Re: Learning a language

From: Nathan Sanders (nsanders.DIE.SPAM_at_wso.williams.edu)
Date: 07/03/04 

Date: Sat, 03 Jul 2004 06:27:26 GMT

In article <cc4rbc$hhn$1@news-reader5.wanadoo.fr>,
 "pierre.levy" <pierre.levy11@wanadoo.fr> wrote:

> Nathan>That idea is just a
> Nathan> fantasy dreamed up by uneducated people. Languages are too complex
> Nathan> and have vastly different internal components to be compared for
> Nathan> "easiness" or "simplicity" in any meaningful, universal, consistent
> Nathan> way.
>
> Petro: This is a generally expressed prejudice which uneducated people
> willingly accept without own investigation.

Oh? Then please, educate me. What is the meaningfull, universal,
consistment way to measure simplicity of languages? Multiply the
number of phonemes by the number of lexemes, divide by the square root
of the number of redundant ways to express the same tense, and add in
twice the number of ambiguous anaphora? If you have this knowledge,
please share it!

> Nathan> Esperanto is easier to pronounce than Italian or Spanish?
>
> Petro: Yes,

Syllables beginning with [kn] and [kv] are easy to pronounce? Hardly
any languages in the world at all have such onsets; manyof the ones
that ever did lost it through simplification.

> Nathan> Esperanto case-marking on nouns is easier than in English,
> Spanish, Italian, or French?
>
> Petro: It is many times simpler.

Esperanto marks two cases. The other languages mark one case. In
what mathematical system are you working in where two is simpler than
one?

> Only he/him, she/her, you/you, they/them

Those aren't nouns...

> Nathan> Esperanto noun-adjective agreement is easier than in English?
>
> Petro: The lack of agreement in English is a false ease and an important
> cause of confusion.

Oh! So having a complex phenomenon (agreement) can lead to simplicity
elsewhere in the language? Interesting. Who'd have thought?

> Nathan> Espernato's articles are simpler to learn than Polish's lack
> of them?
>
> Petro: Esperanto's articles? Are you confusing Esperanto with something
> else?

My apologies -- I meant "distinction between definite and indefinite".
Esperanto has a definite article <la> and an indefinite <> (null).
Polish doesn't make a distinction at, requiring no memorization of
this contrast, and one less function word to memorize.

I suppose you'll tell me that Polish's lack of a distinction makes it
*more* complex somehow...

> Petro> > The assertion that a language is
> > > easier than another can only be
> > > relative and somehow subjective.
> >
> Nathan> Then why do certain Esperanto fanatics insist on presenting this
> > assertion as holy fact? (As you did in the previous paragraph!)
>
> Petro: Try to be scientific instead of using insults.

I've been asking for science from you and Dmitri the whole time!
*Now* you want to get scientific?

If insulting you is the only way to get you to think scientifically,
then I'll do it more often!

Nathan 

-- 
Nathan Sanders
Linguistics Program       nsanders@wso.williams.edu                           
Williams College          http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders
Williamstown, MA 01267

Relevant Pages

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