That some languages fail to make distinctions which are made in English is regarded by many English-speaking persons as evidence of a deficiency in these languages. However, an objective evaluation of these seeming omissions" indicates that they can be fully justified, since the language in question merely follows another way of classifying experience. To illustrate, in Ifugao in the Philippines and in Moré, a language of the Haute Volta, "hair" and "feathers" are included under the same term, something which is certainly justified from a biological standpoint. In Kabba-Laka, a language of Chad, "hear" and "see" employ the same basic root, but a distinction may be made by adding "eyes" and "ears". In Kekchi in Guatemala and Cuicatec in Mexico "obey" and believe" are expressed by the same term, reflecting a classification quite parallel to the Biblical concept.

Different types of distinctions are, of course, numerous. They may involve, for instance, whole-and-part distinctions (e.g. Totonac distinguishes the top and the side of a mountain, but has no term for mountain as a whole), and types of collocations (e.g. in contrast with English break a stick, break a string, and break an egg, Shilluk uses "break" only with objects such as wood, while strings are "pulled in two", and glass or eggs are killed).

Different languages exhibit quite different concentrations of vocabulary, depending upon the cultural focus of the society in question. The Ponapeans of the North Pacific, as an example, have scores of words related to sweet potatoes; the Nuers of the Sudan have a very highly specialized vocabulary relating to cattle; the Arabs are famous for their hundreds of words applying to camels; and modern Western European languages employ thousands of technological terms.

Within any speech community there are always subgroups of specialists who have highly developed vocabularies for their areas of interest, e.g. medicine, witchcraft, and theology. Both in vocabulary and in the nature of the segmentation the language of specialists represents a highly specialized development.

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