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some (most?) languages have a single bidirectional word


In Haitian creole, if the main object of the verbe “prete” is a person, it means loan, and the second object says what. If it’s only one non person object, it means borrow.


In Swedish for example, “att låna” is ”to borrow”, and ”att låna ut” is ”to lend” (”to loan out”).


German leihen is loan, while verleihen is lend. The "ver" is akin to "away", i.e., "loan away" (though this isn't a 1:1 translation and only works for one of the meanings on both sides of the language barrier).




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