> It isn't just Chinese -> English that loses information. The other direction does too
Yes, definitely. People who think studying "dead" languages is a loss of time are foolish.
There's even a somewhat "gain" of information which can chaotically appear in translation. For example if we decompose "道" as "walking" and "head" and translate it in French we get "une tête qui marche", which means both "a walking head" or more interestingly, "a working head."
But it's not because English is richer than commonly believed than Chinese isn't still more spacious, which I do believe for multiple reasons, one of them being that it's a pictographic language:
A picture is worth a thousand words.
Some of the "etymology" is more readily available, so to speak. But we could also consider "hidden etymology" -- ancient character forms -- which, as for Western languages, would enrich the interpretations.
Yes, definitely. People who think studying "dead" languages is a loss of time are foolish.
There's even a somewhat "gain" of information which can chaotically appear in translation. For example if we decompose "道" as "walking" and "head" and translate it in French we get "une tête qui marche", which means both "a walking head" or more interestingly, "a working head."
But it's not because English is richer than commonly believed than Chinese isn't still more spacious, which I do believe for multiple reasons, one of them being that it's a pictographic language:
Some of the "etymology" is more readily available, so to speak. But we could also consider "hidden etymology" -- ancient character forms -- which, as for Western languages, would enrich the interpretations.