Are some languages better than others?
As the title says.
I am interested to hear to what extent people believe this to be true/false. For me it is clear that languages are different and that if there is a difference then one is to be better than another.
As an example of Sicilian dialect many Italians view Sicilians as being more childish in nature (or more fun-loving perhaps?). The reason proposed is how they tend to omit certain uses of tense and therefore are less likely to plan far ahead into the future.
Being a native English speaker I do wonder whether or not English has certain qualities that make it particularly useful in some circumstances more than others and where weaknesses in English are too. Being such a bastardised language I find English to be particularly strange and wonder whether the judeochristian historical context is what has made it popular. Also, has English degraded overtime due to mass litraracy or has it improved?
Would be very interested to hear what non-native/multilingual people think about this.
I am interested to hear to what extent people believe this to be true/false. For me it is clear that languages are different and that if there is a difference then one is to be better than another.
As an example of Sicilian dialect many Italians view Sicilians as being more childish in nature (or more fun-loving perhaps?). The reason proposed is how they tend to omit certain uses of tense and therefore are less likely to plan far ahead into the future.
Being a native English speaker I do wonder whether or not English has certain qualities that make it particularly useful in some circumstances more than others and where weaknesses in English are too. Being such a bastardised language I find English to be particularly strange and wonder whether the judeochristian historical context is what has made it popular. Also, has English degraded overtime due to mass litraracy or has it improved?
Would be very interested to hear what non-native/multilingual people think about this.
Comments (109)
So it depends on what one defines as "better". Simpler? Sure, cavemen grunts were simpler and for someone who views simplicity as the paramount of communication are in fact much "better" than modern languages. More intricate requiring skill to master and perhaps even a deeper specificity of intent or purpose one wishes to convey? Sure, than complex language like we have today is "better". Until you explicit define what "better" is as in what intent or goal is to be accomplished, it's a matter of perspective.
One would assume, the point of language, rather communication altogether being to convey and converse a specific sentiment, desire, or goal, a modern language is "better" than a series of grunts or clicking of one's tongue, yes. Up to the point it becomes too complex very few know how to express certain intricacies and subtleties, properly, up to the point it becomes a mere vanity display of 500 different ways to say the exact same thing seemingly for the point of simply being able to do so.
The prevailing view is that the more "primitive" a people, the more complex their language. This is true of "primitive" people today, and presumably of paleolithic "cavemen": both are far more complex than English and other predominant languages today. This is because contact/conquest winnows down the complexity by necessity, so that non-native speakers have even the slightest chance of learning it. All the complexity is unnecessary anyway, our "dumbed down" languages are still fully expressive of human thought.
But in what sense is it better or worse? It is obvious that English is more useful overall. All the interesting content is in English. When people from different countries have a meeting, they use English. The internet is more practical and extensive if you use English. So, as a whole, English is more useful than other languages that are rarely used or known.
For example, you will not see people studying Basque or Catalan because they are not that useful for their professional objectives. Maybe we can find some individuals who study those languages because they have a passion for them, and it is amazing. But we have to admit that they are not recognized or valued by many people.
I don't know to what extent English is 'better' than Basque... It is more useful, yes. But I think that 'better' or 'worse' depends on someone's tastes rather than objective measures.
English has changed over the years for sure maybe due to the number of people who speak it. German has certain matter-of-fact characteristics to it, and various other languages have a narrower range in some areas.
I know people who are bilingual who state that sometimes it is easier to express/think in one language more than another depending on the situation. I think English is particularly unique in that it developed in certain directions due to Latin, Ancient Greek, French and influences from colonies too.
This range could be viewed as positive or negative thing. Which is it? I would say mostly positive at one point in history, but as time has passed it may have become a little unwieldy perhaps?
English became a global language because of the combined influence of two superpowers, the British Empire and the US, not because of its advantages, right?
"Better" is too general to answer, but I will say that English has proven itself to be convenient in comparison to many other languages. The writing system in English (and other Roman languages) is so much better than kanji characters in Japanese/Chinese, which is unnecessarily complicated and unwieldy.
Perhaps English promotes individualism through the extensive use of individualistic pronouns. Japanese culture is considered collectivist compared to Romanic cultures and Japanese doesn't
have the same emphasis on individualistic pronouns. Japanese pronouns often use honorifics or pronouns that refer to someone's position in society relative to the speaker.
Japanese has significant differences depending on politeness or formality, which should be utilised based on your relationship to another, particularly age or status differences.
While I wouldn't overgeneralise, these differences and others between English and Japanese may explain or mirror differences in culture. But whether one is better than the other depends on one's values.
I would say mainly due to the British Empire first and foremost. I was more curious about how English may have helped in any slight way? Did the structure of the language contribute to invention and human thought in any way? Is it even possible to answer this question? If we can then what use could it be?
There is one example where English fell short. The terms Missus and Miss used for women was not as befitting as Italian or French, when a mature woman would be referred to respect with no real need to be married. Senora and Senorita are irrespective of marital status. That is what gave rise to the invention of Ms.
Some values are better than others. Not sure how you could argue otherwise?
I mean...
Quoting I like sushi
What does any of this mean?
I was suggesting that the eclectic nature of English (for reasons stated) helped it expand, yet I question if the ability to pull from its romance and germanic roots has perhaps become a hinderance to communication due to a plethora of terms.
I doubt those are even legitimate questions, in terms of linguistics.
