who is] the cat's mother?" - though I've never heard `"Who's he, the cat's father?" used about the male of the species.  Does anyone know of any similar expressions in other languages?

* I had to amend this because autocorrect changed the word to 'cartilage'.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Anyway, that was giving a bit of background.  I had to ask the meaning of one word "courtil" in the leaflet.  I should have known that really because I was a secretary to a conveyancing lawyer at one time and "courtil" means 'curtilege'.*  At one time there were a lot of words in 'legalese' which were (as I'm sure you all know) derived from Norman French so I should have been able to guess its meaning.  This question may have been addressed before but what is the difference between an abbey and a monastery (other than that an abbey has an abbot or abbess).

In colloquial English if someone has felt the word "She" is being used ambiguously - or perhaps disrespectfully where it would be more polite to call a person by name - the question "Who's she,[shortened from Who is] the cat's mother?" - though I've never heard `"Who's he, the cat's father?" used about the male of the species.  Does anyone know of any similar expressions in other languages?

Lady,

I had to seek to be certain: in Dutch it is "erf" and indeed the same as "curtilege" and "courtil", in English: court, courtyard, yard of the "boerderij", farm, French "ferme". And yes in Dutch it is also a legal term. (het erf en aangehorigheden)
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtil

That "abbey, abbaye, abdij and monastery, monastère, klooster" question is more difficult.
And you have also a "couvent" (convent?) in Dutch it remains: "klooster".
And a "prieuré", priory, priorij...

https://www.laculturegenerale.com/difference-monastere-abbaye-prieure-couvent/
http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/religion-miscellaneous/difference-between-abbey-and-monastery/
http://www.wikidifference.com/difference-between-an-abbey-and-a-monastery/

As I understand it, the monastery seems to be a small entity mostly in one building and the abbey has an abbot or abbess and is much larger, many times grown from a monastery?


"In colloquial English if someone has felt the word "She" is being used ambiguously - or perhaps disrespectfully where it would be more polite to call a person by name - the question "Who's she,[shortened from Who is] the cat's mother?" - though I've never heard `"Who's he, the cat's father?" used about the male of the species.  Does anyone know of any similar expressions in other languages?"

I think we have the same in our language, at least in the East and West Flemish dialects. the denigrating "ze" (zij). For instance "waar is "ze" nu weer?" "men moet haar altijd zoeken" (where is she now again, one has always to seek for her). But to be honest we say the same with "ie" (hij (he)). In that we seem to be gender neutral .

Kind regards from Paul.

The "cat's mother" gaffe is one related more to etiquette than grammar - as LiR says it is one that applies exclusively when referencing females who, according to what are currently perceived as good manners to be used in general conversation, should have been addressed at least once by name or title. As a socially unethical gaffe it is diminishing in importance in direct correlation to the diminution of requirement for females to have sex-defined grammatical rules applied exclusively to them at all, but it still certainly applies in situations where the female being referred to is regarded as worthy of respect for some reason and deserving of at least one name-check before reverting to personal pronouns.

"Monastery" and "Abbey" can be words used for the same or similar structure. In English the term "monastery", with its original Latin root also used in the vernacular of the day and which implied some level of seclusion from general society, was by far the more popular term in pre-Norman times. "Abbey", which had gained a lot of currency in ex-Frankish and other French areas, was also used when referring to monastic communities and orders with links to these areas or which followed the model of appointing an "abbot". In post-Norman English the usage of the term increased but never quite removed the need to retain "monastery" (the adjectival form of which still survived in isolation when describing both monasteries and abbeys), and especially when a measure of political distinction required to be made later. For example, Henry VIII infamously "closed the monasteries", when he actually closed both monasteries and abbeys, though given that abbeys had also become politically useful ecclesiastical appendages to the visible establishment presence of the day when represented by large churches surviving on aristicratic or royal patronage, Henry and Cromwell were wise to stress the "monastery" word and not cause even more outrage, confusion and panic, had they announced they were going to "close the abbeys", though in effect they certainly closed every abbey in the country from which they were not already receiving income and the confiscation of which, it has been assessed by some historians, tripled the exchequer treasury overnight.