On 19 September 2010 20:08, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
I am not from Italy, but speaking generally about languages and language varieties around the world, I will say that it is true that for the most part, any concept that can be expressed in one language can be expressed in another. In some cases, this may require the use of loanwords or other lexical adaptations, but there is no such thing as a language variety that is "unsuited" to discuss politics, science or philosophy. Just because the variety has not been used for that kind of thing in the past does not mean it is incapable of expressing those concepts.
Although you can be faced with the sort of choices many major languages, languages whose speakers have a great deal of pride in them, faced when needing words for concepts in 20th century science and technology: cut'n'paste vocabulary from English, or make up a complete set of synthetic terms for the sake of differentiating themselves from English. Both are problematic, though I'm not sure what form an ideal solution would take.
- d.