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Equal amount of grammar in all languages? | ||
Tags: Difficulty | Grammar | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| BartoG Diglot Senior Member United States confession Joined 5229 days ago 292 posts - 818 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Spanish, Latin, Uzbek | Message 9 of 41 02 December 2010 at 9:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The statement seems deliberately provocative, so we should ask what it’s supposed to provoke us to think about. It seems designed to make us think about what’s really involved in speaking a language, which is not about charts and tables, but about assembling sounds into words in a way that creates meaning.
With respect to complexity of a language, it seems to me that the fewer the written rules, the more the unwritten rules. Indonesian may be said to have almost no grammar, but it is still capable of expressing precise and refined sentiments. This requires a sophisticated sense not only of how to assemble the elements that express these, but also an understanding of what can be left out and what must be left out. I’m reminded of the Introduction to the first Teach Yourself Malay: “Malay is an easy language. Bafflingly easy. At the end of ten weeks, you will feel you know all there is to know. At the end of ten years, you know you never will.” Likewise, the lack of morphology – word endings – in Chinese may make it appear to have no grammar, but its grammar merely resides in the syntax: You must know how and where to use the measure words and various particles, when they can be left out, etc. For some people, it may seem far easier to memorize the case endings in Latin than the rules for particle placement in Chinese. It is fair to say that some languages are easier to speak poorly or simply than others, but if you are talking about the degree of understanding required to make full use of a language’s expressive power, I think Garret’s statement is not so outrageous as it may at first seem. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5163 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 10 of 41 02 December 2010 at 9:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
My general claim is that the balance of all trade-offs within each language comes more or less to the same. Are you implying that Tok Pisin is easier to learn for an Inuktitut speaker than the other way around? If that were the case, should it not also imply that Tok Pisin children learn their language faster? Edited by Arekkusu on 02 December 2010 at 9:27pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5163 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 11 of 41 02 December 2010 at 9:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
What do you mean? We can choose to write, or not write, any rule. Do you mean that simple and complex rules balance eachother out in the end? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6154 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English* | Message 12 of 41 02 December 2010 at 9:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Every language has enough grammar to express anything that can be expressed in another
system of grammar. This is not the same as what he said. Languages also have grammars with varying amounts of objective complexity. I'm also lead to believe this complexity can lead to greater nuances in meaning. It's not that you can't express them in another language it's just that the language doesn't do it in general. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5163 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 13 of 41 02 December 2010 at 10:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
If your language can't express, say conditional, then you will inevitably need to resort to more intricate sentence building -- or story telling altogether -- to render the same nuanced message. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5349 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 14 of 41 02 December 2010 at 11:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think the trade-off isn't entirely equal.
I would predict that speakers of Tok Pisin master their language's grammar faster than speakers of Inuktitut, yes, but I would like to see the study done which proves or disproves this idea. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5303 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 15 of 41 02 December 2010 at 11:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The statement that all languages have the same amount of grammar is not incorrect, it is pure rubbish. It is not even defined. How would you even measure the size of a grammar? Are declensions worth more than conjugations? Aspect system and honorifics? Measure words and tone sanshi? There is no single scale you could use to do the comparison.
I would guess that this your teacher suffers from an acute form of political correctness. Beware, because it is contagious. Normal linguists, who are less severely affected, like to pretend that they think that "all languages have the same expressive power" (which is complete bunk of course) or the softer version: "all languages can adequately fill the needs of the communities that use them", which is still rubbish, but more subtly so. The truth is that there is of course no reason at all (apart from wishful thinking) why a language developed on a South Sea island in a community of coconut farmers, should happen to have the same "expressive power", in aggregate, as some Esquimaux tongue off Greenland. That would be an incredible coincidence. The strongest argument, as if an argument were needed, is that languages develop over time, through usage new forms, words, idioms and expressions arise. A language with a billion literate speakers will have greater scope for this creativity than a tiny language spoken by analphabetics, especially in these days of instant global communication. I don't actually think than anyone honestly believes that a tiny island language can even compare to the incredible richness of English, French, Russian or Chinese. Let's face it, a language is never more sophisticated than its most sophisticated users, and a large group with many rich, educated or pretentious people will produce more literary genius than a small group of poor peasants. 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5793 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 16 of 41 03 December 2010 at 1:09am | IP Logged | |||||
English is a language that was developed by the Germanic and Celtic peasant subjects of a French-speaking aristocracy. French is a language that was developed by the peasant subjects of a Latin-speaking aristocracy. Russian is a language that was developed by the peasant subjects of a Church Slavonic-speaking aristocracy. So get off your high horse. Now, back on topic. Let's contrast "difficulties". Latin and Greek are two of the allegedly "tricky" grammars, but these are considered highly cultured. But then again, Inuktitut and Simoan are two more allegedly "tricky" grammars, but these are not considered highly cultured. And then there's Spanish which has a grammar that is widely regarded as "easy", and has produced some great literature in the form of music, books and films. Now, what is the link you make between language and literature? Does one need to have written the Illiad to be considered as good at Greek language as Homer? No, that would prove that one is as good as him at literature. You could live your life through everyday Ancient Greek, and you would likely cover as much of the full language as Homer did. So it follows that even if a language has no Illiad and no Odyssey, this does not prove that the language is insufficient to produce one. But of course most languages do have great literature in the form of the oral traditions, particularly the great mythological epics that are passed from generation to generation. These are no less "literature" than the epics of Homer, and it is pure cultural bigotry to dismiss someone as linguistically lesser beings simply because their great-great-great-grandfather didn't know how to write. 11 persons have voted this message useful |
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