Differences in Languages

The linguist Roman Jakobson said that languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey. This is one of the main differences among languages. The information they must express can differ greatly.

For example, the pronoun we has two forms in Spanish, nosotros and nosotras. If the pronoun refers to a group of women, nosotras must be used. In English only one pronoun can be used.

The sentence You are friendly can be expressed in three ways in German. They are Du bist freundlich, Ihr seid freundlich and Sie sind freundlich. The first is the informal singular, the second is the informal plural and the third is the formal singular and plural. The word you is ambiguous.

The French words durant and pendant both mean during, but the meanings are a bit different. In the sentence J'ai été malade durant le voyage (I was sick during the voyage), the word durant means during the entire voyage. If the sentence is J'ai été malade pendant le voyage (I was sick during the voyage), the word pendant means during part of the voyage.

English has the personal pronouns he and she but Hungarian has only one: ő. The sentence Ő nem tudja (He/She doesn't know) conveys less information than in English because the English sentence must express the gender of the subject.

The rules of each language determine what each language must convey. The result is that certain languages convey more information than other. This is due to the differences among languages.