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Are "easy" languages superior? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7156 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes  20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 25 of 33 19 September 2007 at 5:19pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I'm starting to think that humans have a subconscious desire to rank things. There must be some sort of programming in our brains or DNA that does this. I suppose that it's necessary for survival to rank or assign priorites (i.e. must eat now, can sleep later, I'll worry about finding my next meal tomorrow, etc.), but assigning ranking to less primordal things causes all sorts of arguments since each of us ranks such things differently, or don't rank such things at all.
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| Sohi Newbie Australia Joined 6303 days ago 28 posts - 30 votes Speaks: English | Message 26 of 33 19 September 2007 at 5:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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yes, everything i am saying stems from bigotry, you caught me out so now i have to continue ....
point 1 - english, as i said is unique (as you pointed out with reference to the media) effect of culture is overwhelming. point 2 - it is not too complex to explain, just too complex for "me" to explain, and too complex to explain "here". i am not an expert on the topic but i did recommend a book for you to read if you are interested. point 3 - when i talk about the east in respect to the roman empire (and i think i made it clear), i am not talking about china. rather i am talking about the eastern roman empire, ie greece, egypt, palestine, etc. then comparison of eastern roman empire (low impact) v western roman empire (high impact) is i think a fair one. point 4 - "superiority" of language doesn not make the people who use it "better" nor its culture "better" or even the language itself "better". As stated, we have to state what we mean by superiority, and in what context. (eg, and not really my point here, french and farsi are superior to english for the purpose of writing rhyming poetry) and (eg, more my point, lets say half of pakistan was invaded by chinese and half by persians for a prolonged period, i think it is arguable to say, persian would more readily influence urdu than mandarin would, because of their familiarity with persian sounds and structure <<<<----- in that sense persian is superior for the spreading of that language and culture into pakistan than chinese is, it has greater survival value). point 5 - if there was little vegetation on an island were there were both elephents and the ants, then the ant would be superior ............. Edited by Sohi on 19 September 2007 at 5:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| joan.carles Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6333 days ago 332 posts - 342 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan*, French, EnglishC1, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Hungarian, Russian, Georgian | Message 27 of 33 20 September 2007 at 12:00am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Sure, all languages are unique.
Yes, please, I'd like to have a look at it.
I already understood what you meant by East in the context of the Roman Empire. And what linguistic causes would explain that? Iberian penninsula was populated by Iberian-Basque peoples (non Romanic languages), Gallia by Gallic languages (Celtic, non Romanic), Italy itself by Osco-Umbrian and Etruscan peoples (non Romanic)... like in the East, with Greek, Egyptian, Aramaic... also non Romanic languages. Was it the cause the fact that the Western Romania spoke languages more similar to Latin than the Eastern?
Good precision, but then, if you mix in the same word the suitability for poetry, the capacity of spreading over other languages and other possible definitions, the meaning is so extense and vague that we need to be more precise, maybe using other words.
Sure. If you only have 1 sheet of paper, Chinese is superior as you'll be able to write more on it in Chinese than in Russian or German. Just compare any text translated into different languages and you'll see why (provided you use similar font sizes). Edited by joan.carles on 20 September 2007 at 12:02am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Karakorum Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6569 days ago 201 posts - 232 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)* Studies: French, German | Message 28 of 33 20 September 2007 at 4:23am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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When I started this thread I was thinking of superiority (as an abstract concept) in terms of efficiency, pure mechanical efficiency. The question is, if we accept as an axiom a (non-existent and impossible) classification of languages from easiest to hardest, which language would deserve more admiration? The easiest to acquire, or the most complex? And if you take this and apply it to (purely qualitative) assertions like Chinese is hard and English is easy, why does this evoke illogical reactions from people? Why do people subconsciously get defensive (e.g. on this thread) about the perceived simplicity of English? And why do people who speak reputedly "hard" languages feel an unreasonable pride? Sorry if I am repeating myself or if I am a bit cryptic, but I feel the thread has gone on multiple weird tangents. Not that they are boring, but they are still tangents :)
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| apparition Octoglot Senior Member United States Joined 6650 days ago 600 posts - 667 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), French, Arabic (Iraqi), Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Pashto | Message 29 of 33 20 September 2007 at 7:16am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Wasn't this the subject of that closed thread? This really is a classic relativist discussion. I had way too many of those in college that never (never!) ended well! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| joan.carles Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6333 days ago 332 posts - 342 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan*, French, EnglishC1, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Hungarian, Russian, Georgian | Message 30 of 33 20 September 2007 at 9:54am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Yes, let´s say that as all languages are more or less equally efficient as they allow communication between native peers and all kids acquire the language at the same time, approximately, it's not possible to make this ranking of efficiency. So in order to repeat once and again the same dicussions, let's leave rankings for miss pageants, American idol, movie Oscars and thinks like that. I´ve never heard about discussions on what's best or more efficient, a gluon or a quark. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6272 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 31 of 33 02 October 2007 at 4:30pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Throughout history, some languages have become lingua francas but actually being easy was not often an important factor. Koine Greek was widespread in the eastern Mediterranean for hundreds of years, because of Alexander The Great, but although it was apparently simplified compared to Classical Greek, it was not a simple language. But native Greek speakers could be found in lots of places in the region, Greek had a lot of cultural prestige and so on.
English is not easy to learn. I know native speakers of Turkish, an agglutinative non-Indo-European language, who struggle with it, even though they live in London. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| ChrisWebb Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6263 days ago 181 posts - 190 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean | Message 32 of 33 17 October 2007 at 7:08am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
I dont think efficiency is a great measure, rather you need a ratio that compares efficiency with utility, languages are about communication and the only way they should be judged is on the basis of their suitability as a mode of communication, this will partly be a function of the way the language works but its also dependent upon who you wish to communicate with. The most simple language wont be best in any meaningful sense but the language offering the most desirable blend of utility and ease of use might effectively be the best for a specific situation. If we compare English to Chinese in these terms I'd suggest that for a non-native speaker there is a clear winner, on average English is probably both easier to learn and offers more utility. A lot of this is due to the cultural penetration of European languages in general and English in particular. I daresay that there are a lot more Chinese learning English than Engish speakers learning Mandarin which probably demonstrates the point quite well. Thats a generalisation of course, in a specific scenario Mandarin could easily be a better choice. There is no absolute best, it comes down to which language is best adapted to the conditions, for instance, I am currently learning Korean because my wife is Korean, clearly for an English speaker Korean is harder to learn than French or German, yet it's also clearly a superior choice of language for me because French or German offer no utility at all in terms of communicating with the people I wish to communicate with. Ease is not the only criteria and might even be the least important criteria. Edited by ChrisWebb on 17 October 2007 at 7:11am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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