do not forget the fact that different languages have different cultural concepts embedded in them.
weltschmerz.
schadenfreude.
schmetterling.
you simply can not say this word in english without explaining it.
if you do not understand german you will also have a very hard time getting the emotion that is embedded into all of us german speakers when we hear those words.
there are tons of examples like this in every language.
i also personally think that learning german, english and russian was an enormous benefit to myself, some thoughts i think in english, some in german and very seldomly i even think in russian. the fact that i also think javascript, php, python and lots of other programming languages helps me even more to better be able to transpile my thoughts into words and actions.
you can not articulate thoughts that you do not have words for. if society has less words, society has less variety of thought.
it follows that, if you have less words, you have less variety of thought.
in the end i think that instead of declaring a standard language or creating a new standard language (https://xkcd.com/927/ anyone?) what will happen is that our currently used languages will merge into one language that is influenced heavily by all currently spoken languages.
the situation will stay the same, most people will not be able to communicate efficiently, this is not the fault of language though.
if you think about the butterfly effect, calling it schmetterlingseffekt just sounds way more badass :p
but you are right, schmetter does not originate from "smasher" (as i and probably most german speakers assumed), but instead from "Schmetten", which means butter or cream.
this also means that this word is translated perfectly,
but the german word has a whole different meaning nowadays,
i personally have never heard the word schmette.
thanks for the motivation to look at this, feeling a bit smarter now and finally know why the schmetterling is called butterfly. :)
weltschmerz. schadenfreude. schmetterling.
you simply can not say this word in english without explaining it. if you do not understand german you will also have a very hard time getting the emotion that is embedded into all of us german speakers when we hear those words. there are tons of examples like this in every language.
i also personally think that learning german, english and russian was an enormous benefit to myself, some thoughts i think in english, some in german and very seldomly i even think in russian. the fact that i also think javascript, php, python and lots of other programming languages helps me even more to better be able to transpile my thoughts into words and actions.
you can not articulate thoughts that you do not have words for. if society has less words, society has less variety of thought. it follows that, if you have less words, you have less variety of thought.
in the end i think that instead of declaring a standard language or creating a new standard language (https://xkcd.com/927/ anyone?) what will happen is that our currently used languages will merge into one language that is influenced heavily by all currently spoken languages.
the situation will stay the same, most people will not be able to communicate efficiently, this is not the fault of language though.