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Most difficult IE Language?

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exscribere
Diglot
Senior Member
IndiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5311 days ago
104 posts - 126 votes 
Speaks: English*, Danish
Studies: Mandarin, French, Korean, Hindi

 
 Message 65 of 69
05 July 2010 at 3:07am | IP Logged 
feanarosurion wrote:
If you throw Finnish, Hungarian, or Basque into the equation, you're dealing with something entirely different. But for a native English speaker, I think the "European" side would be easier than the "Indo" side. They might have been connected thousands of years ago but now the resemblance isn't visible on the surface. I don't know about the distinct grammatical differences, but it seems to me that a European language would be easier to deal with for an English speaker.


Well, Finnish, Hungarian & Basque aren't Indo-European. FInnish & Hungarian are Finno-Ugric, and Basque is an isolate... so they aren't part of the IE family for the purposes of this conversation. If we talk about "languages which occur in Europe", that's a different ball of wax, but Finnish, Hungarian & Basque aren't part of the IE Family.
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feanarosurion
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 5313 days ago
217 posts - 316 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Finnish, Norwegian

 
 Message 66 of 69
05 July 2010 at 3:55am | IP Logged 
exscribere wrote:
feanarosurion wrote:
If you throw Finnish, Hungarian, or Basque into the equation, you're dealing with something entirely different. But for a native English speaker, I think the "European" side would be easier than the "Indo" side. They might have been connected thousands of years ago but now the resemblance isn't visible on the surface. I don't know about the distinct grammatical differences, but it seems to me that a European language would be easier to deal with for an English speaker.


Well, Finnish, Hungarian & Basque aren't Indo-European. FInnish & Hungarian are Finno-Ugric, and Basque is an isolate... so they aren't part of the IE family for the purposes of this conversation. If we talk about "languages which occur in Europe", that's a different ball of wax, but Finnish, Hungarian & Basque aren't part of the IE Family.


Oh yeah I'm well aware of that. I've been studying Finnish for the last few years, and I'd love to have a discussion that includes those languages. Actually that's what I meant by my first sentence. We'd be dealing with an entirely different set of variables. I'd have a lot more to contribute to a discussion that includes the Finno-Ugric family, because that's where my knowledge lies. In terms of Indo-European, my knowledge is much more limited, so I really don't think I can say too much with this debate. I've just noticed that there hasn't been as much discussion into the "Indo" side of Indo-European. I think it would be a lot easier to jump into a Slavic or Celtic language than to one of the Indian languages, just because of the vast split in the language family. I'm not necessarily talking about grammar complexities. For all I know, the Indian languages could have the simplest grammars on the planet. However, in general, I believe that's not the case, at least from other discussions on this forum. Grammar aside, I think there would be fewer obvious cognates, and they would be very different from usage in European languages. Therefore, I think that despite the complexities of Slavic and Celtic languages, Indian languages should be considered because of the fact that the relation is much more distant for English speakers at the very least, and for most Europeans in general.
1 person has voted this message useful



exscribere
Diglot
Senior Member
IndiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5311 days ago
104 posts - 126 votes 
Speaks: English*, Danish
Studies: Mandarin, French, Korean, Hindi

 
 Message 67 of 69
05 July 2010 at 5:00am | IP Logged 
I'm in the process of learning Hindi now, and so far there are some differences, but nothing has thusfar emerged that's been harder than when I worked with Russian a number of years ago; my Welsh studies never moved much past how to pronounce the dd & ll consonant clusters, sadly. :/ Hopefully I'll be able to contribute more on the differences once I actually get deeper into Hindi than "is that a pen?"...
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Merv
Bilingual Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5305 days ago
414 posts - 749 votes 
Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian*
Studies: Spanish, French

 
 Message 68 of 69
05 July 2010 at 5:58am | IP Logged 
feanarosurion wrote:
exscribere wrote:
feanarosurion wrote:
If you throw Finnish, Hungarian, or
Basque into the equation, you're dealing with something entirely different. But for a native English speaker, I
think the "European" side would be easier than the "Indo" side. They might have been connected thousands of
years ago but now the resemblance isn't visible on the surface. I don't know about the distinct grammatical
differences, but it seems to me that a European language would be easier to deal with for an English speaker.


Well, Finnish, Hungarian & Basque aren't Indo-European. FInnish & Hungarian are Finno-Ugric, and Basque is an
isolate... so they aren't part of the IE family for the purposes of this conversation. If we talk about "languages
which occur in Europe", that's a different ball of wax, but Finnish, Hungarian & Basque aren't part of the IE
Family.


Oh yeah I'm well aware of that. I've been studying Finnish for the last few years, and I'd love to have a discussion
that includes those languages. Actually that's what I meant by my first sentence. We'd be dealing with an entirely
different set of variables. I'd have a lot more to contribute to a discussion that includes the Finno-Ugric family,
because that's where my knowledge lies. In terms of Indo-European, my knowledge is much more limited, so I
really don't think I can say too much with this debate. I've just noticed that there hasn't been as much discussion
into the "Indo" side of Indo-European. I think it would be a lot easier to jump into a Slavic or Celtic language
than to one of the Indian languages, just because of the vast split in the language family. I'm not necessarily
talking about grammar complexities. For all I know, the Indian languages could have the simplest grammars on
the planet. However, in general, I believe that's not the case, at least from other discussions on this forum.
Grammar aside, I think there would be fewer obvious cognates, and they would be very different from usage in
European languages. Therefore, I think that despite the complexities of Slavic and Celtic languages, Indian
languages should be considered because of the fact that the relation is much more distant for English speakers
at the very least, and for most Europeans in general.


Yes and no. Sanskrit has many cognates with Latin, for example. On the other hand, neither Slavic nor Celtic
vocabulary has entered the Romance or Germanic Western European languages all that much. I think we can all
agree that more archaic and conservative languages of the IE family are harder than the newer ones: Lithuanian,
Latin, ancient Greek, Sanskrit, etc. than for example Spanish, English, modern Greek, Hindi, etc.
1 person has voted this message useful



John Smith
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 6074 days ago
396 posts - 542 votes 
Speaks: English*, Czech*, Spanish
Studies: German

 
 Message 69 of 69
05 July 2010 at 4:33pm | IP Logged 
Modern Greek!!!


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