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Re:Boring Problems Need Attention Too by mgbennet on Thursday June 17, 2021 @01:53PM (#27542381)
GP's point is more about how words are spoken. When we hear speech in a language we understand, we parse the sounds as a collection of distinct units with individual meaning we call "words". But the sound wave itself isn't actually segmented in this fashion, and the separation into words occurs in our perception and interpretation. But I agree, words definitely exist, just as interpretations of sound and written characters.
Re:Boring Problems Need Attention Too by zorked on Thursday June 17, 2021 @03:16PM (#27543375)
I don´t think it has anything to do with our interpretation: the illiterate have no concept of words. They come from writing systems and are not a part of languages.

German has very long "words" just because they decided not to add lots of spaces when creating a writing system for it. There is no particular reason why it's "Bundesverfassungsgerich" instead of "Bundes verfassungs gericht".