English has too many homophones

[kuniggety]

มั้ย มัย มาย มัย มั้ย มาย ม่าย ไม่ ไม้ ไม้ ไม๊ ไมค์

ไมล์ หมาย หม้าย ใหม่ ไหม ไหม ไหม ไหม้

Thai is a tonal language like Mandarin...having 5 tones too (although its tones are a little different). Above is 20 different ways to write "mai" with 20 different meanings.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Get a Cantonese speaker on here and he/she will likely blow us all out of the water....Cantonese has 8 tones

 

[PhotonGuy]

To confuse the issue even more, pick,
the word the OP used as his example is not a homophone but rather a homograph, both of which are homonyms.
So a homograph is always a homonym, but a homonym is not always a homograpgh.

Interesting side note, homonym is itself a homomym /homophone.....

ie. Homonym and hominem.

.......just thought I'd throw that out there( their, they're)

A homophone is a word that has multiple meanings and that is pronounced the same way regardless of the meaning and it might or might not be spelled the same way when being used to refer to different meanings.

A homograph is a word that has multiple meanings and it is spelled the same way regardless of the meaning and it might or might not be pronounced the same way.

So therefore the word "pick" is both a homophone and a homograph. It is pronounced the same way no matter how it is used and it is spelled the same way no matter how it is used.

The word "straight" as in straight line or "strait" as in the waterway is a homophone, although it is spelled differently it is pronounced the same so it meets the requirements to be a homophone.

The word "lead" as in the metal or "lead" as in what a leader does is a homograph. Although it is pronounced differently it is spelled the same so it meets the requirements to be a homophone.

A homonym can be defined as a word that is spelled the same and pronounced the same and has multiple meanings. Another words, a word that meets the requirements to be both a homophone and a homograph would be a homonym. So the word "pick" would be an example of a homonym.

 

[PhotonGuy]

Is there another language you speak that doesn't have words with multiple meanings?

Well I've studied some German but I didn't get far enough to learn that many words with multiple meanings.

 

[KangTsai]

You heard of Mandarin?

 

[Steve]

They have terrific oranges.

 

[Xue Sheng]

They have terrific oranges.

That's gānjú to you

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Well I've studied some German but I didn't get far enough to learn that many words with multiple meanings.

Every language I have any knowledge of has homophones, homonyms, and homographs. My skills are not what they once were, but I can read a bit in three romance languages and German. I can read literature and speak a bit in French. I know scattered words in Russian (mostly food-related) and Japanese (mostly MA-related). Even with that thin knowledge of them, I have dealt with homophones in all of them (frankly, to me, Russian sounds like a language of recycled sounds, so I detect more homophones than exist there).

 

[jks9199]

I came across a story once about a US ambassador to China who tried to learn a simple phrase to complement his counterparts daughter. Unfortunately, he was a bit tone deaf -- and rather than saying "Your daughter is very pretty" managed to say "Your daughter is very green." Can't vouch for the truth of it... but still funny.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any single word homophones in Spanish -- but that's probably my limited vocabulary...

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I came across a story once about a US ambassador to China who tried to learn a simple phrase to complement his counterparts daughter. Unfortunately, he was a bit tone deaf -- and rather than saying "Your daughter is very pretty" managed to say "Your daughter is very green." Can't vouch for the truth of it... but still funny.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any single word homophones in Spanish -- but that's probably my limited vocabulary...

Amo (conjugation of "to love" - first person singular, I think) and amo (owner/master, IIRC) comes to mind.

A bunch at 51 Spanish Words That Sound Exactly Like Other Spanish Words.

 

[Buka]

That's gānjú to you

I've always like ganja.

According to this piece, It took Peter Gilliver, lexicographer for the Oxford English Dictionary, nine months of study to conclude that the word "run" has 645 meanings.

‘Run,’ a Verb for Our Frantic Times

He would have made a good Martial Artist. (he's nuts) (probably correct, but still nuts)

 

[Xue Sheng]

I've always like ganja.

Den you live on da wrong island mon

 

[Buka]

Den you live on da wrong island mon

Au contraire, mon ami.

 

[ShortBridge]

Maybe you're all just homophonebic.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Maybe you're all just homophonebic.

Somebody had to say it, ShortBridge.

 

[PhotonGuy]

I came across a story once about a US ambassador to China who tried to learn a simple phrase to complement his counterparts daughter. Unfortunately, he was a bit tone deaf -- and rather than saying "Your daughter is very pretty" managed to say "Your daughter is very green." Can't vouch for the truth of it... but still funny.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any single word homophones in Spanish -- but that's probably my limited vocabulary...

Well from what I know the Chinese language is very musical. The meaning if the words greatly depends on the tone you say them in. That can sometimes even be true with the English language.

 

[Marian Ambers]

These homophones are a lot confusing too. I agree, there are too many actually.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Well from what I know the Chinese language is very musical. The meaning if the words greatly depends on the tone you say them in. That can sometimes even be true with the English language.

English tones generally convey emotion, Chinese tones change the word meaning. And there are multiple dialects of Chinese that cannot understand each others language, but they all have tones that change word meaning. Some more than others, example; Mandarin has 4 (5 if you count neutral tone) while Cantonese has at least 8 tones. However the writing systems are the same from dialect to dialect, they just pronounce the characters they see differently.

Thank you in written Chinese is
谢谢
In Mandarin it is pronounced
Xièxiè
In Cantonese it is pronounced
dòjeh

 

[Gerry Seymour]

English tones generally convey emotion, Chinese tones change the word meaning. And there are multiple dialects of Chinese that cannot understand each others language, but they all have tones that change word meaning. Some more than others, example; Mandarin has 4 (5 if you count neutral tone) while Cantonese has at least 8 tones. However the writing systems are the same from dialect to dialect, they just pronounce the characters they see differently.

Thank you in written Chinese is
谢谢
In Mandarin it is pronounced
Xièxiè
In Cantonese it is pronounced
dòjeh

Somehow, it never occurred to me before that the various dialects actually used the same characters. That must make it easier when having to communicate between dialects, since at least the written (drawn) language is much the same (I assume there are some dialectical differences even there, perhaps in current meaning).

 

[Xue Sheng]

Somehow, it never occurred to me before that the various dialects actually used the same characters. That must make it easier when having to communicate between dialects, since at least the written (drawn) language is much the same (I assume there are some dialectical differences even there, perhaps in current meaning).

Cantonese speakers use more characters than Mandarin speakers, they can use the same dictionary and they could still communicate by writing these days. However in the past, not so much, since not everybody was literate.

However, to be honest, I am not sure if a person from Beijing could fully understand a Hong Kong news paper do to the number of characters needed for Cantonese. I cannot be 100% positive but a professor in college (Native Cantonese) said that to be considered literate in Mandarin you needed to know (if my memory is correct) around 2000 or 3000 characters. To be considered literate in Cantonese it was around 4000 characters. or the numbers could be Mandarin 4000 and Cantonese 6000, I just can't remember the exact words. All I am certain of is there was a 1000 or more character difference. However Mrs Xue (Native Mandarin) disagrees with this.