I have a very strong, and perhaps very eccentric, hatred of ignorant chatter about language, partly because everyone who can speak seems to think they have the right to throw around their opinions about it without doing the most basic research. As I say, unless I see some linguistics here (or even philosophy of language, communication theory, or social sciences) I'm moving this to the lounge. Well, I'll be tempted to do so anyway.
Np bye :)
No, no, to have one's thread moved to the lounge be a badge of honor, if nothing else. Like in the days of old, the philosopher's table was not a chopping block (though it may have served similar purpose after dark) but a refining board where one can best find one's own faults not in shame or negative light, but in the promise of progress, like all great thinkers thoughts and desires surely went through.
You quit when in fact you should strive forward, you doubt when in fact you should only double down on the conviction that fathered this thought or discussion you brought forth. Sure, it's not perfect, perhaps not even desired by the majority, but I ask you now. What scientific theory was not arduously even cruelly scrutinized before it became the law we all know and acknowledge? Very few. So take solace my weary friend. :)
Besides... I think now the mystery as to the identity of the caper of your disappearing thread is now well known. :wink:
Well, no. If you lack use of tenses (like Sicilians) then you are less likely to plan ahead. This is advantageous in some ays but perhaps not in others.
Its a crying shame that I would have to explain that differences necessitate different values to some extent even though the circumstances under which they are applied may make them better in one way and worse in another.
We are different. I am likely better in some and worse in others. In terms of language the use is to communicate and explore ideas. I would suggest that all languages offer something but some more so than others (and the linguist who did field research on the Sicilians was as intrigued as me).
Pretty much done here (not due to your post, just saw it).
Well, I was going to say something... Anyhow, fwiw, from a linguistic perspective, the question is somewhat analagous to asking a biologist if salmon are better than cod. Languages evolve to fill sociocultural spaces as animals evolve to fill environmental niches. It's the nature of human language that when a sociocultural gap or function becomes available, it will fill it. So, in their own context, languages can't really be said to be better than one another. Also, humans can both easily handle their own language and several more at the same time once we receive sufficient early exposure, so there's not really an issue of unwieldiness either. You might get some traction on the idea if you focus on writing systems though.
This would represent both a strong form of linguistic determinism for which there is no evidence and a confusion about grammar. You don't need tenses to represent the future. English, by some definitions, only has two tenses (present and past) and uses modal verbs to express the rest. Some languages, like Chinese, don't have tenses at all. Does this mean the Chinese are deficient in planning ahead. No, it doesn't, any more than if I use "I am doing it on Saturday" (present continuous tense) to represent the future or I use "I am going to do it on Saturday" (modal auxiliary) makes me less likely to be planning ahead than if I use what we call the future tense "I will do it on Saturday" (but is actually a modal, oh no!)
I for one, as someone new here, would quite enjoy reading more on this thread. Is it perhaps just that the initial question needs refinement and clarification? Do you mean it might be easier to express certain things in certain languages because of how they have evolved?
There are tendencies to mix languages in sentences when trying to convey meaning eg 'It has a certain...je ne ce quoi' when we want to describe something with good qualities we can't describe, or 'And finally, the pièce de résistance!' when we want to show the crowning achievement. Do we native English speakers use these common phrases because French better conveys the meaning, or are we just accustomed to it by this point?
I tried learning some Japanese, and though I found learning to write kanji/katakana difficult, the ability to convey a meaning/emotion/image in one or two characters is quite interesting, even if I got it wrong a lot being a non-native speaker lol.
Comedy thread now.
Some languages seem to be better for constructing long words:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_words
Seemingly, English is the only language that has trouble with the words "man" and "woman", which are two words that every language has. In that sense, even Amazonian languages of isolated tribes are "better".
Any other language that supposedly has trouble with them as well does not have it as a natural phenomenon of the language but as an ideological import from English whose population likes to say that 2+2 can equal 5 and that "divisible" and "able to be divided" are not the same thing.
Yes, you seem to be confused about tense and future reference. You don't need the former for the latter and the latter is what's important functionally. Or if you knew that, I don't know why you think tense would matter in the context you gave.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_determinism#:~:text=Linguistic%20determinism%20is%20the%20concept,categorization%2C%20memory%2C%20and%20perception.
Linguistic determinism is pretty much refuted but there's some evidence for the weaker form of that idea, linguistic relativism, i.e. that distinctions between language can influence certain cognitive processes. For example, if you have more colour distinction words (and languages vary fairly widely on this) you might be quicker at picking out different colours. The differences are not very dramatic or important though and I've never had any wow moments reading about this stuff.
Interesting question. I think you'll find the relative frequency varies according to language community. So, they can become a marker of being a member of a certain class or group. In that case, it would be more about being accustomed to it (and reinforcing your position within a group) than actually anything to do with better conveying meaning. So, I'm not convinced that saying "It has a certain "je ne sais quoi"" conveys the relevant idea better than "it has a certain something". The difference is more in the mood or resonance, which would pertain to the interpersonal (feeling) rather than the experiential (factual) side. There is an absolute ton of research done on this type of thing in Applied Linguistics anyhow as it's a major part of the field. And if we're talking French, there's an interesting historical story to that.
Some borrowed words I think are more efficient at conveying meaning, mostly because they kind of condense an idea in English into one concept. The German word "Heimat" (the feeling of being at home) is one and the Czech word "litost" (the feeling of coming face to face with your own misery) is another. You'll note though that as we can define them we have those ideas in English, they just take longer to say. That is, it's not like we're learning a new feeling we couldn't feel before or anything like that (as linguistic determinism might suggest).
