Quote:
Originally Posted by DixieGal
Do you think that although a word or pronounciation may change, that the concept remains the same? Or does the loss of the word somehow lose the concept?
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I believe that a word or pronounciation of a word can have specific connotations of a specific concept (for instance, we use the words water, ice, snow, sleet, rain, lake, ocean, river, to describe various states and forms of H2O). If one word is lost, and the users do not have a historic knowledge of that concept, it can be lost (as a Saharan resident might not know the concept of crystallized frozen water droplets, or "snow").
I think the very idea of "losing" words or concepts is a tough one for an American to grasp, as English is such a young and well-documented language. But to peoples whose language has existed since before written record, there are surely many concepts related to objects, textures, mores, myths, and the more esoteric sciences, that have been lost over time as the undocumented language has not continued to express that concept.