Is English the most logical language?

[dave28]

Is it true that speaking Welsh can be quite Flemish?

Some of those words that kinda sound like that starting with "ll" i couldnt get the flemish sound right so they thought i had a speach problem lol.

I had to try and say them over and over to a teacher in front of a whole class taking the xxxx out of me.

If you couldnt get your flem on then you were singled out as an outcast hahaha.

 

[Feek]

to counter my examples of why English is the most logical/efficient?

English is the most logical/efficient to you because it's your native language. It's the one you were brought up using and the one that's been drummed into you since birth.

Polish people will think the same thing about their language.
German people will think the same thing about their language.
Spanish people will th....

You get the idea.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Because that is the question I am asking here, and I am making a case for why English is logical (using examples). What case has been made (using examples) by anyone else that another language is better?

I speak 3 languages and although English is easier than Chinese, I don’t think it’s as simple as you think it is.

Korean for example is designed from scratch quite recently because Korean used to be awash in Chinese and they want their civilians to raise their literacy so designed a new language for this. It has an alphabet unlike Chinese and it was created to be easy to learn. Of course it will look difficult but not many languages outside Klingon or Elvish which are not really national languages can say a whole country speaks it.

Also…random fact, typing on the computer in Chinese, you can probably type…80wpm? 100wpm or may be 120wpm? A speed typing competition in China they can do 250wpm in Chinese. It’s quite amazing, although it’s more to do with predictive text than writing whole words.

 

[danlightbulb]

English is the most logical/efficient to you because it's your native language. It's the one you were brought up using and the one that's been drummed into you since birth.

Polish people will think the same thing about their language.
German people will think the same thing about their language.
Spanish people will th....

You get the idea.

Yes I get what you are saying but I am trying to objectively define why English is the more efficient language. Im making a case for it.

For example I have mentioned lack of gender, lack of accents, the use of short connecting word building blocks, all as examples of what the English language has going for it.

Other languages are flawed in this way so harder to learn from a logical perspective. Of course language is learned as a child etc so completely difficult to define one as harder.

But if you were to take an alien who could not speak, which language would be easiest to teach him? Or which language would be easiest to simplify and teach him for basic communication (assuming he wouldn't need to know about little complexities like the I before E rule or whether desert is spelled the same as desert).

 

[Mr Badger]

Yes I get what you are saying but I am trying to objectively define why English is the more efficient language. Im making a case for it.

For example I have mentioned lack of gender, lack of accents, the use of short connecting word building blocks, all as examples of what the English language has going for it.

Other languages are flawed in this way so harder to learn from a logical perspective. Of course language is learned as a child etc so completely difficult to define one as harder.

But if you were to take an alien who could not speak, which language would be easiest to teach him? Or which language would be easiest to simplify and teach him for basic communication (assuming he wouldn't need to know about little complexities like the I before E rule or whether desert is spelled the same as desert).

That question has already been answered - Esperanto. Examples have also been given of other languages with more straight forward structures.

I always understood that the joy of English was it's flexibility and ability to add new stuff and absorb bits from other languages. Of course that doesn't make it any easier to learn.

 

[danlightbulb]

That question has already been answered - Esperanto. Examples have also been given of other languages with more straight forward structures.

I always understood that the joy of English was it's flexibility and ability to add new stuff and absorb bits from other languages. Of course that doesn't make it any easier to learn.

It hasn't been answered. It was suggested with no justification. Esperanto uses accents, it uses longer words than (arguably) necessary.

 

[JRS]

But if you were to take an alien who could not speak, which language would be easiest to teach him?

Esperanto or Klingon, since they were both constructed (pretty much) from the ground up.

Though the latter has the occasional oddity, such as there being no verb 'to be' IIRC. Which makes Hamlet somewhat difficult in the original Klingon

 

[Raymond Lin]

How is English lack gender? He/she not a gender?

Chinese doesn’t have that, there is a word for “that person”, but not he/she. If you mean having gender is an advantage? That’s only because you are a native speaker. If you are native in another language that doesn’t use gender than it makes sense. You just say “that person is a woman” then all references in that conversation will be female.

Btw, all languages and regent has accents. Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese etc. Other languages are not flawed, and the fact that you are saying these things is evidence that you are NOT objective.

In order to be objective you need to be fluent in more than your native language short of being a linguist which you are not in either. First, you need to accept and understand and give the possibility that English may not be the easiest, then study other languages DEEPLY to compare before making a conclusion. Not start a thread on Friday afternoon and then 3hrs later declaring that it is.

You, yourselves cannot possibly be objective in this because you are only fluent in English. Confirmation bias?

 

[danlightbulb]

https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2015/06/whats_the_most_efficient_language.html

English wins according to this article, based on amount of information conveyed per unit time.

Esperanto or Klingon, since they were both constructed (pretty much) from the ground up.

Ok but Esperanto has accented letters so is more complicated than English in this respect.

How is English lack gender? He/she not a gender?

Gender as in gender assigned to inanimate objects, which alters the preceding word. 'Der, Die, Das' for example, changes depending on what the noun is.

 

[Raymond Lin]

https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2015/06/whats_the_most_efficient_language.html

English wins according to this article, based on amount of information conveyed per unit time.




Ok but Esperanto has accented letters so is more complicated than English in this respect.




Gender as in gender assigned to inanimate objects, which alters the preceding word. 'Der, Die, Das' for example, changes depending on what the noun is.

Efficient or logical? Because your title ask which is the most logical.

Ironic given the thread…2 pages and half a day to covey what you really meant? Lol

 

[JRS]

Ok but Esperanto has accented letters so is more complicated than English in this respect.

More complicated than sometimes changing pronunciation without changing spelling except also sometimes not even changing pronunciation and having meaning be context-specific?

