Are there things we can’t describe with the English language? — Cidat

I think we can probably talk about anything we can be aware of. There are many things we aren't aware of and maybe many more we can't be.

If you're going to start a thread, you should provide more of your own thoughts in your opening post. It's just courtesy.

Mr. Clark is quite right. It's only decent to provide a target even if to be one!

And it matters what you mean by "describe." in the style of a technical manual, or a specs sheet, no. In terms of ease or efficiency or esthetics, all day long.

There's also the question as to what is noticed and how. Thus the Eskimo's many words for the differing kinds for snow, but a general phenomenon at all latitudes. There are multiple ways to see things and divide them, and nothing that says that different languages have to do it the same way.

I think the barrier could be vocabulary. There are some words that cannot be translated at all because probably in English speaker country the word doesn't not exist at all.
For example, in my language there is a profession called pospós or trapero. This is a person who picks clothes from the street, make some new renewable ones and then sell it cheaper that was back then. Probably this also exists in English speakers countries but I can't find the exactly word of your vocabulary.

If there were how do you expect us to know about them?

I think the barrier could be vocabulary. There are some words that cannot be translated at all because probably in English speaker country the word doesn't not exist at all. — javi2541997

This is true, but when it's needed, languages evolve. New words. Modifications of old words. Words stolen from other languages. Whole new ways of looking at things.

Quarks, protons, digital, transgender, Hostess Twinkie, television, internet, Covid 19, HIV, Slim Jim, cell phone, penicillin, GPS, Watergate, infotainment....None of these existed 100 years ago. I checked, Hostess Twinkies were first made 91 years ago.

Yes! You are right. We create words to make them international. Inside plane or journeys vocabulary is more common. For example: Check in when you have to register or just notice that you are already on the airport. Here in Spain we just say check in, we do not translate it to Spanish.

Are there things we can’t describe with the English language? — Cidat

There are definitely several concepts and theories that its understandings can only be reached in its native language, for example, Ibn Arabi's Islamic concept of "Wahdat al-Wujud", which in its best translations is usually translated to something like "Unity of Being", however, understand that the concept itself can only be truly intelligible, if captured in its original language - Arabic -.

Other better-known examples are found in 19th and 20th century German philosophy such as "Dasein" - best translation would be "existence" -, "Übermensch" - transl. "Superman" - and "Eigenheit" - transl. "Ownness" -.

English is only the "Universal" language, as its universality became necessary after the 1940s - from the 1800s to 1940, French was the universal language, at least in the West; in the East, Arabic has been the universal language for more than a 1000 years -. However, humanity is still far from a "homogeneous" language, in the sense of fully comprehending each and every epistemological field.

English is only the "Universal" language, — Gus Lamarch

I'm a big fan of English. It's a very powerful language with great flexibility and vitality to import or create new words. It is perhaps weakest in the area of romantic love, but that may be my ignorance. I haven't read romance novels in English yet.

Yes! You are right. We create words to make them international. Inside plane or journeys vocabulary is more common. For example: Check in when you have to register or just notice that you are already on the airport. Here in Spain we just say check in, we do not translate it to Spanish. — javi2541997

[joke]If all you feriners would just learn English like God intended, we'd have no more problems.[/joke]

I'm a big fan of English. It's a very powerful language with great flexibility and vitality to import or create new words. It is perhaps weakest in the area of romantic love, but that may be my ignorance. I haven't read romance novels in English yet. — Olivier5

Don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing the English language at all, I just pointed out on my previous comment, that "English", even though it's the synthesis of more than 2,000 years of Western culture, with all its phonetic and etymological flexibilities, still cannot be considered "the language of humanity", because as I had shown in my examples, there are many, many terms and concepts that in English, we are not able to fully comprehend them.

it's the synthesis of more than 2,000 years of Western culture, — Gus Lamarch

Yes. Including pretty much the entire old French lexicon, which got absorbed into English starting from Hasting.

The experience of seeing is impossible to describe to someone who's never been able to see.

Yes. Including pretty much the entire old French lexicon, which got absorbed into English starting from Hasting. — Olivier5

Not only French, but Greek and Latin as well.

English is the mixture of a Germanic method of language, with a Greco-Roman epistemological field.

Are there things we can’t describe with the English language?

Some philosophers think this way. Or that basically some things ought to be uttered in the actual language they were first used in the specific meaning.

They have to use terms like da sein when talking about existential philosophy of Heidegger. They just irk if someone just translates it to Heidegger's "existence", or "being their".

Nope.

Use the German word. Closer to what Heidegger meant.

English is the mixture of a Germanic method of language, with a Greco-Roman epistemological field. — Gus Lamarch

Well put.

If you're going to start a thread, you should provide more of your own thoughts in your opening post. It's just courtesy. — T Clark

Dunno. The OP seems to have been sufficient to create a viable thread.


The world is all that is the case. What is the case can be stated.

The color french gray defies description.

@Cidat

Dunno. The OP seems to have been sufficient to create a viable thread. — Banno

From Site Guidelines:

Don't start a new discussion unless you are:

a) Genuinely interested in the topic you've begun and are willing to engage those who engage you.

b) Able to write a thoughtful OP of reasonable length that illustrates this interest, and to provide arguments for any position you intend to advocate.

I think these are reasonable rules. If you're not willing to put a minimal level of your own work into a discussion, you shouldn't start one. Also - it pisses me off.

...and yet the thread has 18 replies already. Bitch to a Mod if you are unhappy.

