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Praise of the English language | ||
Tags: Literature | English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| sebngwa3 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6165 days ago 200 posts - 217 votes  Speaks: Korean*, English | Message 1 of 8 04 December 2010 at 3:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Earl Nightingale, a self-improvement author, said in his "Lead the Field" 10. One Thing You Can't Hide (your language skills):
"More people speak English now than any other language on the planet, with the possible exception of Chinese. English (and American) literature, from Chaucer to Eliot, from Shakespeare to Hemingway, is the richest and most extensive on earth. So when you’re studying English, you’re studying one of the world’s greatest languages and most interesting subjects. ... Most languages can number their words under 200,000. The English language has more than 600,000 and is still growing every day. None of us can learn them all, although professors of English come very close." What do you think of these claims? (Especially "English has the richest and most extensive literature on earth" and expressiveness by its number of vocabulary? Edited by sebngwa3 on 04 December 2010 at 3:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Monte Cristo Newbie United States Joined 5182 days ago 26 posts - 37 votes Speaks: English* | Message 2 of 8 04 December 2010 at 5:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
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In any language where you have a great amount of intellectuals, it produces a very rich language... at least that is what I think.
English also borrowed so many elements from other European languages (French, Latin, Greek, along with its German roots), which produced a great deal of synonyms to express ideas in very different ways. Just think of all the many different ways you can arrange and reword a sentence in English. I am not sure that you can do that in every language out there. English looks simple (grammar wise) compared to other neighboring languages but yet you can read extremely complex texts; for example, reading a newspaper compared to reading the random passages that they toss to you on the LSAT examination. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5670 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 3 of 8 04 December 2010 at 6:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
I am reminded of something my very witty wife keeps telling me: "It isn't the size that matters; it's what you do with it that counts" I am also reminded of an Iraqi friend who felt that English is a very direct language, used for giving facts without imagination. In arabic, he claimed, it was natural to be more imaginative and expressive. I have no idea if his claim was a linguistic issue or a cultural one. His comment, though, took me back to the first gulf war, when the Iraqi military were saying things like "we will pluck american fighter planes from the sky like sparrows". This seemed to cause great uproar in the west, but was explained at the time as simply the expressive style in which arabic is often used. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6551 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 4 of 8 05 December 2010 at 6:04am | IP Logged | |||||
2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 Jiwon Triglot Moderator Korea, South Joined 6437 days ago 1417 posts - 1500 votes Speaks: EnglishC2, Korean*, GermanC1 Studies: Hindi, Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 8 05 December 2010 at 8:08am | IP Logged | |||||
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I personally agree that English is an extremely expressive language. What should I say, it sticks to my feelings and emotions like a malleable piece of clay or plasticine cast in the shape of my inner self.
I think it becomes quite clear when you compare this to Korean. Every expression in Korean always carries around some kind of social or cultural nuance. If you look at verb conjugations, there is NO neutral way of conjugating a verb. Even the standard form, when spoken, carries a stigma of being "textbook-ish". This forces you to use your language appropriately but not necessarily creatively. On the other hand, English words are comparatively more neutral in their value, therefore allow the user to combine them in any concoction to give the colour of expression that he desires. Perhaps this lack of specialisation states that English wouldn't be as good at expressing certain things as languages that are designed to do so. For example, I doubt that English would be better than German at creating "empty climaxes" that force the readers to think or throwing some unexpected punchlines. But because there is no specialized area (that I have encountered yet), it lends English its beautiful flexibility. :) Edited by Jiwon on 05 December 2010 at 8:09am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| marmite Triglot Newbie Portugal Joined 5214 days ago 35 posts - 57 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, French | Message 6 of 8 06 December 2010 at 1:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I like English a lot, most of my favourite authors have written in English. I don't think it makes it necessarily a better language, all languages have their pros and cons when it comes to learning them.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6273 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 7 of 8 06 December 2010 at 1:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't think it is possible to be objective about your native language.
A lot of higher-register English is basically just warmed-over Latin. In fact English to me is a Germanic-Romance hybrid language. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Préposition Diglot Senior Member France aspectualpairs.wordp Joined 5115 days ago 186 posts - 283 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC1 Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Arabic (Levantine) | Message 8 of 8 06 December 2010 at 2:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'd agree it's one of the best for expressiveness, although Arabic isn't bad either, with its gazillion of words that would each be a whole sentence in English. Also, I'm not sure I really agree with the following statement: "English has the richest and most extensive literature on earth".
I'd say French isn't too far off, if not on par with English literature. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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