I am familiar on a daily basis with these two feelings :lol:
Quoting Baden
I agree. I wonder if culturally, in some parts of UK and USA at least, the French are portrayed in such a way that using 'je ne ce quoi' has become a cultural affectation to make oneself sound however the French are culturally viewed (in this case, maybe mysterious and exciting). This would make the use of 'je ne ce quoi' and other French phrases more about portraying a certain image of oneself rather than whatever the object is you are talking about.
Machine language is 102 97 114 32 98 101 116 116 101 114
:lol:
Quoting Daniel Duffy
Yes, and that becomes automatic. Relatedly, from a very young age we can "code switch" between and within a language depending on who we're talking to and I think we do that as adults too as a form of social flexibility and image generation. We sadly tend to want to be liked and fit in more than almost anything regardless of whatever narrative we paste over that.
Yes, its a strange phenomenon to witness. My mother lives in England, has an English accent (North East) but when she comes back from visiting family in Ireland she sounds Irish. Did I read somewhere its a socio-survival technique? We naturally try to conform to the crowd, strength in numbers etc.
Sounds right.
Or, we have the gift of empathy and find ourselves 'assimilating' in as a sign of respect and love.
Lets approach this as an engineer would. What do you mean by "better"? Do we want a language to be terse or verbose? The former is easy to learn but lacks nuance, while the later is more difficult to learn but has more fine tuned expression.
Should a language be strictly enforced or lax? The former creates a very strict and uncreative language while the later allows creative evolution.
If you can clearly define what is better, then you can determine if there is a better language for those parameters. Of course, claiming something is better does not prove that it is better either. Just some things to consider before there can be a clear answer.
Agreed. Is that empathy a learned response to maintain group cohesion? Im not saying I believe thats the case, but biologically, is empathy a symptom of that cohesion? I might look into that
Given we are a social species and tribal apes, our survival and our strength has been collaboration and cooperation, so perhaps we could argue that empathy provides strong evolutionary benefits. Where you sit on this will depend upon your presuppositions. If you believe in transcendent realities (a cosmic consciousness or god surrogate) you might be inclined to believe that empathy is from a divine spark which animates human behavior.
There are numerous instances in languages that show differences in cognitive function. In South Korean motherese focuses on prepositions where in practically every other culture nouns are the primary focus. This had an actual impact on perception and there is a measurable difference up until the age of 5-6.
German clearly impacts Germans too. There language is particularly literal and every european I spoke to living in Berlin remarked about how literal Germans were as the most significant cultural difference.
As to better that is the open question.
Yes, I'd say one is better than another, to me (being a multilingual). One is good for daily spoken language, but not for writing a powerful declamation. Another is writing comedy -- I would have to switch the style or even the type of comedy with one language, and use another style and topic if using another language.
(I shouldn't say "better" -- it is politically and culturally unacceptable to say this).
Why? I think more harm is caused if you pretend there is no difference, and act like languages are equal in every respect. That said, I would not as far as to say the differences are all that significant.
I recall Buckminster saying how we use up and down is kind of primitive now we know about gravity. He said we should really modernise and start saying into and out of (referring to gravitation fields). Just watching some weird TikTok person recently saying like about 20 times in one minute got me thinking about the possible degradation of colloquial speech and whether they is anything to be overly concerned about. I find it amusing when people have no idea what acronyms mean sometimes. Blog is that a surprising amount of people do not know the origin of.
You've got studies showing that the language makes the person more literal and less figurative?
Assuming such could be measured, you'd have to prove it was the language and not the culture resulting in that. It'd be like saying the Dutch are humorless because Dutch isn't a funny language, and so try as we might, we can't tell a joke in Dutch.
Maybe you can send me a link to the study or studies. As @Hanover said, it's more likely just cultural stuff that's being seen there. At least that would be my base presumption until evidence was offered otherwise.
Are you just identifying your subjective opinion, or are you saying something objective?
As in, you think you better express yourself with painting than sculpture, or are you saying that sculpture is the truly best way to express certain perspectives?
Seems the former would be the only sustainable claim.
Both. We must be reminded that France was the language of culture in England for a few centuries, and even after that faded away, French would later soon the lingua franca of Europe and then of many corners of the world until the 20th century.
https://aclanthology.org/E17-4011/
I find English the best language for science, literature, and poetry, but that's because all other language is gibberish to me. Might as well be barking like a dog if you're going to speak something other than English to me.
Your original claim was that one determined the other:
Quoting I like sushi
Did your mysterious linguist present evidence for the link, or just the lack of tenses? Nobody has argued with the latter.
And whether or not Sicilians are widely regarded (by whom?) as short-sighted is irrelevant. Is this more than just the stereotype it appears to be? Maybe what some mainland or Northern Italians habitually say about Sicilians? At most it sounds like a cultural trait that has nothing to do with the language.
Quoting I like sushi
People say this kind of thing all the time. Its just folklore. Or as @Hanover puts it, horseshit.
The fluent speaker of a language is an expert user of that language, but not necessarily an expert otherwise. An average German cant be trusted any more than an average Mongolian to assess the extent of linguistic determinism among Germans, so what Berliners happened to tell you is irrelevant.
EDIT: I misread your comment. You actually mentioned what Europeans said, rather than Berliners. Well, thats equally irrelevant.
:lol:
Might as well be barking at all times.
What do you mean it is backwards?
