Why words like 'okay' and 'taxi' are universally understood across the world but survival related ones like 'help', 'water', 'food' remained nation specific?
Why words like 'okay' and 'taxi' are universally understood across the world but survival related ones like 'help', 'water', 'food' remained nation specific?
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From learning a new language, one thing I noticed is that the more modern the word, the more likely it will be the same or similar in your own language. Thus computer is very close across many languages where as help can be quite different. I think taxi would be a very new concept. For Ok. That might just be due to the word being so simple thus it was adopted fast. Much like we nod for yes.
Not an expert but just an observation I had found interesting.
Biochemistry and bioinformatics are just full of English terms. This branch of science is relatively new, and since that stuff was mostly published in English, other scientists just copied the English words and proceeded to write their articles in their own language.
That’s nothing new though. Throughout history there has been a lot of word borrowing and stealing going back and forth. If you invent a fancy new sword and you happen to be speaking Spanish, French, German or whatever, then the rest of the world will just have to deal with calling your sword by a name they can’t pronounce. Usually they’ll start using a distorted version, but the connection is still there. If you give it an easy name, then everyone might actually still use the original name. Espada ropera is too hard, so people will just call it a rapier instead. If it’s an easy word like pomel (Old French), it’s not going to change much (pommel). Taxi, and pizza are fairly easy to pronounce, so they haven’t change much while traveling around the world. OK is a different story, because writing it as okay is a very English think. Also the pronunciation has some variation, but nothing too big.
That is what I found interesting. Some words obviously have been around for thousands of years and likely originated on their own with little to no foreign influence. They would often have no simularities across languages. But if you did notice a word that was similar, you could almost gauge when that word originated by how far it has diverged between languages.
English has so many loan words that it’s getting difficult to write anything without using many loanwords. After going through a few rounds with Bing, I managed to write a brief explanation of what a table is.
A table is a thing that men use to put other things on. It is made of wood, and it has four sticks that hold it up from the ground. Men can sit around it and eat, talk or work. Sometimes, they hide it with a cloth to make it look fair or to keep it clean.
AFAIK, all of the words used in that are just modern versions of old English words . None of them should be from Latin, French, German, Norse or other languages.
Nod for yes is not universal, in parts of Asia you'd wiggle your head side to side (not turn like shaking your head as a no, but actually sway your head side to side). You'd nod your head up to indicate No in Greece and Turkey among others. Bulgaria and Albania even completely swapped the yes-nod and no-shake.
But all of those places also consume North American/Western European media, so the concepts are mostly understood and even homogenising.
"Ok" was coined in the mid 1800s, new enough in the grand scheme of things
A taxi isn't a new concept. Hiring someone to drive you is probably one of the oldest concepts in civilization. All these words are used in conversations during work. If someone wants to pay you money, usually you just use whatever words they want.
If you are a taxi driver or restaurant owner, "taxi" or "cola" mean money to you. You learn quickly that way.
oldest concepts in civilization? when the first steam powered automotive capable of human transportation was in 1769? and didn’t really gain popularity or actual usage until the 1800s?
i mean yeah that’s near the beginning of the US and also around the time other western countries gained freedom from european slave rule (haiti, 1804; mexico 1821; DR 1844; Canada 1867, but not adopting full legal freedom until 1900s). but for the most part, most every civilization is hundreds if not thousands of years older.
you know what’s an older concept than taxi? water. or help.
If you think an engine is required to drive someone around for money, I can't help you.
Sure, carriages and stagecoaches existed. Rickshaws too for that matter, depending where you were in the world.
We also called them carriages, stagecoaches, and rickshaws, not taxis.
There were also handsom cabs, but I don't know if they used taximeters before they became electric in 1897, as they are not referred to as 'taxis' until 1897. The modern taximeter was invented in 1891, but the first taxicab to be equipped with it was in 1897 (and it was gas powered, not electric).
The 'taxi' part in taxicab doesn't refer to driving someone around, btw. It refers to the meter used to derive how much you pay. Nowadays, we would use it to to refer to someone driving you around though, because that's how language changes.
well of course there were horse drawn carriages and even just jumping on someone’s camel or horse or whatever else was probably a thing. but before driving as a paid service, i doubt it was called a taxi or anything like we call it today or since the invention of the automotive. 1635 was the first horse-drawn carriage as a paid service in england at least. without doing more research i’d assume you would just ask to ride with someone and offer money as compensation. something we see today as how taxi service is known, but hardly the oldest concept in civilization when civilization spans back thousands upon thousands of years before the last 500 or even thousand years we are talking about right now.
what i’m saying is that the concept of how a taxi functions, yes no refuting it’s existence for as long as civilizations and something to ride has existed. but the word or an equatable older word that transitioned into the modern word of taxi or cab? not even close to as old as civilization existence.