{"id":3749,"date":"2026-06-28T18:04:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T18:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linguistics.imagodeus.com\/?p=3749"},"modified":"2026-06-28T18:04:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T18:04:29","slug":"how-languages-recycle-parts-of-words-to-avoid-confusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linguistics.imagodeus.com\/?p=3749","title":{"rendered":"How languages recycle parts of words to avoid confusion"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"vlp-link-container vlp-layout-lnk-sptlght block-editor-block-list__block wp-block wp-block-visual-link-preview-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2026-06-languages-recycle-words.html\" class=\"vlp-link\" title=\"How languages recycle parts of words to avoid confusion\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><div class=\"vlp-layout-zone-side\"><div class=\"vlp-block-3 vlp-link-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/scx2.b-cdn.net\/gfx\/news\/hires\/2026\/how-languages-recycle.jpg\" style=\"max-width: 1024px; max-height: 1024px\" \/><\/div><\/div><div class=\"vlp-layout-zone-main\"><div class=\"vlp-block-0 vlp-link-url\">phys.org<\/div><div class=\"vlp-block-1 vlp-link-title\">How languages recycle parts of words to avoid confusion<\/div><div class=\"vlp-block-2 vlp-link-summary\">Many languages recycle words, giving them different meanings. For example, in English, &#8220;run&#8221; can mean to move quickly but also to manage something, like &#8220;run a company.&#8221; In Spanish, &#8220;lengua&#8221; is both the word for tongue and language, as in &#8220;la lengua espa\u00f1ola.&#8221; This type of word reuse is known as colexification.<\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-3749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultura","tag-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguistics.imagodeus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguistics.imagodeus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguistics.imagodeus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguistics.imagodeus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguistics.imagodeus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3749"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/linguistics.imagodeus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3750,"href":"https:\/\/linguistics.imagodeus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3749\/revisions\/3750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguistics.imagodeus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguistics.imagodeus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguistics.imagodeus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}