Cheng-Zhong Su skrev:
> On 6/8/08, Jens Wilkinson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>   
>>
>> On Sat, Jun 7, 2008 at 10:42 PM, <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>     
>>> "Bread" is a very basic concept, something found in everyday life.
>>> I couldn't see making more than a syllable or two of it, regardless
>>> of whether it's a compound or its own morpheme.
>>>
>>>       
>> I'm not so certain, but the difficulty I have with the word "bread" is that
>> it is culturally specific. I am 100% certain that there is no native word
>> for bread in Japanese, because they didn't used to make bread. The word
>> "pan" is derived from Portuguest, IIRC. And it's probably the same in
>> Chinese. I don't know about other cultures that didn't eat bread, but I
>> suspect it's the same. This is sort of the same issue that comes up with
>> plants and animals. Lion and bear may be fairly well known concepts, but the
>> fact is that there are many, many places in the world where there are no
>> lions (except in zoos) and many others where there are no bears. I don't
>> really know how to deal with this problem. But the fact is that there are
>> potentially thousands of words that are specific items, say palm trees and
>> birch trees and pine trees and aardvarks and raccoons. They are all things
>> we may encounter from time to time, but if you live in Siberia the chances
>> of encountering a palm tree are remote. Similarly, the chances of finding a
>> raccoon if you live in Fiji are somewhat small. So they are not really
>> necessary in a contact language sense.
>>
>> --
>> Jens Wilkinson
>> Neo Patwa (patwa.pbwiki.com)
>>     
>
>
>
> The Chinese language didn't have the word of bread. It is a compound word as
> Mian-Bao or dough-roll. For in China, they don't bake it but steam it. As it
> is a compound word then in some times the Bao turned to be the subject of
> description. For instance French-bao means French bread, Russian-Bao,
> round-Bao sweet-Bao or rectangular-Bao etc. all this depend how often they
> use it. If another time these words are less used, they may change form. As
> Main-Bao =Bread or rectangular thing, now they call the 'van' as Main-Bao
> car or bread-car. While in recent year they call taxi as 'di' so the Main-di
> means a van-taxi.
>   
Real fun! In Stockholm slang a taxi can be called a "bun"!

Kjell R