this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024
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That sounds more racist than true
I think they are joking.
That said, правда ("truth" as something you believe to be true) and истина ("truth" as objective truth) are different words in Russian, but not having that distinction in a language doesn't prevent its speakers from making it.
In English, you'd just describe that as "objective" and "subjective". This isn't in any way uniquely Russian. But its nice to pretend it is, because it plays well with the process of demonization.
True versus verified, perhaps
I can do that in Russian too. I can't do the former in English.
There are plenty of things possible in one language and not (yet\anymore) in another. I don't see what does this have to do with any kind of demonization. Maybe for people knowing only one language, which, yes, is more common for English speakers than I'd like to think.
I suppose a speaker of Finnish would have something to enlighten us about some languages being in some regards inferior to his own, too. Or a speaker of Icelandic. Or maybe even Persian. There are languages having dozens of words to distinguish shades\textures of snow or sand, or not having future tense.
Pick a differential, declare that it is a unique good/bad indicator, and then work it into your propaganda. "In Chinese, the word for tragedy is the same as the word for opportunity" to imply Asian businessmen are naturally predatory. The "red heads have no souls" meme, used to denigrate the Irish. The entire field of Phrenology is based on picking differentials and trying to explain your way backwards into why it proves some racist theory.
Its a boilerplate technique for alienating, mystifying, and ultimately demonizing an outside group.,
This whole chain of thought may make sense to you if you don't speak any other languages that English.
It just never in the world would weigh more for me than the joy of noticing unique traits of any particular language\dialect I've been lucky to learn something about.
And as a Russian native speaker, I've given you an example which is factual in the very first my comment in this thread. What are you going to do, ignore the fact?
Or maybe it's just easier to find something to condemn in what others say when you yourself have nothing to say on subject because of being simply ignorant about other languages.