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Are "easy" languages superior?

  Tags: Difficulty
 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room Post Reply
33 messages over 5 pages: 1 24 5  Next >>
joan.carles
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 Message 17 of 33
13 August 2007 at 12:54am | IP Logged 
FSI wrote:
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.


Exactly. Actually, we just need to check what happened in Eastern Europe during the cold war. With all the "difficulty" (here an icon of irony) of Russian, it turned out that the lingua franca and language of influence was Russian, or also German, but not English. Why? Because English was not relevant for these countries at that time. There was no English on TV, on theaters, no English on Internet as there was no internet, not many interest in learning English as it had not much added value in term of professional expectations. So what happened then after the end of the cold war, English became easier and Russian
and German more difficult? Or rather that the penetration and importance that English acquired also in that part of Europe made that people become interested in this language?

Many different languages have become important and have exerted influence on other cultures across history, no matter what type of language in linguistical terms. Chinese, Mongolian, Latin, Greek, Persian, Arabic, Mayan, Egyptian, Sumerian, German... all these empires ruled an important part of the world in a certain moment in history. Was it due to the language or actually to the type of civilization that spoke that language? I think there's no doubt on that.

Edited by joan.carles on 13 August 2007 at 12:58am

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xtremelingo
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 Message 18 of 33
10 September 2007 at 4:17am | IP Logged 

It's all relative. English might have the appearance of being easily simply because it is one of the most popular and spread out languages in the entire world. Like someone said earlier, it is far more easier to practice English than any other foreign language due to it's popularity, far more resources, teachers, schools, media, movies, tv, that reason alone significantly helps the language-acquisition process.

I am pretty sure if Russian or Mandarin were spread out around the world at the level English is now, and English was at popularity level of Russian. Many people would say the exact reverse and claim that English is a hard language and Russian is easy.

I find it actually funny when people that have lived in an English immersed culture for years that cannot speak English. Because many of them DO exist.
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maxb
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 Message 19 of 33
12 September 2007 at 6:57am | IP Logged 
I think the perceived difficulty of chinese is mostly due to teaching methods. In tratditional language teaching you are usually taught to read the language first only later (if at all) getting into speaking and listening. In my mind the best way to learn chinese is to first listen and imitate. I.e. learn the language like a child does. Then when you feel that you have grasped the sound system you can start to learn to read what you can say and understand. Actually I think a good system for this could be Rosetta Stone where you can choose to just practice listening. Then when you have listened for a while you can practice listening and reading.
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Bohy
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 Message 20 of 33
18 September 2007 at 8:27am | IP Logged 
Many different languages have become important and have exerted influence on other cultures across history, no matter what type of language in linguistical terms. Chinese, Mongolian, Latin, Greek, Persian, Arabic, Mayan, Egyptian, Sumerian, German... all these empires ruled an important part of the world in a certain moment in history. Was it due to the language or actually to the type of civilization that spoke that language? I think there's no doubt on that."

I don't think it is as clear cut as you think. sumerian never spread beyond use by its own people (although the writing system was widely adopted), the spread of egyptian was limited, while arabic only spread in regions where the original inhabitants spoke another form of semitic language (although it influence the vocabulary of others). The mongolian language was not adopted in the nations conquered by the mongols (in fact the mongols adopted local language and custom) and Latin never established itself as the main language of the eastern roman empire (and with the fall of the western, the eastern empire reverted to greek). Another interesting one is the level to which the french language did not get influenced by the Germanic language, despite the the migration and expansion of Germanic tribes into france after the fall of the roman empire.

The topic is very complex, and there is a great deal to be said for the theory that the "language" itself, that is its gramatical structure, vocabulary and its sound, can effect how well it can spread and how resistant it is to change or complete abandonment by its users in the face of the spread of a foreign language.

For those who are intersted in linguistics, I am ready a facinating book about the history of languages and how this history parrallel (or does not parrallel) the history of the peoples that used them.

The book is called: "Empires of the Word" and it is by Nicholas Ostler

Edited by Bohy on 18 September 2007 at 8:48am

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joan.carles
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 Message 21 of 33
19 September 2007 at 1:06am | IP Logged 
The point is not only the spread of these languages but the spread of the cultures that spoke these languages. If we believe English is superior because the culture that speaks it has expanded throughout the world, then Romans, or Sumerians, for example, should be considered superior too. The Sumerian Uruk civilization reached up to the Mediterranean, Iran and Turkey. Let alone the romans. Of course, it's easier to expand a language when you can reach directly the whole world, ie with press media, than without it. And that gives a clear advantage to English which other languages didn't have.

Quote:
while arabic only spread in regions where the original inhabitants spoke another form of semitic language (although it influence the vocabulary of others)


Berber, the group of languages spoken in Morocco and Algeria before the arrival of Arabs is not Semitic.
First civilizations in Sudan or Eritrea were of Nubian origin, and Nubian is a Nilo-Saharan group of languages, different to Afro-Asiatic, where Arabic comes from.