At any rate, I think you are trying to arrive at Ithkuil: https://www.ithkuil.net/
One of my biggest gripes with people discussing ethics/philosophy is that they believe true is wholly applicable to pure abstract forms.
As I said with German do you think that is more logical?
Another matter I recall was when the European countries grouped together for political discourse Greek was given serious consideration as the Greek to mediate through as it was more suited to easy communication. They went for English simply because it was more universal not because it was the best suited.
The question I have is this: is my cantankerousness about folk linguistics justified? Does folk linguistics in fact contain nuggets of wisdom and could it actually support scientific linguistics somehow? This would mean that it can't just be rejected as horseshit, which is my first instinct. Note that I'm not saying, e.g., that Germans really are literal-minded because the language is more literal than others.
Incidentally, I'm not convinced that German is more literal than other languages. Does anyone have examples?
This stuff is so dumb, I'm back to being cantankerous again.
Guess this is how things are now here.
Bye bye :)
Talk to me. I have a knack for these things. Not languages or even philosophy, but being able to connect to and with those who feel unfairly treated, unheard, or ignored.
I will not insult you by reminding you of basic logic and premise structure. But so I can be sure we are on the same page, answer me the following, if you please. It would make my evening if you did.
A.) What is your concern or argument? If there is no argument what is the desired path you wish to take this general discussion toward? What is the goal, other than enlightened if not farfetched debate reaching into the most obscure regions of the topic? (Perhaps, this is it!)
B.) Why do you feel the opinions and judgement of your judgement merits disengagement? Is this perhaps what you are accustomed to, be it here or other places? On The Philosophy Forum, no one knows you, personally that is. One could say, you have a new life here. With no judgement or constraints of any past or current life. Why throw it away when you have people all over the world who wish to engage with you? (Perhaps... dare I say, one might be a bit selfish to deny one's thoughts and beliefs to an eager public)
C.) So what if some languages are better than others. I am better than you at certain things, assuredly, at least one could hope, just as you no doubt are better at certain things than myself or any of your critics here! What, may I ask, drove up this thought in your mind that led you to create this thread. Are you perhaps studying language yourself? Do you know multiple languages? Have you attempted to and found great difficulty in doing so? Do you find yourself unable to have these sort of discussions with those in your life or perhaps find those disagreeable as well?
If you please, mind you. Discussion forums are voluntary, you could easily sign off and never return. Which would sadden me, to an extent. Please be considerate of others who enjoy your contribution here and at least consider responding.
Thanks,
A friend :)
I think the problem with this thread generally is that there is pretty concise answer to the question of whether certain languages are better than others, and that is that they are not.
The question though is understandable from an instinctive level. That is, it would seem that English would be a better medium to explain the theory of relativity than would a tribal language from the Amazon rainforest. That is, surely the complexities of that topic are better explained with a language that has evolved in an environment where such matters have been considered, whereas perhaps the rainforest language would be better at explaining the things common only in the rainforest.
And then we think of specialty languages within our language, like when we hear doctors speak, barely understanding what they say. Surely their language is better than my simple English that lacks such terms.
This is to say that your question is understandable and your replies to the responses to your question are instinctive, but the solution to the question isn't so much found in sorting through a debate on the topic, but it's found by researching the topic. What this means is that while I may speak Amazon speak or have no knowledge of medical terminology, I could, assuming I had the intellectual ability to understand such matters, be trained in medicine with a book written in Amazon speak or one written without reliance on specialty terms. That's just the case, whether it seems on a gut level not to be.
So if this response I'm now providing could have been stated before, why did others (myself included) throw a little ridicule your way? It's twofold I guess. The first is that the debate wasn't taken seriously by those who already knew the answer, but who would have only taken it seriously if there were someone somewhere taking seriously the thesis you're advancing, which could have only been shown by citing to some article or some new school of thought on the issue. The second is that posters (including myself) are not always arriving with an educational temperment when we post, but instead arrive with a combative, adversarial approach, which is understandable as well, as the bulk of us are ornery middle aged men overly connected to our computers.
All of this is to say is that the resignation within your last post was a solid move, having made me rethink our purpose here, as to whether it's to generally educate and discuss or whether it's to aggresively point out failings. I'm thinking probably both.
Personally, I treated it with derision partly because I'm in a scraptious mood, and also because I'm upset by the stupidity that surrounds me: bigotry, stereotypes, conspiracy theories, the paranormal, and the brazen lack of interest in learning. Folk linguistics is in the same ballpark. I believe in shutting down this stupidity instead of exposing it, because the latter is too much work.
Note that @I like sushi is no more interested in the polite, friendly, and calm objections from @Baden or from you than aggressive interlocutors like me. That's because it was a Lounge discussion from the start and Sushi had no intention of thinking.
But it may well be the case that my approach is a bad one, and, Merry Christmas.
If some are, then trivially so.
I don't find it so (though I've never been fluent). As far as I can tell, Goethe's verse isn't "more logical" than Shakespeare's and Hegel's metaphysics is far more opague than C.S. Peirce's.
Other languages can be adapted to a greater variety of meters. Dactylic hexameter isn't really an option in the same way for example, especially not for great epics.
The nuance of Hebrew, and especially Greek is famously crushed by Latin, where you are stuck either adding a bunch of words or making clauses ambiguous in what they are referring to in a sentence. But Latin is also a pretty language.
Syllabus per second vary, with Germans being on the low end with 5 or 6, versus 9 for Italians. But I recall that the bit rate computed for languages varies very little despite this.
