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Are "easy" languages superior? | ||
Tags: Difficulty | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Karakorum Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6569 days ago 201 posts - 232 votes  Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)* Studies: French, German | Message 1 of 33 11 August 2007 at 4:29am | IP Logged | ||
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I've heard that all languages are equally capable of expressing all ideas. If we assume this to be correct, and also assume that some languages are easier to learn than others (in an absolute sense), wouldn't that make the easier language superior?
The reason I am asking this question is that I get the feeling whenever the easy/difficult discussion crops up that people who speak "hard" languages are proud. I understand being proud of one's achievement, but do you think the hard language itself is inferior? Do you think this plays into the popularity of English? I mean sure, its usefulness can't be overstated; but do you think that along the way its "ease" helped push it along? I know people will disagree with the characterization of English as easy, but at least from the grammatical point of view you have to admit it's on the easy side of the European spectrum. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| burntgorilla Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6444 days ago 202 posts - 206 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Danish | Message 2 of 33 11 August 2007 at 7:15am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm not sure. Languages are more than just a tool for expression. I would find a highly regular language a bit bland. Exceptions and irregulars make a language more interesting, I think. Although they might be a pain to learn, I feel they add something to the language. I can't quite express it in words. I suppose that some people learn hard languages purely because they're hard but I don't really accept that difficulty has any bearing on a language's value. Lastly, I feel it is a bit simplistic to define a language as easy or hard based on its grammar rules. Danish has easy grammar but difficult pronuciation - so how do you determine if it's easy or hard? Why just look at grammar? You do point this out yourself, but I don't see how grammar is the only thing that is relevant. I hear Chinese has a simple grammar but everyone views it as hard because of the writing system.
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 Jiwon Triglot Moderator Korea, South Joined 6436 days ago 1417 posts - 1500 votes Speaks: EnglishC2, Korean*, GermanC1 Studies: Hindi, Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 33 11 August 2007 at 7:29am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, sorry to upset your argument, but I believe that English is a very difficult language to learn for many Far Easterners.
Firstly, English is a time-stress language, and this feature doesn't exist in Mandarin, Japanese nor Korean. Secondly, it is more like a "melting pot" of languages. I mean, it has prefixes and word roots originating from so many languages (e.g. Latin, French, German, Greek, etc.) Perhaps this makes it easier for Europeans, but not for us, because this results a massive number of synonyms with different connotations (e.g. ask, request and question). Lastly it has many idiomatic expressions regarding use of prepositions and verbs which is really difficult to get a grasp of. I mean, why is it "excels in" not "excels for"? I have my own idea about why English became popular. It was firstly the language of the British Empire which was one of the largest, and spread the language to many areas. Due to this, other Europeans also learnt English. Later, the USA became independent and grew up as a super-power following the world war. The movie industries and American exports gave young people an impression that being American is cool, and to be American you need to speak English. This gives rise to "English boom". The future generations also start learning English, because many people around the world already know English. This continues, making almost everyone learn English. If easy languages are meant to be superior, then why aren't we all learning Malay, Indonesian, Esperanto (and I don't want any "Esperanto is not a real language comment) or Spanish? Also, Greek was once the lingua franca of the ancient world during Julius Caesar's time. Then Latin took over as Roman Empire expanded. Then why is it that those two immensely complicated languages became the "superior" languages? Plus, I do not believe that all languages can express ALL ideas. It's just that they can express things that other languages can't, and they cannot express things that others can. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| LilleOSC Senior Member United States lille.theoffside.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6691 days ago 545 posts - 546 votes 4 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: French, Arabic (Written) | Message 4 of 33 11 August 2007 at 10:35am | IP Logged | ||
I think it might be easier for a Far Easterner to learn English than it is for a Westerner to learn an East Asian language. English is hard, but I heard from non-native speakers that it isn't as hard as many languages (such as German, French, Russian, Mandarin ,etc.). I think "easy" languages are superior in the sense that they can be attained by all people without tremendous effort. Just imagine how hard it would be for most of the world if Mandarin or Russian was the lingua franca. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| delectric Diglot Senior Member China Joined 7181 days ago 608 posts - 733 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: German | Message 5 of 33 11 August 2007 at 11:39am | IP Logged | ||
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Chinese characters could be said to be extrememly difficult because it will take more time to learn them than say an alphabet. But actually in many ways they are superior.
1) They make the meaning of the sentence extremely clear. For example using pinyin (the phonetic form of Chinese Mandarin) it takes longer to work out what the meaning of the sentence is. 2) Characters make it easy to express a lot in just a few characters. 3) Less space is used when writing in Chinese characters compared to say writing in English. Just look at instruction books and you'll usually find this to be true. 4) You don't need to speak Chinese to read it. This really could be argued as being superior as it has unite a huge country where lanuages are imcomprehensible amongst one another. 5) Aesthetical Chinese characters are very beautiful. Even when they're meaning is aparent they still retain their charm. 6) If we all knew some Chinese characters we could have simple instructions written out in just one script without actually having to learn to speak the language or understand how to pronounce the script. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lady_skywalker Triglot Senior Member Netherlands aspiringpolyglotblog Joined 6890 days ago 909 posts - 942 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, French, Dutch, Italian | Message 6 of 33 11 August 2007 at 12:14pm | IP Logged | ||
I totally agree. I've found this the case with Japanese. While there are a number of 'false friends' and some kanji look different to their Chinese equivalent, I've found my knowledge of Chinese characters to be very helpful with reading Japanese (of course, this is helped by my slowly expanding knowledge of Japanese grammar!). I don't always know how to pronounce those words in Japanese but at least I know their meanings. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| FSI Senior Member United States Joined 6359 days ago 550 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English* | Message 7 of 33 11 August 2007 at 1:28pm | IP Logged | ||
I do not assume - or believe - that any language is easier (or more difficult) to learn than any other in absolute terms. Nor do I believe any language to be superior (or conversely, inferior) to any other. Finally, I don't believe every language is equally capable of expressing every idea; there are many facets of culture inextricably tied to language, and the best translations serve solely as approximations of what is said and done. The only solution to this, as I see it, would be to learn every language, or to abolish all but one. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| delectric Diglot Senior Member China Joined 7181 days ago 608 posts - 733 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: German | Message 8 of 33 11 August 2007 at 2:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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I just started having a look at Esperanto. Wow seems so logic and easy. Of course the vocabulary is very much 'European' based which certainly makes it relatively easy for me.
But, like I said it seems so logical. Could children having this or another 'logical language' as their native language learn to speak fluently much faster? And, following this master many other aspects of schooling much faster? As for Chinese characters, maybe we as Europeans could even create our own set to unite us as Europeans?! Obviously it would be much more logical and simpler than Chinese characters. What do you think? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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