Language desk
< May 12	<< Apr \| May \| Jun >>	Current desk >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

May 13[edit]

Notions without a word in this language[edit]

In every language there are words for some notion/concept/idea like fish, house, science. For most notions one can think of there are no words and such notions must be expressed using some circumlocution or phrase, e.g. the selfreferential "Notions without a word in this language". My question: is there in any language you know a word for this concept? Maybe just as a technical term for linguists or psychologists? 2003:F5:6F09:2C00:C14F:FF0E:676C:786F (talk) 19:05, 13 May 2021 (UTC) Marco PB[reply]

The study of words is Lexicology, I can't find a specific word for the concept you are talking about, so it may not exist (which is meta af) but if linguistics have a term for it, it would be lexicology that would be the field to produce it. --Jayron 32 22:37, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There's "sniglet", but that is NOT a technical linguistic term. AnonMoos (talk) 01:06, 14 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This term has the potential of becoming one; compare thagomizer, where see also See also. However, the term "sniglet" does not refer to a concept lacking a word for it in the dictionary, but to a word for the concept. So "sniglet" is an autology: it is itself a sniglet – or perhaps no longer, if we consider Wiktionary sufficiently representative for "the" dictionary. There are many concepts that have one-word referents in some languages but not in others; hygge comes to mind. In discussions, this phenomenon is invariably expressed in many words, so the concept of a wordless concept appears to be equally autological. --Lambiam 09:52, 14 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The term lexical gap comes to mind. The Wikipedia article accidental gap alludes to the term, but does not develop it as articulated here. This article [1], however, talks about it more specifically in the intended meaning of a concept which has a word in one language but not another (giving several examples, although not the famous hygge). 14.202.216.253 (talk) 10:52, 14 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The technical linguistic term for a sniglet is a protologism. Of course, sniglet is the older term, but it lacks that certain je ne sais quoi that academics need in their invented words to make them seem proper. --Jayron 32 12:22, 14 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank God that silly invented word "google" never caught on. :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:23, 14 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone link to the deleted page that was at https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:List_of_protologisms? Temerarius (talk) 07:11, 15 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

--Lambiam 10:05, 15 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

14.202.216.253 -- On the article you linked, "Trepverter" may owe something to "L'esprit de l'escalier" (which is somewhat familiar in English, and has its own Wikipedia article)... AnonMoos (talk) 21:27, 15 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Or the other way around. The coinage attribution to Diderot is IMO not valid; although he described the idea by circumlocution, he did not use the actual term. Unlike German Treppenwitz, this is not an issue of a straightforward calque. --Lambiam 23:54, 15 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Sniglet/protology" seems to be a special form of neologism, and as far as it defines a word for some concept, it belongs to the same category as any other word in any dictionary but definitely not to the concepts without a word.
The lexical gap defines a word that could legally exist in the langauge but doesn't. Here we lack a word, legal or illegal, in the first place. More generally there is possibly an infinite number of concepts without a word for any single language.
The category 'concept with a word in this language but no word in any other languaguage' fails as well in my opinion, because I begin to consider it a serious possibility that the concept 'concepts without a word in this language' has no word in any language.
The definition behind hygge sounds to me suspiciously similar to the definition of gemütlich in German. But of course Germans will assure you that no other language in the world has a word for it.
Thanks to all for your trouble and suggestions. By the way the lack of this word in at least several dictionaries would be my basic argument in the nowadays fashionable discussion "Do language determine the thinking?". In my opinion it doesn't, as I can easily think ten original complex thoughts without an own word in any language I know before breackfast. But this is another can of worms indeed. 2003:F5:6F02:C00:6D77:E25C:E359:86C8 (talk) 14:59, 16 May 2021 (UTC) Marco PB[reply]