- Science
- Global
How languages recycle parts of words to avoid confusion
- June 22, 2026 at 4:40 PM
- 4 views
Many languages recycle words, giving them different meanings. For example, in English, "run" can mean to move quickly but also to manage something, like "run a company." In Spanish, "lengua" is both the word for tongue and language, as in "la lengua española." This type of word reuse is known as colexification.
Originally published at Phys.org