I dunno bud. Seems easier to me just to stick an accent over a vowel to take out the ambiguity...

 

[danlightbulb]

Efficient or logical? Because your title ask which is the most logical.

Ironic given the thread…2 pages and half a day to covey what you really meant? Lol

Conversations can evolve can't they? I did originally mean logical yes.

Let me ask you an alternate question then instead of me stating English is the best. What variables/factors would you consider if assessing a language for simplicity?

 

[explicit4u]

Accents are just used in place of additional letters, makes english slightly easier to read but then it has it's weird pronunciations.

 

[danlightbulb]

More complicated than sometimes changing pronunciation without changing spelling except also sometimes not even changing pronunciation and having meaning be context-specific?

I dunno bud. Seems easier to me just to stick an accent over a vowel to take out the ambiguity...

Yeah i get what you're saying, my focus though in this thread has really been about the structure of the language rather than the words as such.

We can all learn twenty different words for 'cat', but if its complicated to use it in a sentence that is what makes the language hard to learn.

 

[delta0]

English is incredibly inefficient as a language. Once you get over your mind exploding/hurting with the particle systems used in languages like Japanese and Korean you soon realise we add so many unnecessary words to sentences.

 

[dirtychinchilla]

Let me go and find out what those other two are.

Case in point - reflexive verb.

 

[Feef]

The definition here seems to keep changing between logical, efficient and whatever else someone hasn't given countless examples against.

I'd certainly say Chinese is more logical, but more efficient? To use or learn? To write or speak? With or without a computer?

In English, we'd use a different form of "to go" depending on the person, and time. That information is already elsewhere in the sentence, or easily established from context, so why say "I went yesterday" instead of "I go yesterday" (as per Chinese)?

For other logical inconsistencies in English, why use a present tense verb (present perfect) to talk about things in the past? You'd say "I have been there", but if you wanted to say when, you'd switch to a simple past tense, "I went there last year".

How would you explain to a non native speaker when they should say "I had lived there for six years", and when it should be "I had been living there for six years"? They're both correct, and there is a difference - and I'm sure you'd instinctively know which to use - but picking up on that sort of thing isn't just a straightforward, logical rule to follow.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Conversations can evolve can't they? I did originally mean logical yes.

Let me ask you an alternate question then instead of me stating English is the best. What variables/factors would you consider if assessing a language for simplicity?

Something that doesn’t have so many rules and then just as many exceptions. Something where the accent do not vary enormously across the population to the point that fellow speaker of the same language cannot understand you. Slight accent that’s fine but not drastic changes. A language where tenses don’t exist, all you need to add is yesterday, now or tomorrow, that way you don’t need to learn 3x the number of words. So instead of go, going and went, it’s go now, go yesterday and go tomorrow.

Would that not be logical? Why do you need to learn 3x the words for 1 action?

 

[Jean-F]

It's one of the few languages without genders for nouns. Did French and German up to GCSE level and found it funny that female articles of clothing like bra, undies were of masculine gender and men clothes like tie was female.

Then don't start me on the French on numbers. Why on earth is 99 said in English four twenty ten nine
(quatre-vingt-dix-neuf)? Another example is 70 which is said as sixty ten soixante dix. French for 7 is sept. Would a French person understand if someone said septante for 70 instead of soixante dix?

Strictly speaking, the French don’t say “four twenty ten nine” for 99, they say quatre-vingt-dix-neuf, but dix-neuf means nineteen, so it reads like they’re saying “four twenty nineteen”, still weird to us.
Belgians will say septante for seventy, and for ninety eight they’ll say nonante huit, nonante being their word for ninety.
Belgians will also say quatre vingt for eighty, while French speaking Swiss will say huitante.
I’ve used the French way of saying numbers in conversation in Belgium, and no one picked me upon it.

 

[danlightbulb]

The definition here seems to keep changing between logical, efficient and whatever else someone hasn't given countless examples against.

Well it was just a question I was interested in. The discussion then moved on and expanded, which is good. We should be judging language based on all those factors?

For other logical inconsistencies in English, why use a present tense verb (present perfect) to talk about things in the past? You'd say "I have been there", but if you wanted to say when, you'd switch to a simple past tense, "I went there last year".

You can say it your way too and it works fine, just as you put there. 'I have been there last year' works just fine. Although to be clear I wouldn't say it either of those ways, I would say 'I was there' or 'I was there last year'. Both work fine.

if you break down that phrase its quite logical.

• 'I' means me, the first person, Im talking about myself and it comes first in the sentence which makes sense, unlike other languages which sometimes don't put the participant first.
• 'have' means im taking about the past, something that has already happened.
• 'been' indicates travel or a physical movement.
• 'there' indicates a location, obviously the one being discussed in the conversation.
• 'last year' or whatever time you want to say, is the final bit to give more information but is optional.

In Polish that sentence would be:

Byłem tam w zeszłym roku, which literally translated means:

• Byłem - I was - they already have a word for 'I' so why do you need a different word for 'I was'? Just have a word for 'I' and a word for 'was' and combine them when needed.
• tam - over there - different meaning when used standalone than when used in the sentence. Unnecessarily complex
• w - in
• zeszłym - last
  
• roku - year

So literally translated the Polish phrase is actually "I was over there in last year", which is wrong because it suggests you were there 'within' the last year not last year as in 2020 which it would mean in English.

So English is far more efficient and logical here.


Here it is in Chinese:
我去年去过
Wǒ qùnián qùguò

I suggest that only using three words means those words are horrendously complex when you try and structure a sentence.



I know we could pick apart any language this way so Im not picking on anything particularly just trying to make examples of the logic of English and the simplicity of the building blocks. Id be interested in examples where other languages are in fact simpler but I don't think any have been given.