Edited by joan.carles on 19 September 2007 at 1:07am

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Sohi
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 Message 22 of 33
19 September 2007 at 3:20am | IP Logged 
thank you for the information regarding spread of arabic and the root of languages it displaced. I think you missed the point of my post though.

I do not doubt that the expansion of a culture through out a world (by whatever means it may be, be it militaristic or otherwise) plays a very important role in the spread of a language. And the spread of english, as a result of press media does in fact make it unique. However, what I am argueing is that a language itself (with its particular characteristics) can affect how it can expand, and if and if so how it is adopted by speakers of other languages. In a sense, not only does culture effect the spread of language, but so does language effect the spread of culture. There are complex forces at play here.

The issue of "superiority" is an interesting one. What would you say makes a language superior? And can we ever say such a thing about a language? Probably not, but if we could, one criteria that you may use would be how well it can assist in spreading itself (and again i realise that cultural expansion probably plays a larger role than language structure).

Regarding your examples you pointed out, again I note that the sumerian language never spread beyond their own cities, even at the height of its "empire" (although it wasnt really one). While the assyrian empire discarded its own language of akadian in favour of the related arameic (the language of certain nomads) at the height of its own power.
Similiarly, the spread of Latin over the Roman Empire was largely scewed, and failed to make any real impact in the East where Greek was retained.
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joan.carles
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 Message 23 of 33
19 September 2007 at 10:42am | IP Logged 
Quote:
I do not doubt that the expansion of a culture through out a world (by whatever means it may be, be it militaristic or otherwise) plays a very important role in the spread of a language. And the spread of english, as a result of press media does in fact make it unique. However, what I am argueing is that a language itself (with its particular characteristics) can affect how it can expand, and if and if so how it is adopted by speakers of other languages. In a sense, not only does culture effect the spread of language, but so does language effect the spread of culture. There are complex forces at play here.


So under your point of view, what would be the reasons so that English had the spread it has had in the last decades, in strict linguistic terms? What features makes it more spreadable: the lack of declensions, lack of tones, lack of accents or maybe the fact that it places adjectives before nouns? We can more or less explain the spread of languages such as Russian throughout the Russian empire, Arabic throughout the Arabic world, by militaristic, religious or technological reasons. But what would be those linguistic features that would make a language like English spread as it has done without considering cultural or technological reasons? That’s what I can’t understand of your point. It’s just useless to say that it is so complex that we can’t explain exactly what are the reasons for this without giving them, maybe it’s because there are not such. Res non verba.

Quote:
In a sense, not only does culture effect the spread of language, but so does language effect the spread of culture.


So, how?

Quote:
The issue of "superiority" is an interesting one. What would you say makes a language superior? And can we ever say such a thing about a language? Probably not, but if we could, one criteria that you may use would be how well it can assist in spreading itself (and again i realise that cultural expansion probably plays a larger role than language structure)


Well, maybe you could say such a thing if you find what are those things that assist in spreading the language.

I’m afraid the discourse of superiority and inferiority is yet resuscitating the ghost of superior and inferior races, countries or whatever, and it simply doesn’t make sense. What is superior, a jiraffe or an ant? Well it depends. If you take into account the length of the neck, it’s clear. Which is superior, a culture that to evolve needs to destroy the place where it lives in or one that just takes what it needs thus ensuring a long term survival?

Quote:
Similiarly, the spread of Latin over the Roman Empire was largely scewed, and failed to make any real impact in the East where Greek was retained.


Again, you are overlooking the importance of the Roman Empire because it didn’t have any impact on the East as if the impact on the West was trivial. We are talking about very different empires, in very different times without the same means and ways to expand. It’s like arguing about the small impact of the English language in the Milky Way in 20th-21st centuries compared to the hypothetic expansion of language X all over Milky Way’s planets in year 4235 (if humankind is still alive by then)
(here more than one will say that in that year, this X language would be, of course, English.)


Edited by joan.carles on 19 September 2007 at 10:46am

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FSI
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 Message 24 of 33
19 September 2007 at 3:56pm | IP Logged 
joan.carles wrote:

I’m afraid the discourse of superiority and inferiority is yet resuscitating the ghost of superior and inferior races, countries or whatever, and it simply doesn’t make sense.


Well said, joan carles. How hard is it to make the intellectual leap from declaring a language superior to declaring a culture inferior? Wait - don't answer that. I've seen such leaps made several times in these discussions already.

Personally, I'm not sure why there is such an interest in placing hierarchies on methods of human communication. Does this make it easier to fit the humans themselves to superiority/inferiority scales once we've categorized their languages as tongues of lesser value?

This reminds me very much of the continuous attempts made to determine the "smarter" of the sexes. It often seems people are simply trying to recursively justify inherent biases toward whatever they claim to be measuring. It's rare to see (for example) a non-bigot going about trying to determine intelligence differences between people of different colors or nationalities.

It's as if we spend so much time trying to "objectively" sort people/things into pecking orders in order to sanction the pecking orders into which we've already placed them.

Edited by FSI on 19 September 2007 at 4:08pm



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