On the other hand, it has been said that English is better suited to rock and roll than other languages , maybe due to the syllabic compactness of its vocabulary.
Languages are different but that doesn't mean one has to be better than another.
The language(s) we learn as children are not the result of one being better than another, but rather what is available. What is available is determined by social, political, economic, and geographic factors. Is Latin better than Greek or Gaelic? (No.). Proper Latin was spoken by important people who lived in the Roman Empire and by people who wanted to be perceived by others as real Romans. "Real Romans speak educated Latin regardless of where they are from" was the rule. That educated Latin was a passport to the higher circles of Roman society was a result of the way the Roman Empire operated. When the Empire fizzled out, proper Latin started to fade away (except in the Church).
English is the current "lingua Franca" of the world, (an insult to the French) not because this "bastardized language" is better but because empires made English the most convenient language to employ in the largest number of settings. It could have been some other language, and maybe Chinese will be lingua franca in the future. Or Hindi. Who knows?
Saying "one language is not better than another" doesn't mean that there are not significant differences among the many languages. It does seem like Latin would be easier to devise poetic rhymes than English. Writing great poetry in Latin in 2024 won't advance your literary career very much, given the dearth of Latin readers.
I'd like to speak fluent German, French, Spanish, Latin, Greek, and a couple of other languages, but that train didn't arrive at the station. Sic transit gloria mundi.
You should have asked "in what sense" better, rather than just better. It sounds vague and unclear without some quantifier when asking which is better.
Language is a tool to communicate for foremost purpose. Tools must be useful for their worthy of existence. So if you say which language is most useful, then it must be the one which you can communicate with most people in the world. And which language has most books written, published and translated from other language books. These are the questions you must ask.
There is no point a language great in whatever reasons for, but only 10 people in the world speaks, and has only 2 books published and 5 books translated from the other languages. It would be not very useful, flexible or interesting at all to be confined in using a language with the limitations.
If you read this far, then the answer is clear. It is English which is the most useful language in the world for the number of speakers in the world (don't know how many exactly but it would be spoken in every country you place you foot in), all the books written and published (again must be the most), and also has the most translated copies of the books in the world than any other languages.
I think this isn't quite right - about 1.3bil English speakers and about 1.8bil Mandarin speakers last I saw anything about it..
A lot of them would also speak English in some degree. So you must add about 15-30% of them into the English speakers. Every country in the world you think of, you should be adding 20-30% of them into the number of English speakers.
Thinks of India, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and some African countries. Their 2nd or official language is English. Whatever countries you go, if you don't know their own native language, then you would communicate with them in English.
But youre right on the latter particularly in terms of volume of media
Yes, many folks in the world speak 2-3 languages.
My point is that number for English speakers includes those people.
It doesnt exclude them. So nothing to add to the number :)
Well fair enough. My estimation of total English speakers being the top in the world came from guessing, and it was maybe wrong. I am not sure. But having said that, are you 100% certain your number is correct? :D I am not actually sure if the total number of Mandarin speakers would be correct. The quoted figure would be some statistic data from somewhere (of which I have no clue what it could be). Why should I trust it? What is the ground for its accuracy?
My point was, whatever countries I visited, if didn't know their native local language, I was able to communicate with the most locals in English. No other language would have been able to do that.
I would say i've somewhat experienced the same, but only in a commercial sense.
Most random locals don't speak English in the, lets say, 'exotic' places i've visited. I had to pick up some Arabic to work my way around, socially, in Egypt (don't read in to that - i recall about six words), despite every commercial interaction being super-easy due to English being taken on for that purpose in Egypt.
You know, you could contribute to what it means if you had any thoughts about language other than irritation about what other people know about it.
For instance, Arabic became the language of science, philosophy, and poetry among post 9th Century Muslims, even though they were Iranian and mostly spoke Persian. At the hub of the world's overland trade routes, they had long been polylingual, but there was something about Arabic that they particularly loved. So yes, a language can be viewed as superior for certain activities. And please stop being a butthead.
Feel free to discuss the topic, but if you have any more complaints about me, take them to Feedback.
Yeah, I was in some sceptic mood there in my previous message. :)
I had a wee word about this with folks here, and they say that if you only count native language speakers total, then Mandalin is 1.1 billion speakers and the top. But if you include the native speakers and the 2nd language speakers in the world, then English comes the top with 1.45 billion speakers in the world.
This is no surprise, because every country in Europe, they all speak English at least up to daily conversational level. And almost all countries in the world, English is taught and learnt as 2nd language in school.
I had some Chinese & Japanese friends, they all spoke English, and we used to communicate in English no bother at all.
Not that it matters much, but this is not remotely the case, unless you just mean that all European countries have significant numbers of English-speakers.
After some more digging, it looks to me like the top total number is in flux, and trades off between Mandarin and English. Variously, there are 1.4-1.6bil English speakers total, and anywhere from 1.3-1.8 billion Mandarin speakers in total.
However, significantly more native speakers of Mandarin - about 955mil vs 450mil in English.
But i would concur with Jamal there. It's not that these countries use it daily - its largely commerce.
Yes, you could be correct. My statement was again from my guessing having met many continental European students from Germany, Norway, Italy, France, Spain, .. even from Romania, they all spoke perfect English. But in their own countries, I am not sure how it would be like. I have not been to many of the countries personally.
Agreed. Yes, this sounds accurate.
