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Are "easy" languages superior? | ||
Tags: Difficulty | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6555 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 9 of 33 12 August 2007 at 12:28am | IP Logged | |||||
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I find myself close to FSI's position these days. I think perhaps that if you take a language to an advanced level, difficulty only varies as a measure of how similar that language is to your own language. And of course, there are a few subjective aspects, like ideographic characters or unpredictable spellings which must be memorized, but that's a somewhat separate issue.
For example, Malay has the reputation of a simple, easy-to-learn language; but I've also heard that if you really want to master it, the grammar gets a lot more complex and foreign. If Esperanto can be described in a single textbook, you can't convince me it has the same range of nuance and expressiveness as a natural language like Japanese or English taken to an advanced literary level. And if Esperanto is that expressive, it's because it has been expanded far beyond the prescriptive textbook, which means mastering it has likewise become more difficult. (Note that I'm in the camp that considers any "natively spoken Esperanto" to be an Esperanto-based creole rather than the textbook language.) Edited by Captain Haddock on 12 August 2007 at 12:29am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6655 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 10 of 33 12 August 2007 at 12:44am | IP Logged | |||||
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I think it is an interesting question, but in a world where each of our approximately 6.000 languages is each filled with nuances and so forth, there is more than meets the eye to "easy" languages. As has been pointed out, grammar is not the only hurdle. I do believe that some can be easier than others, theoretically. But it depends more on the learner than the language. If Finnish had been in English's position, people would perhaps talk about how Finnish is "easy." (It's easy to spell! 100% phonetic! Ah, but what about all those cases? Well, thank heavens I didn't have to learn a language crawling with irregular verbs and prepositions all over the place!)
That said, it kind of irritates me when people talk about how easy English is. I've met so many exchange students or people from other non-native English speaking backgrounds who have talked about how easy English is to learn, and it feels almost like a bit of a slam against something that is part of me, even though I shouldn't take it personally. Since I'm biased, I don't know exactly what to say, and I can't tell someone something is difficult when they found it easy, but it's a subjective thing. When they say it's easy, maybe they think they are speaking from a linguistic perspective, when in reality they are not. What I mean is, I suspect any language would be "English-easy" to learn if it had the same cultural, media, economic, and historical opportunities that English has had and is having. Maybe I'm wrong: I've heard that for example Chinese would be a hard sell due to its complex writing, but I suspect even those might be a bit scarier than they are in reality. (I guess I'll find out when I learn Chinese, and I look forward to it very much.) English has much to make it a "hard" language: bunches of irregular verbs, a spelling minefield, tons and tons of words with shades of nuances, grammar that gets complicated when you get deeper into it (complex verb tenses for example), and yet I think people say it's easy, not because it is *easy* to master, but because it is *easy* to find places to practice it. I think a lot of this can perhaps apply to other languages as well. Spanish is a so-called "easy" language (I disagree personally, I thought it was rather difficult), yet for all its ease and even ample places to practice it here, most Americans are quite hopeless at having a real conversation in the language. Grammatically, I thought German was more difficult than Spanish. But I was also more motivated to learn it, and in some ways it almost feels more natural to me. I don't feel that either language is more "superior" than the other. I think that putting such things in boxes like that can be a bit dangerous ultimately. When you get to the meat of a language, the nuances, the idioms, the real speaking, not the grammar --to the devil with grammar! you can have poor grammar and still be understood to a degree, but if you don't know the *language* even with perfect grammar you can still speak very perfect nonsense-- *that's* where the difficulties lie, and of all the languages I've studied in depth, Spanish, German, and Esperanto, they all have things that are tricky, in their own way, to learn. And it isn't limited to just these languages. I hope this didn't become too much of a rant, but I wanted to say something I felt needed to be said here. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Karakorum Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6356 days ago 201 posts - 232 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)* Studies: French, German | Message 11 of 33 12 August 2007 at 2:07am | IP Logged | |||||
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I think my original post wasn't worded correctly. My question was more abstract and psychological than linguistic. I wasn't really trying to argue that languages can be arranged in a solid difficulty ladder, my question was more about the reactions of people to their native languages or languages they speak fluently being characterized as "easy" or "hard". Why do many Chinese and Arabic speakers seem proud of the supposed difficulty of their languages? And why do native English speakers get defensive when English is characterized as "easy"? In pure functional terms (assuming in the mean most languages are equally expressive), an easy language is more efficient and thus more worthy of admiration.
