The Importance Of Language

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Man, as a perfect being on Earth, is different from other beings because of his intellect and speech abilities. Language is the perfect tool for communication between people. Its development contributed to society's development. Language expresses our thoughts and feelings. Language is, indeed, a complex form of communication between people. From the original, unarticulated forms used by the people of the past, to today's modern language, it certainly went through major changes. Because there are so many languages in the world translation is necessary for understanding each other. But can every word be translated? Do untranslatable words really exist? There are about six thousand spoken languages in the world and all of them have slightly different ways of seeing the world. For instance Pirahã language has almost complete lack of numerals .The language contains no words at all for discrete numbers and only three that approximate some notion of quantity—hói, a "small size or amount," hoí, a "somewhat larger size or amount," and baágiso, which can mean either to "cause to come together" or "a bunch" .In 21st century living without numbers sounds like an impossibility, but for Piraha people numbers are not very important.…show more content…
In comparison to these words which are very specific and connected to particular cultures there are also words that can be easily understood by people from other cultures but they don’t have words for that. An Indonesian word Jayus it’s a good example. Jayus is a word for a poorly told joke that is unfunny. Everyone knows what a bad unfunny joke is, but the English word for that doesn’t exist. Also Japanese word Kyoikumama can be understood by other cultures, it describes a mother who pushes her children toward academic
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