Lusra Gray answers “Why is the Spanish version 544 pages and...”

Emily asked this question about Amanecer rojo (Amanecer rojo, #1):

Why is the Spanish version 544 pages and the English version is only 382?

Lusra Gray The word you're looking for is "analytic languages" vs. "synthetic languages." Linguists use that vocab to talk about exactly what you noticed: why do…moreThe word you're looking for is "analytic languages" vs. "synthetic languages." Linguists use that vocab to talk about exactly what you noticed: why do some languages use more words to say the same thing?

Basically, it's about how their grammar stacks meaning with words. If I want to say "dog" generally there will be one word to use in a language. But if I want to say "your dog", some languages will require two or more words to make that distinction (ex: "your" + "dog"). Other languages will just tack on a sound to the word "dog" to make a longer word that means the same thing (Latin is famous for this.)

Languages that can condense lots of meaning into single words - by adding little prefixes, or by having words that mean multiple things - are called "synthetic". Languages that "isolate" meanings into separate words are called "analytical".

Most of the time linguists talk about languages being on a spectrum between synthetic and analytical. For example, Spanish is more analytical than English. And that means, more words are often used when making a Spanish translation of an English text. And so in terms of printing, more little words + all the spaces between those => more pages. (less)

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