A couple of posts did touch on this point, but even the discussion of the ease of English is interesting (if irrelevant). I am not claiming I know whether or not English is "easy". However, I do believe that the relative accessibility of English has helped it. Sure its economic prowess, and the wealth of pop culture are more major factors, but isn't a more accessible language likely to be more accelerated on its path to universality? I mean sure, English may be harder for a Korean than Chinese, but is it harder than German? Is it harder than Arabic? Is it harder for an Arab than Chinese? If you cross language groups, isn't English in general terms in the simple category? I am not arguing that this is the only reason for the success story of English (otherwise as already stated why don't we all speak Bahasa), I am just asking if it didn't really help. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| karuna Triglot Groupie United States Joined 6121 days ago 47 posts - 46 votes 2 sounds Speaks: Latvian*, Russian, English Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 12 of 33 12 August 2007 at 9:26am | IP Logged | |||||
No, it isn't. For example, Latvians previously studied German at school while today English is more popular. Those who have tried both will assert that German is simpler. I know Latvian who have learned Estonian with relative ease. It very much depends on the exposure. The funny fact is that most Latvian don't even know that Estonian is not an IE language. For them it is just a neighbor nation's language that has 14 cases and marginally more difficult than, let's say Lithuanian. At the same time majority of Latvian students are desperately struggling with English at school. You probably could put languages in the order of absolute easiness but English wouldn't be very high on it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| delectric Diglot Senior Member China Joined 6968 days ago 608 posts - 733 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: German | Message 13 of 33 12 August 2007 at 2:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Journeyer, Can you elaborate on the difficulties you've found in studying Esperanto? I thought it was suposed to be really simple?
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| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6655 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 14 of 33 12 August 2007 at 2:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
I guess when I wrote that, I invented a lot of words that weren't offical, like "tajpilo" instead of "klavaro" for "keyboard". I've only recently found out that's ok to do, quite contrary from other languages I've learned. Also, which words are transitive and intransitive are hard for me, although with practice I suppose they become more natural. I haven't gotten that far into it yet, so when I was learning Esperanto, unless I knew for sure, I just put the "-ag-" and "-agx-" suffixes, respectively in, not knowing if they needed it or not. Also, I learned Esperanto with a book which I suspect might be a bit outdated, for example, is Germany "Germanujo" or "Germanio"...In other words, I'm a bit out of touch with the language, however, this is not the language's fault. On a pratical level, it took me 7 YEARS to find other Esperantists. Personally, mind you. I used it in a chatroom, but then it got shut down and of course priorities in life shifted. Esperanto is more learner-friendly, but it's a language that requires effort, I think. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| LilleOSC Senior Member United States lille.theoffside.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6478 days ago 545 posts - 546 votes 4 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: French, Arabic (Written) | Message 15 of 33 12 August 2007 at 2:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's what I think. I also think English is a lot more accessible than Mandarin, Arabic, and Russian. Edited by LilleOSC on 12 August 2007 at 2:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| FSI Senior Member United States Joined 6146 days ago 550 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English* | Message 16 of 33 12 August 2007 at 4:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think that accessibility is simply due to the omnipresence of the language globally, and due to the number and distribution of speakers of Indo-European languages globally compared to speakers of Sino-Tibetan languages, Semetic languages, and Slavic languages. First: no other language in the history of the modern world has had the cultural penetration of English. Add the fact that all it takes to develop a passive understanding of a language is passive exposure (every television and radio on Earth can access the English language). Add the fact that five of the six* continents are almost overwhelmingly composed of speakers of Indo-European languages (English/Spanish/French in North America. Spanish/Portuguese in South America. English in Australia. Swahili (which is Bantu, but closer to English than it is to Chinese or Russian) and French in Africa. The entire Romance and Germanic families in Europe), and it's rather easy to see why English is the closest thing we've ever had to a global language. None of this has anything to do with a greater absolute ease of English. It's simply due to penetration, and relativity. It's a far shorter jump to learn English for the average speaker on planet Earth (whether due to the relativity argument or the penetration argument) than it is to learn Chinese, Russian, or Arabic. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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