myriad 復習
Oxford Dictionaries は the Word of the Year 2015 に emoji 「😂」 を 文字として選んだことが注目を浴びていますが、果たしてemoji「😂」は「言葉」なのか注目を浴びています。
本日は、言語学者であるVyvyan Evansが言語学の視点からemojiをみつめた記事から表現を拾います
Beyond words: how language-like is emoji?
The decision by Oxford Dictionaries to select an emoji as the 2015 Word of the Year has led to incredulity in some quarters. Hannah Jane Parkinson, writing in The Guardian, and doubtless speaking for many, brands the decision ‘ridiculous’ — after all, an emoji is, self-evidently, not a word; so the wagging fingers seem to say. And indeed, the great English word is, for many, the most sacred cornerstone of ‘our magnificent bastard tongue’, as John McWhorter so aptly dubs the language of Shakespeare. But is such derision really warranted? After all, we live in a brave new digital age. And the media we use to connect and communicate with our nearest and dearest, as well as a virtual world peopled by ‘followers’ and ‘friends’ we’ve never met, surely requires somewhat different communicative systems. And systems, such as emoji, are adaptations to this most recent arena of human discursive intercourse. They get the job done when the tried and tested interpersonal cues, that oil spoken interaction, are impossible or absent. But is emoji, which is most definitely a communicative system, so different from language?
本日、拾いますのは以下の抜粋より"myriad"です。
The communicative functions of language
English, like any other natural language, has two major communicative functions. The first is an ideational function: to get an idea across, as when I say, It’s raining, or I love you. It also has an interactive-interpersonal function: to influence the attitudes and behaviours of others, and, in a myriad ways, change an aspect of the world’s states of affairs in the process. This can range from the mundane, as when I ask someone to shut the door on the way out, ensuring the door’s position conforms to my wishes. But its influence can also be rather more significant, as when a member of the clergy pronounces two individuals, husband and wife, concluding an act of marriage, and thereby transforming the moral, romantic, financial, and legal status of the two individuals vis-à-vis one another.
『Wisdom英和辞典第三版』（三省堂）によると
名
1. 《主に文》無数のA
a myriad [myriads] of stars 無数の星
2. 《古》一万
形
［通例<名>の前で］無数の
the myriad small creature
無数の小さな生物
とありました。
OD には
adjective
•Countless or extremely great in number:
•Having countless or very many elements or aspects:
とあります。
例文
The old system's problems were myriad.
myriad problems
Today we remember the myriad ways she helped others in her lifetime.
(Merriam Dictionary Online)
語源を調べてみますと，myria- は ギリシャ語から由来したもので "ten thousand"を表します。
(Online Etymology Dictionary)
関連して、"myriapod"になりますと
myria- (無数の) , -pod(足を持つもの) → (ムカデなどの)多足類の動物
『Wisdom英和辞典第三版』
となります。
普段よく使うemojiではありますが、記事にあるように目を向けてみると、様々な側面が見えてきてとても面白く思いました。(Dew)