The color french gray defies description. — Cheshire

...and yet it is "more green than grey..." A "a deep, grey, twilight blue with a lavender undertone."

b) Able to write a thoughtful OP of reasonable length that illustrates this interest, and to provide arguments for any position you intend to advocate. — T Clark

The OP hasn't suggested an intention to advocate a position. So, the omission of arguments seems reasonable.

I believe 'yellow grey' is also attributed to french grey. It changes everytime I look it up. It's my favorite color.

Is it what Aussies call "Duck-egg blue"?

The point is that despite it being indescribable, there are descriptions.

A bit like "I love you more than words can say"... which says how much I love you; despite saying that I can't say how much I love you.

The point is that despite it being indescribable, there are descriptions. — Banno

Granted, but if I do an image search for french grey I'll get any number of different colors. In order for something to be described it is necessary the thing and descriptions correspond. I can describe french grey as the sound dreams make, but it doesn't serve as evidence the feat as been achieved.

Is it what Aussies call "Duck-egg blue"? — Banno

Not grey enough for my taste. In my mind it's light grey with a non-obvious hue of blue that perhaps suggest yellow and green might have recently been present. Closer to a svenska blue without so much blue and more grey. It's a bit of a running joke in the fine art department from what I've been told; that french grey escapes any real definition. It is a bespoke grey.

Even things that depend on context and situation? What are the barriers then, language structure or dictionary (wires)? I’m halling about describing in such a way that its meaning is unambiguous in the given context and situation. — Cidat

I don't think you could use english to describe what's been lost in a translation in a book that's been translated from another language to english. Well if f you want to get pedantic, I guess you could. Any description of anything is technically a description of that thing, even if its a bad, even horrible description. Butthe point is that there's elements of prose that don't translate, and descriptions of what didn't translate aren't going to capture it.

A bit like "I love you more than words can say"... which says how much I love you; despite saying that I can't say how much I love you. — Banno

I've heard that one a few times but its usually by people who don't mean it and are trying to front. Does it say what it says it says?

so for example there's a version of it in King Lear. Goneril says: 'Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter." Goneril's speech in king lear is meant to be an example of language used by someone pretending to say something they aren't actually saying.

Maybe 'i love you more than words could say' would be true as one gesture among many during a romantic night, where shes touched your shoulder, and youve bought her a drink, and you danced this way, and put your arm that way, and she touched your hair that way, and she said 'i love you more than words could say' this way, and you made a joke that way, and she smiled at you that way. But it wouldnt be true like a sentence exactly.

Quarks, protons, digital, transgender, Hostess Twinkie, television, internet, Covid 19, HIV, Slim Jim, cell phone, penicillin, GPS, Watergate, infotainment.... — T Clark

You sound like Bono.

But seriously, , this is a question I've always thought about a lot, but never felt I had the linguistic grasp to start a thread on, so I'm grateful you started it; regardless of how "thorough" your OP was. Folks get a little fundamentalist about that sort of thing here, but I immediately was interested in the thread. Works for me.

More broadly, I've wondered in the past if there are actual aspects of fundamental reality that are only grasped by speakers of specific languages through words and expressions in their respective languages... "Untranslatability", a term suggesting that something real is indeed there that can't be properly translated. As time moves on, I've started to move away from this intuition, but I'm still open to it. I'm more of the disposition now that language often fails, so it's not quite on the pedestal it used to be on for me, but I still love language.

Surely deep-seated love exists which is difficult, if not impossible to express with language. It doesn't have to be romantic. I love my older brother in ways that I can't seem to express. That includes things about him I really don't like at all. Language is not simple math; there are reasons beyond the utility or lake thereof of language that render a fundamental human experience like love hard to express.

yeah I agree with you. I love my younger brother in ways I can't express either. I like cordelia in king lear. She has found a way to believe in her love as it is and to say nothing. I'd like to learn the etymology of 'saying'. I guess I could do it easily online, and I might in a second. I mean only that the trick of saying you can say the unsayable or describe the undescribable is only pedantically true. When you recognize some things are unsayable or undescribable, you have to give up saying and describing.

When you recognize some things are unsayable or undescribable, you have to give up saying and describing. — Arcturus

But acknowledging indescribability to another person communicates that you feel that way. Like we're doing here. Doesn't that communication have value?

In the wilds, outside of philosophical conversation, it doesn't seem to go that way. The sayers and describers tend to want to to say and describe the unsayable and undescribable, even if only as negative theology. In the wilds, I think people show and express it. In my example to Banno, i admit that there are moments where acknowledging indescribability convey it - but I think those moments only work because theyre not sentence like, not proposition like, theyre gesture-like, theyre a moment-like, something happening like. If you talk of truth-value, and stuff, its not a container that will hold a truth-value past that moment

but I think those moments only work because theyre not sentence like, not proposition like, theyre gesture-like, theyre a moment-like, something happening like. If you talk of truth-value, and stuff, its not a container that will hold a truth-value past that moment — Arcturus

I do agree with you and I like your way of putting (saying?) it here. But all I'm pointing out is that we have to acknowledge indescribability in order to realize we share the experience of indescribability. If the most over-quoted phrase on TPF is "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent", then my mental response has always been "you're the one who brought it up, Witty..."

I do agree with you and I like your way of putting (saying?) it here. But all I'm pointing out is that we have to acknowledge indescribability in order to realize we share the experience of indescribability. If the most over-quoted phrase on TPF is "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent", my mental response has always been "you're the one who brought it up, Witty..." — Noble Dust

ha, yeah.
Ok, my position, simply put:

Q: Are there things we can't describe in the english language?
A: Yes