Re: English compared to other European languages

Seán O'Leathlóbhair wrote:

> If my poor knowledge of Danish is correct, it has simplified the verbs
> slightly more and has dropped the third person singular inflection that
> English retains.

Yes, person and number makes no difference in Danish (<jeg er> 'I am', <du
er> 'you are', <han er> 'he is', <vi er> 'we are', <I er> 'you are', <de
er> 'they are'; <jeg var> 'I was', <du var> 'you were', <han var> 'he was',
<vi var> 'we were', <I var> 'you were', <de var> 'they were'). On the other
hand, the infinitive is different from the present tense which again is
different from the imperative, and the past tense and the past participle
are also different. E.g., <være> (infinitive), <er> (present), <var>
(past), <været> (past. part.), <vær> (imperative). Many verbs also have
passive forms, both present and past.

> But Danish has not completely dropped grammatical gender which is a
> major simplification of English.

That depends on the dialect. Some have only one, or if you like, no gender.
The variety I speak has two. Others have three (these days it's probably
safe to say "had").

> English is slightly ahead in number simplification but Swedish matches
> us. I find the Swedish numbers easier than the Danish ones.

:-)

Well, what about <toti>, <treti>, <firti>, <femti>, <seksti>, <syvti>,
<otti>, and <niti>? In this system 45 is <firtifem>. Nobody speaks like
that, but the Danish 50 kroner bills actually have "FEMTI KRONER" printed
on them, not "HALVTREDS KRONER" or "HALVTREDSINDSTYVE KRONER".

--
Torsten
.

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