According to the website, "Now I Know, " köse is Turkish for "unable to grow facial hair," or something similar. Is this a word that's untranslatable with a single English word, or is it a bald-faced lie?

So that's what happens when Turks shave too köse for comfort.

Of köse it is.

Yes, goofy, I put it in Google Translator and got the same translation. I wish we had someone here who speaks Turkish. I wonder if there is more to it.

But "beardless" may also mean "without a beard" while being able to grow one, while "kose" seems to refer to an inability to produce one.

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Originally posted by Proofreader:
But "beardless" may also mean "without a beard" while being able to grow one, while "kose" seems to refer to an inability to produce one.

According to the site "Now I Know". But where did they get their information? A lot of these lists of exotic words are not rigorously researched. cf gigi rongak which is said to mean "the space between the teeth" in Malay, but really means "gap-toothed".

I am more intrigued by one of the English glosses for Turkish köse: vertice. (Double-click on the word köse.) Also, looking at the other glosses for köse inother languages is interesting, too, e.g., dünner Bart is literally 'thin beard' in English. Even dictionary's a problematic. As suggested having one or more informants in a language is optimal, although they may like K.'s Chinese friend have preconceived (and maybe even faulty) notions about their language vis-a-vis English.

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Originally posted by zmježd:
(Double-click on the word köse.)

Where?

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köse

I just emailed a Turk. I hope he'll respond by the time I come home tonight.

From goofy's dictionary link, after double-clicking on a few words I got this in a pop-up for beardless (only the English/Turkish copied)

Turkish: sakalsiz, köse, püskülsüz
English:, pertaining to the lack of a beard, especially of young men unable to grow one..., without a beard, hence: not having arrived at puberty or manhood; youthful

As indicated there, beardless in English means both "without a beard" and "unable to grow a beard". Köse seems to have the same or similar meanings.

Double-clicking on vertice brings up:

Turkish: köşe, köse, köşe vuruşu
English:, corner

I've no idea how that got there.

Where?

I clicked on your link above, Goofy, and then in the numbered list, of which köse is number 2, I double-clicked on it to get a list of many languages and glosses.

I know that somewhere in the Torah is a prohibition against cutting the corners of one's beard which is why Orthodox Jewish males have payot (or peyes) or the sidelocks in front of their ears.

Found it (link): "You shall not round off the פְּאַת Pe'at of your head" (Leviticus 19:27).

Here's the answer from Bulent Mutlugil, a Turkish email pen pal: The meaning of köse depends on if the letter s has a tail or not. If there is no tail it means a man with no beard or moustache - but not that the beard was cut down, he has a biological anomaly so he can not grow them. If there is a tail on the s it means 'corner'.
Thus it seems it IS a word with no English equivalent!

I don't think there is a single English word specifically for the inability of a man to grow a beard. allopecia is the closest one I can think of. I guess it's not important to us.

Well, I don't think alopecia does it because most dictionaries specify that it's loss of hair on the head.

We just don't have one word for it, but we can define it with more words. I think it's a slippery slope to say "it's not important to us." Wasn't that why everyone thought there were so many words for snow in Inuit? (Because it was important to them.)

I wasn't implying that the inability to grow a beard is an important concept to Turkish speakers. Just because you have a word for something doesn't mean that that thing is important to you.

But, surely it's not unreasonable (double negative type 1) to suppose that if something is important to you, you might have an economical way of talking about it. That's why different fields have their own jargon and acronyms.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

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But, surely it's not unreasonable (double negative type 1) to suppose that if something is important to you, you might have an economical way of talking about it. That's why different fields have their own jargon and acronyms.

How is that different from the ravage of linguists who attacked the concept that Inuits have lot of words for snow because it's cold and snowy in Alaska? To me, it's the same thing.
[Edited to add a missing "is"]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
How that different from the ravage of linguists who attacked the concept that Inuits have lot of words for snow because it's cold and snowy in Alaska? To me, it's the same thing.

If my friend tells me "Tlönic has hundreds of words for eggs", I don't immediately say "that's wrong". I investigate to find out whether it's true. And in the case of Eskimo snow words, it's not true.

This whole Eskimo snow word thing was started by Franz Boaz, and AIUI he didn't give a reason as to why these languages supposedly had these words. The reasoning that Eskimo languages have lots of words for snow because they experience a lot of snow was added later.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

How that different from the ravage of linguists who attacked the concept that Inuits have lot of words for snow because it's cold and snowy in Alaska? To me, it's the same thing.

Oy! Have you read Pullum's article ([url=http://users.utu.fi/freder/Pullum-Eskimo-VocabHoax.pdf]link[/url[)? On pp.168ff. he has an "Eskimologist" give his opinion on the number of "words" and it's nothing out of the ordinary. When you hear this meme in the wild, the numbers are much higher, going up to a hundred or more.

A "ravage of linguists". Is that the collective noun for linguists? Really? I think, linguists, like many other professionals, just get exasperated, depressed, and then downright angry when these zombie rules and other curious notions that many have about language just get repeated over and over and over again. They lose it and go postal or get medieval on some innocent bystanders. By all means you've a right to your curious notions, right or wrong.

The whole Eskimo snow words hoax is sort of a reverse-Sapir-Whorf. In S-W, languages determines how one perceives the world, and in the ESWH, it is the world that molds language.

Okay then. I am wrong.

Also, I shouldn't have said "ravage of linguists." Clearly it is not every single linguist because, depending on your definition of linguist, there were some on both sides. However, I give you that the more learned ones agree that there are not so many words for snow in Inuit.

I can see that I never should have brought that up.

Not a problem, Kalleh. It gave me a chance to go back and re-read Pullum's essay and his appendix (which is the part I remember best).