The choice of words give away a whole culture, and in particular the way verbes are built. A concept such as owning something is translated in most European languages the same way: to have, avoir, tener, … A European possesses things, the thing is owned.
Conversely, other cultures focus rather on the relationship between two elements, that is to say the languages express the existence of a person/object and then link it with the « owner ». One does not say « I have a cat », but « a cat is with me ». Here are a few examples from a few langauges I cam accross:
- A Turkish person will say « my cat is existing » or kedim var. Kedi means « cat » to which we add an « m » to show the ownership and var means « existing » or « there is ». To say « I don’t have a cat » in Turkish we would say kedim yok, where yok stands for « not existing » or « there isn’t ». Pretty efficient.
- An Irish person speaking Gaelic will say Tá cat agam, tá is the verb « to be » and agam is the addition of the preposition ag or « at » in English and the pronoun me. Hard to translate litterally! Maybe « a cat of mine is »?
- The verb « to have » in swahili is built with the verb « to be » kuwa and « with » na, that is to say kuwa na. A person from Tanzania would then say Nina paka, paka meaning cat.
- Finally a Russian person will say У меня есть кот (in phonetics: U menya est’ kot). У is the preposition expressing the place, меня translates « me » and есть is the verb « exist » in the infinitive form, this time I will let you translate litterally.
All those differences question the way we interact with our environment and how we relate to objects and beings around us. If I were to say « a cat of mine exists », how would that affect the relationship I have with my cat?