Linguistics101:
The Uniqueness Across World Languages
Everyone knows that communication is crucial in everyone’s life. It
requires the use of language as the tool of interaction among human beings in a
society. Moreover, Language is essential to gain our knowledge, especially in
understanding foreign culture or perspective.
Let’s remember the childhood era, where we used to imitate what our
parents said by babbling an abstract utterance or imitating the language used
in the environment such as slang or idiom. This kind of phenomenon indicates
our first experience in using a language.
Anyways peeps… Talking about languages among communication, have you
ever found any fact regarding the uniqueness or the fun facts in your own
language? Either have or haven't, you come to the right place by reading this
premiere article of Linguistics101!
This article will entertain you this Saturday Night by illustrating
how funny and unique languages in the world is. Without any further chit-chat,
let’s take a look at the illustrations below:
1.
Soy
Milk = English vs Spanish
In English, soy milk is the combination of two nouns that have a
function as an adjective. It has a direct meaning that refers to vegan milk where
soy is the main ingredient. Meanwhile, the phrase “soy milk” means differently
in Spanish which is hilarious to interpret, when it translated to English, Soy
means “I’m”.
Do you recognize what’s funny in this phrase? Yeah, the thing that
makes this phrase funny is the contradiction across both languages in the one
of linguistics aspect, which is semantics since we can see that “Soy Milk”
means the milk is introducing itself using Spanish.
A: Hey, what are you?
B: Soy Milk. (I am Milk)
(https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/what_if_soy_milk_is_just_regular_milk_introducing_itself_in_spanish_joke)
2.
Connotation
and ambiguity crisis
(1)
Forgive
me, Father, I have sinned
(2)
Sorry
daddy, I’ve been naughty
(cr: https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/6ktzp7/forgive_me_father_for_i_have_sinned_and_im_sorry/)
Now let’s think and compare, what makes both utterances sound
different and hilarious? Of course, the different connotation! The first
utterance connotates how humans beg forgiveness towards God. Meanwhile, the
second utterance connotates an ambiguous circumstance, if you know what I mean,
lmao :D
Although both utterances might almost have the same meaning in general,
please be careful in choosing a synonym when changing the diction of your
writing.
3.
Indonesian
“Suka” vs Russian “Suka” (сука)
Bahasa Indonesia comes from the Austronesian family, while Russian come
from the Balto-Slavic family. The way Bahasa Indonesia denotes the word “suka”
is different from how Russian denotes it. In Bahasa, “suka” means Like, while in Russian (сука) /su:ka/ means a rude word (b*tch). So, don’t even try
to say “Aku suka kamu” to a Russian girl! If you do, the girl will immediately
notice the “suka” word, and then she will slap you, let’s imagine how ironic is
this, LOL.
Despite all of that uniqueness, learning a language is fun because you
can barely connect with every joke in that language, or you’re able to compare
all the unique facts across language by yourself next time!
That’s all about the funny facts across language, please comment below if you have another funny fact relating to our topic in this episode!
Thank you for visiting, hope you enjoy this article, peeps! See you in the next episode 😊
Keep fighting and SASING-BOOM!!
REFERENCES
https://www.uopeople.edu/blog/why-is-language-important/
https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/what_if_soy_milk_is_just_regular_milk_introducing_itself_in_spanish_joke
https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/6ktzp7/forgive_me_father_for_i_have_sinned_and_im_sorry/
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=suka