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Most logical languages

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143 messages over 18 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 16 ... 17 18 Next >>
vonPeterhof
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Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German
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 Message 121 of 143
14 June 2015 at 9:16pm | IP Logged 
Monox D. I-Fly wrote:
I remember when I learnt that in Arabic, the sun is female and the moon is female, contrary to the European languages.
I think you meant "the moon is male". Did you also mean Romance languages? Feminine sun and masculine moon is how it was historically in the Germanic languages, and still is in those of them that have preserved the masculine-feminine distinction: German, Faroese, most forms of Norwegian and several other languages and/or dialects (Icelandic still has the historical masculine word for moon, but apparently the default modern word for it is neuter). Not sure about other Slavic languages, but in Russian the sun in neuter and the moon is feminine.
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Monox D. I-Fly
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Indonesia
monoxdifly.iopc.us
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 Message 122 of 143
15 June 2015 at 1:41am | IP Logged 
vonPeterhof wrote:
Monox D. I-Fly wrote:
I remember when I learnt that in Arabic, the sun is female and the moon is female, contrary to the European languages.
I think you meant "the moon is male". Did you also mean Romance languages? Feminine sun and masculine moon is how it was historically in the Germanic languages, and still is in those of them that have preserved the masculine-feminine distinction: German, Faroese, most forms of Norwegian and several other languages and/or dialects (Icelandic still has the historical masculine word for moon, but apparently the default modern word for it is neuter). Not sure about other Slavic languages, but in Russian the sun in neuter and the moon is feminine.


Ooops, sorry, got it edited. Yes, I also mean Romance. As far as I knew, Apollo is male and Diana is female. Now, imagine those two having gender flips.
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basica
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Australia
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Studies: Serbian

 
 Message 123 of 143
15 June 2015 at 2:23am | IP Logged 
FWIW, in Serbian the Sun is neuter, and the moon masculine.
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vonPeterhof
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 Message 124 of 143
15 June 2015 at 11:47am | IP Logged 
Monox D. I-Fly wrote:
Ooops, sorry, got it edited. Yes, I also mean Romance. As far as I knew, Apollo is male and Diana is female. Now, imagine those two having gender flips.
My phrasing was a bit unclear: by using the word "also" I didn't intend to ask "did you mean Romance languages in addition to European?"; I meant "Did you also mean to say 'Romance' instead of 'European'?" Because what you described as 'European' is far from universal in Europe, which is what my Germanic and Slavic examples were meant to illustrate (thank you for your addition, basica).
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Monox D. I-Fly
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Indonesia
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 Message 125 of 143
15 June 2015 at 5:37pm | IP Logged 
vonPeterhof wrote:
Monox D. I-Fly wrote:
Ooops, sorry, got it edited. Yes, I also mean Romance. As far as I knew, Apollo is male and Diana is female. Now, imagine those two having gender flips.
My phrasing was a bit unclear: by using the word "also" I didn't intend to ask "did you mean Romance languages in addition to European?"; I meant "Did you also mean to say 'Romance' instead of 'European'?" Because what you described as 'European' is far from universal in Europe, which is what my Germanic and Slavic examples were meant to illustrate (thank you for your addition, basica).


OK, sorry again, I did mean Romance. My head is a bit dizzy recently because I got a flu, that's why my posts seem kinda... messy.
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basica
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Australia
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Studies: Serbian

 
 Message 126 of 143
16 June 2015 at 2:59pm | IP Logged 
As for the OP, I gotta say Esperanto is quite a logical language. Everything is quite clearly delineated and I
appreciate that. It makes recognising things in a sentence a lot easier and helps with guessing a meaning
especially when you know all the various affixes. There are perhaps some parts which are not as logical as
they could be, but it pretty much avoids logical exclusions aspect I notice with Serbian.

With Serbian, and from the little I know Slavic languages in general, seems to be a fairly logical language
within certain constraints. For example you cannot tell how a verb in the infinitive will conjugate into the first
person present tense, you can make a reasonable guess but it is hardly consistent. Likewise there are
exceptions with regards to feminine nouns that end in a consonant, act like a masculine noun but require a
feminine adjective. Then of course there's the genitive plural which requires an a to be inserted between two
consonants if they occur towards the end, except if they are one of a couple of consonant pairs. Let's not
forget also about the fleeting a where if there's an a right before the final consonant of a masculine noun it'll
shift to the end in the accusitive/genitive but not in the plural form.

Outside of these notable exceptions, yes, it's fairly regular and it has logic to its irregularities but I don't think
you can call it logical at all. So based on my experience at least, Esperanto is in a strong lead.
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Serpent
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 Message 127 of 143
16 June 2015 at 6:01pm | IP Logged 
Esperanto has illogical prepositions :P It would be more logical to use them only for physical locations, and je for ANYTHING abstract. Especially de used to drive me mad, haha.

Also, in Finnish "where" is basically what+in. Hard to beat that :P tabelvortoj+prepositions are so clumsy compared to cases :PPP
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Jimjam
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Australia
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Studies: Japanese, German

 
 Message 128 of 143
17 June 2015 at 6:19pm | IP Logged 
Out of the languages that I have some knowledge in, I would say that Japanese is definitely the most logical.
It only has 2 tenses: present, and past.
There are no plurals.
It is completely phonetic.
There are only 3 irregular verbs, and they are barely irregular.
The numbers are logical and easy to use.
I personally find the writing system logical and useful. If you don't know a word but know a kanji in it, it can
make it really easy to decipher what it means.
And one of the greatest things in the lack of genders.
Of course there are many illogical things in this language, but comparatively, it is the most logical language I
have come across.


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