Re: And the Eskimos have 100 words for 'Snow Cone'

[Ivan A Derzhanski <iad@math.bas.bg>]

Cyril Slobin wrote:
> la xod. cusku di'e:
> > "What is the Russian word for 'fun'?"--to which a Soviet responds,
> > "There is no such word. Fun is not a Russian concept."
[...]
> Also there is no word for "pet" in Russian,
> but my cat doesn't care about this.

Indeed.  Goes to show how fallacious the transition from `There is
no word for #1 in language #2' to `#1 is not a #2 concept' is.
Never mind `fun'; why is there no word for `meal' in Russian
(or Bulgarian, or many other languages for that matter)?  Is that
a specifically English concept?  I can't think of any difference
between anglophone and non-anglophone dining that might justify
such a notion.  It's an unmotivated lexical gap, and that's that.
(It's an annoying one, too -- my father and I sometimes use the
English word in Bulgarian, but I know of no one else that does so.)
I agree that some gaps do have cultural (or other) motivations,
but generalisations are dangerous.

-- 
<'al-_haylu wa-al-laylu wa-al-baydA'u ta`rifunI
 wa-as-sayfu wa-ar-rum.hu wa-al-qir.tAsu wa-al-qalamu>
                       (Abu t-Tayyib Ahmad Ibn Hussayn al-Mutanabbi)
Ivan A Derzhanski                     <http://www.math.bas.bg/~iad/>
H: cplx Iztok bl 91, 1113 Sofia, Bulgaria          <iad@math.bas.bg>
W: Dept for Math Lx, Inst for Maths & CompSci, Bulg Acad of Sciences