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Comment by codetrotter | Hacker News Reader

If Duolingo wanted to invent a new word it is probable IMO that they would be able to introduce and popularize it, in spite of no one else having ever thought of that word.

For example, if Duolingo wanted to invent “schmibbidibbi” as a word, they could give it a definition and start using it in their material. Pretty soon people would start using the word IRL.

I wonder if there will ever be any words invented by AI that Duolingo accidentally teaches the world, which did initially not exist outside of the Duolingo app.

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that's an interesting idea, but I dunno if "language learners" comprise a sufficiently influential cultural group to influence language in this way.

If I learned a new word through duolingo, used it while speaking to native speakers of the language, and no one knew what it meant, I probably would be embarrassed and confused and not use the word again.

But maybe it'll happen! And along that line, I wonder if advanced language models will be able to identify "missing words" that we're lacking to discuss concepts that we haven't yet conceptualized.

The trick is to teach French learners that this word means something in French and at the same time to teach English learners that it means something in English.

So you travel to France and practice your newly-learned French. You run across a French person who has been learning English. You use the word thinking that it’s French, and the person you speak to has already heard it as an English word and thinks that you don’t know the word in French but they know what you mean thinking it’s an English word.

Reflections on trusting trust vibes.

What an amazing choice of new word - it's "Generation Alpha's first foray into internet culture" https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Skibidi_Toilet

schmibbidibbi is clearly a distinct word, different from skibidi. But also near enough that conceivably an AI could invent the word schmibbidibbi if it knew skibidi. Depending on how it tokenizes words.

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