06-02-2014, 12:11 AM
one more in for japanese:) (for more or less obvious reasons for me, lol:) )
I agree with you on english. BUT, the pros of english language basically grow from it's cons, I would say.
What do I mean? Well, if we ask linguists (and really, if we simply get in touch with several representative languages), they will say that the more west you go, the languages "lack more stuff". (grammatically, morphologically, phonetically etc). This excludes japan/china, as they are pretty specific by themselves.
Which means that, for example, in english, you are less expressive than in, say, russian. By "less expressive" I mean mostly less versatile and less concrete. the most prominent example is, maybe, the lack of cases. Also, english is full of "naked conductor ran through the trolley" stuff, which, although funny, reveal some holes which have to be filled with intonation or context to pinpoint the meaning, and not "linguistically".
But it goes both ways. from a practical standpoint, english seems to be VERY easy to practically learn and also to mold as needed. It's weakness in structure and consistency becomes it's main strength, similar to open source programs. On the other hand, it seems that native english speakers have some struggle with more complex languages, as they need large amounts of time and energy to comprehend a lot of stuff, being never exposed to them (like imagining a new color, if we are to use a dumb example:) ).
Also, this seem to go for phonetic base too, as I saw many english speakers struggle with different r's and stuff like that. Not all, of course, but it's noticeable. While, for example, I have no problem with pronouncing english, spanish, french, german, russian or japanese "r", nor do I know anyone who does and is living here in Serbia or in the neighbourhood:)
But, there's a reason we all speak english lol and it shows that there are various aspects which make a language "good".
I agree with you on english. BUT, the pros of english language basically grow from it's cons, I would say.
What do I mean? Well, if we ask linguists (and really, if we simply get in touch with several representative languages), they will say that the more west you go, the languages "lack more stuff". (grammatically, morphologically, phonetically etc). This excludes japan/china, as they are pretty specific by themselves.
Which means that, for example, in english, you are less expressive than in, say, russian. By "less expressive" I mean mostly less versatile and less concrete. the most prominent example is, maybe, the lack of cases. Also, english is full of "naked conductor ran through the trolley" stuff, which, although funny, reveal some holes which have to be filled with intonation or context to pinpoint the meaning, and not "linguistically".
But it goes both ways. from a practical standpoint, english seems to be VERY easy to practically learn and also to mold as needed. It's weakness in structure and consistency becomes it's main strength, similar to open source programs. On the other hand, it seems that native english speakers have some struggle with more complex languages, as they need large amounts of time and energy to comprehend a lot of stuff, being never exposed to them (like imagining a new color, if we are to use a dumb example:) ).
Also, this seem to go for phonetic base too, as I saw many english speakers struggle with different r's and stuff like that. Not all, of course, but it's noticeable. While, for example, I have no problem with pronouncing english, spanish, french, german, russian or japanese "r", nor do I know anyone who does and is living here in Serbia or in the neighbourhood:)
But, there's a reason we all speak english lol and it shows that there are various aspects which make a language "good".