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Semantics question - враньё и ложь
May. 9th, 2010 11:04 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
slovami.livejournal.comHello, community members! Happy Victory Day!
My friend's mother is interested in philosophy, and she recently heard a lecture about language and morality, where the professor - who is a philosopher, but not a linguist and not a Russian speaker(!) - argued that some languages have different words for "to lie" where one word is used for bad lies and another for less-bad lies. His example was Russian, враньё versus ложь. My friend's mom wanted to know - is it true that these words have different meanings and different moral values? (Like, ложь is really bad, and враньё is not so bad?)
I didn't know. What do you think?
My friend's mother is interested in philosophy, and she recently heard a lecture about language and morality, where the professor - who is a philosopher, but not a linguist and not a Russian speaker(!) - argued that some languages have different words for "to lie" where one word is used for bad lies and another for less-bad lies. His example was Russian, враньё versus ложь. My friend's mom wanted to know - is it true that these words have different meanings and different moral values? (Like, ложь is really bad, and враньё is not so bad?)
I didn't know. What do you think?
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