Yeah, travelling students must be a minority. My experience is that in France, Spain, Italy, and Russia, English is only spoken in the touristy parts of big cities and holiday resorts. But in the Netherlands and Scandinavia I suspect most people do speak English.
This is true. When I went to the Netherlands, I recall all of them spoke English everywhere we went. I have not been to Scandinavia, but had friends from Finland and Norway. They spoke good English.
Yes, since through language, early humans were able to evolve and survive better by communicating more effectively.
But Ive been thinking, and there lies the problem.
When I think, I always use language to do so (I believe this may be overlapping with another recent post about internal dialogue, which astounded me when I first considered the possibility that not all people have internal dialogue) I cannot seem to think of anything at all without it materializing as words and sentences in my mind. Now I am trying to do it, and all I can hear is, Now I am trying to do it. But more than that, when I am trying to understand something, or work something out, I do so only by thinking in language. Therefore, it seems to be the only way I can successfully understand the world. Even if I see an orange, for example, when I look at it, I think, orange. Of course, this can develop, and I can think of a whole load of complex things about the orange if I want to, and also, the orange doesn't have to be there. But whatever I think about, the words pop into my brain first to enable me to think about it. Therefore, the thoughts seem to have more power than the orange itself, since they can be more complex than it, and they seem to take over. (Oh, wait! Can thoughts of an orange be more powerful than the orange itself? I guess that is another whole debate)
Not only that, having been thinking about this recently, and trying it out, Ive realized that, when I try to suppress the inner dialogue which I cannot 100% successfully doI begin to see the thing I am thinking about. I see it vaguely, perhaps because I am distracted by the whole language thing, but I see it like when I can picture something in my head, like my previous house, or my old school, or something like that. Am I totally weird or something? I hope this happens to other people too.
Anyway, so this led me to thinking, what if the foremost purpose of language is for people to make sense of the world by thinking things, and communication is a secondary benefit? What if, in caveman/women times (sorry, anthropologists would be tutting and shaking their heads at me now, but you know what I mean) in order to make sense of their world, people had their own inner dialogues, their own unique languages, and then began to communicate by amalgamating all the languages into a common one, in that particular tribe or group of people anyway?
And then I wonder, is that basically what we have done by adopting English, since English is an amalgamation of a whole lot of different languages?
I really hope I havent broken any rules in this post by the way :/ Please excuse me if I have, as I am new to this site.
Am I allowed to say all this without referring to a philosopher? I guess that rationalists would say that language is innate. This seems to support the possibility that people may be capable of developing their own internal languages, enabling them to interpret the world, until they become able to amalgamate them with the most commonly used languages around them.
Or this could all be a total lot of nonsense. But its a thought which has probably been thought and said before at some point, Im sure.
If, however, this whole idea is true, it would make the concept of one language being better than another a nonsense, since there would be far too many to make a decision. In addition, there seems to be far too much mixing of languages to pull one out and name it superior. Those who would say that English is superior may have problems with the French, for example, who could pipe up and say, "Wait! But your language cannot be the best, since our language is mixed into yours."
Although, I guess you may be able to say that one language, such as English, is the best mixer of languages. But then you'd get those languages that are mixed into French piping up and saying, "Wait..." And it goes on...
PS Sorry about the massive long post! My brain seems to have been working overtime!
Quoting I like sushi
The US has also played an important role, especially in how English became a de-facto global language. Such as why it's spoken in the EU. It's a minor disagreement at best, so I'll say no more on it.
Quoting I like sushi
Your scale of inquiry is far too large. You're looking for anything about English that could've had any impact in any area across possibly hundreds of years. The problem with evaluating languages is that they're part of everything, and never the only factor.
With both your comparison of Sicilian or mine with Japanese, it's also unclear whether the language differences cause or reflect cultural differences. I'm sure it's a combination of both, but worth keeping in mind.
The topic is too broad for me, although the question of evaluating the pros/cons of languages is one I've often pondered, the only thing I've managed to achieve is a headache.
Welcome to TPF. You are doing great. No problems. Thank you for your great post.
Yes, I see your point. Language is also for understanding the world, and this could be actually the foremost purpose and point. Because from the early age, people learns the native language interacting with the world, not necessarily communicating with the people. Communication is for the later stage of life, where one wants to extend one's scope of knowledge or the world vista.
I can also see how you have inner dialogue, and it is critical process in thinking. I think in Locke and Hume, our ideas are same as the words, so perceiving meant understanding, and understanding meant ability to express in language.
And you are correct in saying that English is a complex language with multitude of mixture with the other languages, and there is no such a thing for clear criteria which language is better.
I personally chose to use English from purely practical point that the most countries I have been, more people seem to be speaking it as their 2nd language, and also the amount of books published and translated into English in all subjects. Price and availability of books in English were also very practical for accessing and being able to afford them too.
Anyhow, thanks for your points on the topic. I hope we can exchange more points on the topics we share as our mutual interests in the future. cheers.
No you haven't broken any rules. The only thing I'd say is that you should put a blank line between paragraphs to make it more readable.
Welcome, Beverley. :smile:
Dude, to say something is "better" is a subjective opinion.
So, I don't understand what the confusion is about.
I just discovered that my language has Germanic roots...
It is difficult to 'grasp on' exactly what?
In my view languages can indeed put to a comparative better-worse list of some sort. Unfortunately! (I'm not sure if this has already been said, but anyway...)
The fact is that if a language is to be useful, it has to have (a) enough speakers of it and (b) enough words. The less a language has (a) and (b), the less useful it is.
