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Most logical languages | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Martien Heptaglot Senior Member Netherlands martienvanwanrooij.n Joined 7098 days ago 134 posts - 148 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, Spanish, Turkish, Italian, French Studies: Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, Latin, Swedish, Arabic (Written) | Message 65 of 143 02 November 2007 at 8:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
For me it is a language where the grammar can be deduced from fixed rules, without exceptions. However one can have different opinions about that. Farsi is a rather logical language but you usually have to learn two verb stems (present and past). So you could say that this is not logical, a logical rule would be : past tense puts a -t- between the stem and the personal ending but on the other hand, when you learn a language you have to learn words anyway so it can be still considered "logical" when you are aware that for a verb you will have to learn two words (i.e. the two stems). You can go further: in Turkish the -ler/-lar ending is used for the plural of nouns like masa, masa-lar (table - tables). But this is not true for personal pronouns, ben = "I, me" but "we" is not "*ben-ler", it is "biz". So if you say that "Turkish plural forms are regular" , you could argue that they are not. :) Personally I think languages can never be as logical as maths of physics, although my favourite languages are those that can be learned by grammar rules with few exceptions. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| quendidil Diglot Senior Member Singapore Joined 6305 days ago 126 posts - 142 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: Japanese | Message 66 of 143 03 November 2007 at 1:32am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'd say the most logical language in existence would be Ithkuil. It's a conlang though. http://web.archive.org/web/20070713093101/http://home.inreac h.com/sl2120/Ithkuil/
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| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6761 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 67 of 143 04 November 2007 at 1:10am | IP Logged | |||||
It sounds like you're equating "logic", then, with an elegant and systematic morphology. In that case, I think Japanese is a strong contender. However, no doubt many people will contest this as a meaningful measure of how logical a language is. I once read an argument by someone who claimed English was more logical than Asian languages because English conjunctions (mainly 'and' and 'or') closely resembled predicate logic operators. But why, I asked, would Japanese then be "illogical", when it has a broader selection of conjunctions that express more nuances of meaning? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| KLover Newbie Brazil Joined 6288 days ago 9 posts - 9 votes | Message 68 of 143 04 November 2007 at 1:32am | IP Logged | |||||
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Going by what Martien said, Japanese is then very logic indeed.
For example, the unpolite past form, always ends in -ta, the polite past in -mash ita, and so on. Edited by KLover on 04 November 2007 at 1:35am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| lloydkirk Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6406 days ago 429 posts - 452 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Russian | Message 69 of 143 04 November 2007 at 6:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Perhaps I'm alone, but I find German to be very logical. The pronunciation is phonetic, the grammar is laid out very pleasantly, irregular verbs are minimal.
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| FrozenNorth Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6290 days ago 37 posts - 37 votes Speaks: English*, GermanB2 Studies: Finnish | Message 70 of 143 06 November 2007 at 3:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Esperanto, but then I suppose it was designed to be. Being a native speaker Finnish still baffles me at times but I'd consider it pretty logical, there's only really one-and-a-half irregular verbs and it's phonetic.
Logic takes some of the fun out of language learning, sure it makes it easier but quirks real give a language character. All in my own humble opinion anyway. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| hgudus Newbie Turkey Joined 5201 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes | Message 71 of 143 22 August 2010 at 6:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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But this is not true for personal pronouns, ben = "I, me" but "we" is not "*ben-ler", it
is "biz". So if you say that "Turkish plural forms are regular" , you could argue that they are not. :) Personally I think languages can never be as logical as maths of physics, although my favourite languages are those that can be learned by grammar rules with few exceptions.[/QUOTE] the word we 'biz' does include not only i but also you maybe much more.we'biz' and y'all'siz' are shortened form of old turkish suffixes. Edited by hgudus on 22 August 2010 at 6:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| staf250 Pentaglot Senior Member Belgium emmerick.be Joined 5690 days ago 352 posts - 414 votes Speaks: French, Dutch*, Italian, English, German Studies: Arabic (Written) | Message 72 of 143 22 August 2010 at 6:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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@hgudus
At which post is your text answering, please? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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