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I was translating into English when the dictionary gave me a list of synonyms for the translation of one word, and I'm not sure which one to choose.

Which of the following synonyms would native speakers use in this sentence?

Knowledges of primitive people were very (confined/limited/scanty/bounded/ bordered/restricted or narrow).

For those who doubted that the plural form of knowledge exists:

Google Books reveals 453,000 results for knowledges

Mari-Lou A
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Katherina
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  • As I've written in the comment below, there are some answers about the pluralisation of uncountable nouns: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/94082/when-can-you-pluralize-uncountable-nouns?rq=1 http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/174610/sufferings-is-plural-though-it-is-uncountable-but-how – Katherina Apr 06 '15 at 07:39
  • @ Mari-Lou A In the most daring dreams I wouldn't consider my English as flawless.Thank you for your opinion though. – Katherina Apr 06 '15 at 13:41
  • Katherina, I have deleted my previous comments. It's clear my help is unwanted. As the saying goes, there are none so deaf as those who will not hear. – Mari-Lou A Apr 06 '15 at 16:49
  • @ Mari-Lou A Wow, I thought I was quite polite. Didn't mean to hurt your feelings. It's unfortunate you took my words this way. – Katherina Apr 06 '15 at 17:30
  • No feelings hurt. But thanking someone for their opinion is fairly dismissive. It means you've made your mind up. To be precise: I was offering concrete advice, not an opinion. – Mari-Lou A Apr 06 '15 at 17:33

3 Answers3

3

Katherina:

It's:

into English

speakers

Your sentence should be something like:

The knowledge about primitive people(s) was very (limited, scarce, restricted).

"Knowledge" is uncountable and you can use it only in the singular.

See at

http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/knowledge

knowl‧edge [uncountable]

Also, at Google books:

"knowledge of many things" About 110,000 results

"knowledges of many things" 1 result

Further:

at the The British National Corpus (BNC)

try to look up for [no quotes]

knowledge about

381 found

knowledges about

1 found

which clearly shows that the plural should not be used, even when talking about multiple things.

Marius Hancu
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  • @ Marius Hancu Thank you for your correction. Next time I will check what I write more thoroughly. In my sentense I wanted to say not "knowlege about primitive people" but "their knowleges". And I'm aware that "knowledge" is uncountable. But some uncountable nouns have plural form. For example, "territorial waters", "Sahara sands", "The snows of Kilimanjaro". So I suppose when I mean "what they know in general" it's possible to use plural form "knowleges" – Katherina Apr 05 '15 at 06:49
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    But some uncountable nouns really are uncountable, and don't have plural forms. These are called singularia tantum . See this small portion of a list of uncountable nouns at Wiktionary http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Category:English_uncountable_nouns&pagefrom=KLEPTOLAGNIA%0Akleptolagnia&subcatfrom=K&filefrom=K#mw-pages There are also thousands of words in English that have ONLY plural forms; these are called pluralia tantum http://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:English_pluralia_tantum (a single one of such words is a plurale tantum). – Brian Hitchcock Apr 05 '15 at 08:26
  • @ Brian Hitchcock Thank you for precise terminology. I've never heard of this terms before. I've followed your link and an article in Wiktionary confirms that there is a plural form "knowleges". – Katherina Apr 05 '15 at 08:49
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    @Katherina You're supposing wrong. You should only use "knowledge" in the singular, irrespective of how many things you intend to say you know. And always with "dg." – Marius Hancu Apr 05 '15 at 10:56
  • @ Marius Hancu There are some answers about the pluralisation of uncountable nouns: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/94082/when-can-you-pluralize-uncountable-nouns?rq=1 http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/174610/sufferings-is-plural-though-it-is-uncountable-but-how – Katherina Apr 05 '15 at 12:06
  • I don't care. We're talking about "knowledge" specifically, not in general. Look at the stats from Google Books in the update of my answer. That's damning enough. It's possible, but very rare and sounds like a barbarism. – Marius Hancu Apr 05 '15 at 12:12
  • The plural is out there in published books, yes, see https://www.google.com/search?q=%22knowledges%22+grammar&btnG=Search+Books&tbm=bks&tbo=1&gws_rd=ssl#tbm=bks&q=%22such+knowledges+are%22 , but I consider that such usage is off. – Marius Hancu Apr 05 '15 at 12:24
  • COCA http://corpus.byu.edu shows that "knowledges" is used exclusively in anthropology. If you work in that field, be my guest and use it. They may accept it. – Marius Hancu Apr 05 '15 at 12:52
  • @ Marius Hancu Yes, "I don't care" sounds like a solid argument. Probably, we misunderstood each other. It's good, you aknowledged an existence of plural form of given word. If something is rare it doesn't mean we can't use it in particular cases. Nevertheless, it's a pleasure to have a discussion with such an intelligent man like you. – Katherina Apr 05 '15 at 13:26
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"Limited" and "scanty" would be the most common.

Confined, bounded, bordered, restricted, narrow, all imply that there is something specific limiting the knowledge in question. Sometimes this is the case. For example, a region may be ruled by a dictatorship which prevents foreigners and scholars from meeting the people in question. In that case, the word which would be used would be "restricted". But, do not use "restricted" unless the cause of the restriction is named, or it will sound as if you have used a thesaurus clumsily to replace a more common word.

bobro
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unknowledgeable - Unaware because of a lack of relevant information or knowledge WordWeb.

Drew
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