Does (a) matter?
Of course! The Njerep language in Nigeria has six people who are able to talk it. It might be a great way to talk in a secretive way (like the US used Navajo radiomen, the famous WW2 windtalkers). Yet I'm sure the next problem would be how many words there are in Njerep.
For an English speaker, the (b) part might not come up to mind as English has more than a million words. Finnish, my own mother tongue, has roughly about 400 000 words.
Does then (b) have an effect? Does 600 000 less words make a difference between English and Finnish. Yes!
For starters, there has to be in Finland a "Kielitoimisto", an official government department at the Institute of the languages of Finland, whose job is also to translate new words into Finnish. The translation of professional terms are obvious, as there are always invented new ones. But many of these are very commonly used and the official Finnish version sometimes doesn't simply get used. The word Pizza is one of those, even if it would have a Finnish version pitsa (said similarly as in English), it's rarely written that way. "Television" was another, as the the official 1940's Finnish version was näköradio (meaning "visualradio") and it didn't get to be used, but the simple term televisio was adapted to the language.
This also shows how languages btw are influenced by other languages. Americans might know well Spanglish, and usually these combinations are really funny. Yet it happens with other languages too. Language teachers just irk when they hear it. I remember my Swedish teacher telling her "favorite" what she had heard among Swedish speaking Finnish youth was "Den kivogaste pipo". Swedes (the few that are in PF) might have a trouble understanding that. The Finnish word "kiva" (nice) is used in the Swedish superlative form (hence kivogaste) and "pipo" is also Finnish (meaning beanie, knit cap). Jättekiva!
One way cultures with their languages transform, mix and even die.
This is patently false and does not suffice any historical analysis. Spanish is Latin, language of the Romans, nothing that it did after that was not done before. English is more Arabic even than Spanish.
Quoting ssu
English does not have even close to 1 million words, it is far less than that. And the largest Finnish dictionary is greater than the largest English dictionary.
Quoting Corvus
That is absurd as well. This 20-30% is not even true in most European countries. Only the West has English as lingua franca, the rest does not.
And being that those stats are often self-reported, whatever number you get is most likely inflated anyway.
Quoting LuckyR
False. English loses to Tamil, Portuguese, Finish, Korean, Swedish, Italian, and others. English's vocabulary is tiny in fact compared to some of the top listers.
Quoting LuckyR
If you are in China, learning Mandarin is a much better idea. In Central Asia or Eastern Europe, Russian is. And if you are in some random country in Africa, maybe it is a good idea to learn French.
I don't know that it's necessarily better to have more words, but before anyone gets into an argument about it, try to compare like with like at least.
How is it possible if the Nasrid dynasty never went beyond the Iberian Peninsula?
How is it possible that English has Russian words if Kievan Rus never went West of the Rhine?
E.g. There are (supposedly) 645 distinct meanings of the word "run". Would English be a better language if we had a separate word for all of them? I doubt it.
This is not related to what you pointed out previously. You stated that English is more Arabic than Spanish, something that is quite impossible because the Arab expansion in the Middle Ages never got into England (Whilst they were here for seven centuries).
Even if English had Russian words, it would sound more reasonable than to have Arabian vocabulary because of the historical and geographical evidence.
Because your reply is not related to what I said previously too.
Quoting javi2541997
This is a complete non-sequitur, hence my reply.
Edit: Original post had "You stated that English has more Arabic words than Spanish" (which is 100% true), that is what I am replying to.
Quoting javi2541997
Seven centuries? Many more! They are in Spain and in England to this day. I am sure there was at least one Arab in these two countries at any given moment since then.
Quoting javi2541997
Not at all, Arabic speakers were much closer to England than Russians.
Please think before you give another nonsense answer.
OK. Where are the evidence of your arguments? Just post some English words which roots are Arabic. I can't even name English towns with Arabic influence. In Spain we have hundreds... Málaga; Almería; Alicante; Jaén; Córdoba; Almaguer; Almagro; Almanzora; Madrid; Alcalá, etc.
Quoting Lionino
WHAT THE F*CK.
Dude, The Emirate of Granada was just that, as is shown in the following picture. I hope you are trolling me because nobody with sense believes that a Muslim state has ever occupied England. The Emirate of Granada was the last and only independent Muslim state in Western Europe.
Once folks have understood that premise, we have to quote the next evidence:
Where is England and consequently English language in this historical evidence? Now, it is time to for your arguments, but do not waste my time trolling me.
Where is your evidence for this? And was the mechanism by which the language mixing occurred?
The case for the Arabic influence on Spanish is set out in the following wiki article. (There is no dedicated page for its influence on English.)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_language_influence_on_the_Spanish_language
In fact, in the small section devoted to the subject on this page:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influence_of_Arabic_on_other_languages
There is this:
"Like other European languages, English contains many words derived from Arabic, often through other European languages, especially Spanish. "
Which suggests Spanish was not only more influenced by Arabic than English but was a major conduit for the influence of Arabic on English.
Nicely explained! :up:
Which British accent? There are rather a lot! His is RP, but he was born in Monmouthshire. I wonder if he ever had a Welsh twang? I'd have to say I like a Geordie accent, and a liverpool accent is full of character, as well as a Black Country/Brummie twang. RP kind of grates on me if it's overdone. It seems so pretentious. I also really love the sing song nature of a South Welsh accent. It's actually almost impossible for me to say which I like best though.
