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by BuckRogers 4666 days ago
I'd contend the opposite, being fluent in German, English and having strong knowledge of Latin.

German and Latin can create new words or ideas much easier than English can. English creates them 'easier' by wholesale importing them. Take the concept of 'karma', there is no word for this in English. In German this word is schicksal. This concept doesn't exist in English at all other than the Hindi import.
1 comments
jcbrand 4666 days ago
English does like to import words wholesale, and I agree that German conjunctions and the fact you can often create new words by combining two different words (my favourite: "scheinheilig"="apparently+holy"=hypocrite) makes it easy to create new words in German (and other Germanic languages).

That said, your example is not a very good one. "Schicksal" can be translated as "fate", "fortune", "destiny" and "lot". Not just "karma".

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