LINGUIST List 5.1177

Tue 25 Oct 1994

Sum: "linguist" in other languages

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  • Enid Wai-Ching Mok, RE: Sum: linguists, linguists everywhere

    Message 1: RE: Sum: linguists, linguists everywhere

     Date: Mon, 24 Oct 1994 14:41:00 RE: Sum: linguists, linguists everywhere
    From: Enid Wai-Ching Mok <eniduhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
    Subject: RE: Sum: linguists, linguists everywhere


    About two weeks ago, I posted a request on the List under the title _Linguists, linguists everyhwere_ asking for the term "linguist" in other languages. Thank you very much to those of you who have responded and shown interest. Here's my summary:

    Bahasa Indonesian: ahli bahasa Chinese: (Mandarin) yu3 yan2 xue2 jia1 (Cantonese) yue3 yin4 hok6 ka1 Danish: lingvister, sprogvidenskab, sprogforsker, lingvistikere German: Sprachkenner, Sprachkundige(r), Sprachforscher, Sprachwissenschaftler Italian: linguista, glottologo. Japanese: gengogakusha Korean: enehakca Norwegian: jeg jobber som lingvist Russian: yazykoved Spanish: (in Spain) filologo (in Latin America) linguista Thai: nakphaasaasaat

    Read on for more details.

    CHINESE Mandarin Chinese: yu3 yan2 xue2 jia1 Cantonese: yue3 yin4 hok6 ka1. The same characters are used in both. The first two characters 'yu3 yan2' (M) or 'yue3 yin4'(C) mean 'language;' the last two 'xue2 jia1'(M) or 'hok6 ka1'(C) mean 'scholar'. 'Jia1(M)/ka1(C)' alone means 'professional, expert, master.' Linguistics is called 'yu3 yan xue2' in Mandarin and 'yue3 yin4 hok6' in Cantonese. There is no confusion with the words for interpreter ('kou3 yi4,' 'yi4 yuan2' or 'fan1 yi4' in M; 'hou2 yik6' in C) or translator ('fan1 yi4' in M; 'fan1 yik6' in C), or someone who knows or can speak two or more languages. 'Bi-/multi-lingual' in Chinese is 'neng2 shuo1 liang3/duo1 zhong4 yu3 yan2 de0 ren2' (M) or 'sik1 kong2 lerng5/do1 jong2 yue3 yin4 ge3 yan4' (C), both of which mean 'one who can speak two/many languages.'

    DANISH University of Aarhus In Danish linguists are most often called 'lingvister', and my department is the 'Institut for Lingvistik, Aarhus Universitet', but many people don't know the word (I'm talking about highly educated people, even students in the humanities), so the terms language science ('sprogvidenskab') and language researcher ('sprogforsker') are very often used, when we denominate ourselves. In Copenhagen (one of) the department of linguistics use this term: 'Institut for Almen og Anvendt Sprogvidenskab' (Department of General and Applied Linguistics). But my friends (and other linguists friends) sometimes call us 'lingvistikere', which is a kind of parallel to 'linguistician', except it is a term that people make up themselves; they couldn't have heard other people use it. It sounds horrible, but I don't say anything: cause I'm not prescriptivist :-).

    GERMAN University of Hawaii, HI The likely German candidates are: Sprachkenner, D1: 'linguist; grammarian'; D2: 'someone who knows foreign languages' Sprachkundige(r), D1: 'someone proficient in languages' (but Sprach(en)kunde 'linguistics'); D2: 'linguistic researcher' Sprachforscher, 'linguist, philologist' (lit. 'language researcher') Sprachwissenschaftler, 'linguist' (lit. 'scientist of language') Linguist 'someone who conferns himself scientifically with linguistics; language scientist' D1 is a bilingual English-German dictionary, and D2 is a six-volume authoritative monolingual dictionary. As you see, they disagree, which I guess is what you were looking for. Let me know if you want the exact quotes.

    ITALIAN Universita' dell'Aquila, Italy In Italian, we have two words for "linguistics": linguistica and glottologia. This second word was coined by the Italian dialectologist and linguist Graziadio Isaia Ascoli (active in the second half of the 19th century). So we also have two words for linguist: linguista and glottologo. Glottologo, I feel, refers to linguists specialized in Indo-European and comparative linguistics, but I am not sure all Italian linguists would share this feeling. Neither of the two words is commonly used to refer to interpreters and the like, but when I say that I am a researcher in Linguistica I still get asked the question "how many languages do you speak?" An old Italian professor of Glottologia has an interesting answer to this question: a linguist is not a hotel receptionist...

    JAPANESE The term for 'linguist in Japanese is 'gengogakusha.' 'Gengo' is a vcompound meaning language; 'gaku' means 'study;' 'sha' is a morpheme for 'person, thing, agent, actor.' 'Gengogaku' means "the study of language; 'gakusha' means 'scholar, learned person, academic.' The kanji (i.e. Chinese characters) used here is the same as Chinese except that the first two characters 'gengo' are in reverse order. The words for 'interpreter' and 'translator' are 'tsuuyaku' and 'honyusha', respectively.

    KOREAN University of Otago, New Zealand In Korean, the term _enehakca_ is used to refer to professionals who teach linguistics and/or do research in language(s). It literally means: language scholar (or scholar of language(s)). So there is no confusion or ambiguity between it and the terms for translators/interpreters.

    NORWEGIAN & BAHASA INDONESIAN In Norway, "jeg jobber som lingvist" has more of a professional slant, immediately conjuring up thoughts of university academes. In languages like Bahasa Indonesia there is no proper word for linguist, "ahli bahasa" (expert of languages) used instead. Compare to Saami, the indigenous people of Northern Norway/Sweden/ Finland, whose parliament's president is a linguist.

    RUSSIAN Russian uses the term "yazykoved" "yazyk" = tongue, language; "-oved" = follower, adherent. The dictionary translation is "linguist". Linguistics is "yazykoznanie" = language knowledge.

    SPANISH The term for linguist in Latin America is linguista (with diaeresis over the u in the spelling so that it be pronounced [lingwista] rather than [lingista]) but in Spain it is filologo (accent mark on the first o). Spa has the suffix -ista where English has -ist to mean person who engages in a profession or occupation having to do with X , where X is the stem, eg. artist artista dentist dentista, so linguista is no different from linguist. As for filologo it means philologist and it comes from Latin as the English word does. The suffix o in Spanish refers to the person who engages in an occupation that ends in ia, corresponding to English y (whereas English uses -ist), eg filologia - filologo filosofia -filosofo (philosophy-philosophist) zoologia - zoologo (zoology - zoologist) etc. Of course philologist and linguist mean two different things in English.

    I do have a wonderful anecdote about linguists or "Philologists" as they are still called in some universities in Spain. A friend from the u. of Oviedo was asked by a lay person what she was studied and she replied "filologia" (Philology) The guy said something to the effect of "Oh that's that thing with stamps, right?" A true story

    THAI Thammasat University, Bangkok Thai has /nakphaasaasaat/ - /saat/ 'science', /phaasaa/ 'language', /nak/ 'person, one who undertakes activity in'.

    ****************************** Enid Mok eniduhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.edu Dept. of Linguistics Univ. of Hawaii 1890 East West Rd. Moore 569 Hon.HI 96822 ******************************