Mancunian, Cockney and Brummie are very cool. I think Geordie and Glasgowian are the most difficult to understand.
The Oxford or Cambridge accent sound clearer and easier to understand for me.
Quoting Beverley
This is true.
Quoting Beverley
Didn't know Russell was from Wales. I couldn't trace any Welsh accent from his accent. Russell's accent must be from his education.
Quoting Beverley
These are difficult to understand accent, unless one is used to them.
Quoting Beverley
Yes, I heard some folks saying that too. I don't mind it at all. They tend to speak slower, and maybe that's what makes them easier to understand.
Quoting Beverley
Yes, they are interesting to listen to. I might misunderstand them about half.
Quoting Beverley
What's yours?
When I lived in Greece, there were so many UK tourists and expats living there that a hybrid language developed, locally referred to as 'Gringlish'. Greek people would speak English, but keep
some Greek grammar structures, and the UK people would speak in the same way to be understood better. It wasn't uncommon to hear people say something like, "Open the TV" instead of "Turn on the TV" or "You are good?" instead of "Are you good/well?" And I learnt that one of the most commonly used international words "Ok" came from the Greek "??? ????", meaning, "All good", which is often delivered as a question. There were also many misunderstandings, such as locals mixing up the similar sounding words, "Kitchen" and "Chicken". I'm sure you can imagine my surprise when I was searching for an apartment to rent, and I was told that there was one available with a very big chicken in it! The mind boggles!
But something I always found odd was that I only consciously learnt a few basic Greek words, such as 'Hello', 'Goodbye' and 'How are you?", and I did learn the Greek alphabet, so that I could read Greek, but as for the rest of it, I have no idea how I know it. It kind of seeped into my mind without me realizing. Greek people are very vocal though, and I would hear them all the time from my apartment, calling out to each other. Maybe that helped with me acquiring Greek. But I even think in Greek, and I do not translate from English to Greek, as I had imagined people would do, as there are some words that simply have no English translation, such as '??????' or '????'. I just found myself using them in the same situations as I heard other people use them in.
What accent have you got, and what experiences of accents/languages have you had?
Oh interesting. I used to have a friend from Birmingham. He used to speak with non-identifiable English accent, but when he met his own Birmingham pals, he used to come out with his native Birmingham accent, which sounded interesting and difficult to understand.
Quoting Beverley
Greece would be an interesting place to live because of all the interesting ancient relics scattered in the country, and for the fact you could visit all the places where we used to read about in the History of Philosophy.
Quoting Beverley
I tried to learn Greek, because I thought it would help me reading the ancient Greek philosophy, but didn't quite managed to start yet. Also dabbled with the Hebrews with no visible progress, when I was reading the philosophy of Kabbalah.
Quoting Beverley
My main language is Korean. I have learnt English, German and Japanese as my 2nd foreign languages. Once upon a time, many years ago, I lived in Indonesia and Singapore when I was a middle school pupil, and had a chance to learn Indonesian / Malaysian too.
Apart from Korean which is my natural language, all my 2nd languages were basic level. But when I chose to read Philosophy in English a few years ago, my English has improved quite a lot. Now my English is at a similar reading level to my Korean, and I am quite comfortable reading in English. In writing in English, I still make many grammatical mistakes, and I try to quickly revise over my writings 2-3 times before finalising.
In speaking, I don't have any particular English accent, but I am used to listening to British accents.
El árabe es una lengua originaria de Arabia. Esta lengua ha contribuido con más de 1.043 palabras al vocabulario español. Los préstamos del árabe se encuentran en diversos campos, especialmente en la ciencia, la construcción y la alimentación.
[url=https://mothertongue.ae/how-arabic-influences-other-languages-around-the-world/]There are approximately 10,000 words which stem from Arabic.
Meanwhile in English:
There are approximately 10,000 words which stem from Arabic.[/url]
The query «"del ár" site:dle.rae.es» gives us 1280 results on Google. Suggesting the main Spanish dictionary registers less than 1300 words.
Using a higher estimate of 3000 Arabic words, and that Spanish has 93'000 words on RAE. That would amount to 3,2% of Spanish's vocabulary being Arabic.
The Oxford dictionary registers some 273'000 words. Using the 10 thousand figure, we get 3,6%.
So not only does English have more Arabic words in absolute numbers, it also has more in percentage depending on the parameters we choose.
Through other South European languages.
Quoting Baden
Sorry, but I do not read articles written by extremely unqualified jobless people.
Quoting javi2541997
I genuinely believe I am talking to a wall now, because you are able to speak correctly but yet what you say has no connection to what is previously said, several times now.
I said Arabic speakers were closer to England than Russians ever were. Arabs went all the way up to South Italy and South France. Russians (except for WW2) never went very far west. If you plug it into Google maps, you will see the comparison between the distances and that my statement is correct. It was not even relevant to the central point anyway.
Quoting javi2541997
Sugar.
Quoting javi2541997
Toponym is not an important element of one's language.
Quoting javi2541997
What you quoted is no evidence. The language spoken in the Al-Andalus was Mozarabic along with Arabic by the rulers. Arabic words enter Castillian not directly but through Mozarabic, which was replaced/absorbed by the North Iberian Latin languages. Fine, but so what?
I am not even gonna bother with the rest because there is so much rubbish on this thread. You people have no clue what you are talking about.
The claim: English has more Arabic in it than Spanish does put the keffiyeh on, English speakers!
The proof: the numbers provided above.