News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Ask HN: Teach me something new by tazjin on Saturday April 30, 2022 @07:12AM (#31215071)
I've always found it interesting that some words are constructed the same across many languages. For example, response: responsibility in

- English (well)

- Russian (ответ : ответственность)

- German (Antwort : Verantwortung)

- Scandinavian (svar : ansvar)

There's likely more! Even though the modern words have diverged completely, the concept behind the construct is the same.

Re:Ask HN: Teach me something new by schoen on Saturday April 30, 2022 @02:37PM (#31218132)
Note that a large number of these examples in European languages are calques

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calque

In these cases, people who knew both languages consciously adopted the structure of a foreign word by translating its components (morphemes). For example, German has a lot of calques from Latin compounds.

That is to say that it's not always a coincidence or an indication that people inherently think of the concept in the same way; sometimes it's an indication that people thought a foreign word for a concept was awesome, and wanted to borrow it by translating it literally.

Re:Ask HN: Teach me something new by paulhalla on Saturday April 30, 2022 @08:35AM (#31215574)
Interesting! Same in Estonian (vastus: vastutus)
Re:Ask HN: Teach me something new by Cosi1125 on Saturday April 30, 2022 @02:39PM (#31218148)
Polish: odpowiedź : odpowiedzialność