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Are you bilingual?
AceHigh:
Exactly, a more complex language is a richer language.
Having insights into several languages just shows that English is not practical as Lingua Franca grammatically (exceptions, etc...), nor is it a language that gives you an opportunity to express yourself as freely as many more complex languages out there. However what is lingua franca is decided by history, never by linguists.
Soryon:
--- Quote from: AceHigh on February 06, 2011, 07:05:47 PM --- nor is it a language that gives you an opportunity to express yourself as freely as many more complex languages out there.
--- End quote ---
Expound, pls.
Fool010:
--- Quote from: AceHigh on February 06, 2011, 07:05:47 PM ---Exactly, a more complex language is a richer language.
Having insights into several languages just shows that English is not practical as Lingua Franca grammatically (exceptions, etc...), nor is it a language that gives you an opportunity to express yourself as freely as many more complex languages out there. However what is lingua franca is decided by history, never by linguists.
--- End quote ---
Your knowledge of english is more limited than you want to admit, or are you just trolling again ?
What ultimately limits your ability to express yourself in any language is your mastery of said language and your ability to adapt your thought pattern to the mechanism of said language. English is rather straight to the point, and discards quite a lot of so-called subtleties for the sake of efficiency. In that sense it is better suited as common language than something more complex.
The more complex the language, the harder efficient communication gets. English may not be as stylish as other languages, but what you're doing here is nothing more but taking easy shots at english-american culture, as usual.
AceHigh:
--- Quote ---What ultimately limits your ability to express yourself in any language is your mastery of said language and your ability to adapt your thought pattern to the mechanism of said language. English is rather straight to the point, and discards quite a lot of so-called subtleties for the sake of efficiency. In that sense it is better suited as common language than something more complex.
The more complex the language, the harder efficient communication gets. English may not be as stylish as other languages, but what you're doing here is nothing more but taking easy shots at english-american culture, as usual.
--- End quote ---
First of all the English language has more subtleties than you make it out to be. Did you know that the word "you" is a plural form of the word "thou" and the latter one is not used in modern english because of the "politeness" factor in Britain in the past centuries. Another example of an unnessessary subtlety is an overused continuous present tense. Where more efficient simple present tense sounds natural in other languages (hell, doesn't even exist in Norwegian, now that is efficiency!) and as an example I would say "I post in a forum", in English it is more correct to say "I am posting in a forum". That is stylish, not efficient.
So we have determined that your claim on subtlety is rather moot. What about efficiency? You claim that English language is efficient because it has no flexing and other "fancy stuff" as you stated?
Ok here is an example: "I am the emperor" in latin will be "Caesar me". How the hell can 4 words be more efficient than 2 flexed words?
Languages that flex can ditch "am/are/is" as well. Efficiently I should be able to ditch that, but it is not grammatically correct in English language.
You know I had to chuckle when you suggested that I had limited knowledge of English, but what you revealed is that even though you most likely have an excellent knowledge of English yourself, you have limited knowledge of other languages, so you have little reference for your claims of how efficient English is compared to other languages.
Oh and just to clarify, I was not taking an easy shot at American culture... heh, watch and learn how it will look like when I do take a jab at Americans and start trolling:
--- Quote ---but what you're doing here is nothing more but taking easy shots at english-american culture, as usual.
--- End quote ---
Corrected for accuracy. English language is English as Americans did not provide any significant change to the language and just use it because they don't have their own. That by itself is one of many arguments why a thing called "American culture" is almost non-existent with the exception of junk food and fat people.
Next time it should be easier for you to see when I am trolling.
Burkingam:
Well, the main reason why English is good as an universal language is that there are people speaking it everywhere in the world. But since Anglophone culture is so spread, there will always be people saying it's an "Anti-culture". It's the same phenomenon than when someone complain about "Mainstream" just for the sake of complaining.
I don't think complexity is an advantage in itself. The perfect spoken language is as simple as possible without sacrificing effectiveness and meaning, but not simpler. Now I don't think that's English but I don't see what language is like that anyway.
--- Quote from: AceHigh on February 07, 2011, 02:36:09 AM ---Corrected for accuracy. English language is English as Americans did not provide any significant change to the language and just use it because they don't have their own. That by itself is one of many arguments why a thing called "American culture" is almost non-existent with the exception of junk food and fat people.
--- End quote ---
Btw saying that American culture is only junkfood and fat people is not only trolling, this is pure bull shit. How are we supposed to take you seriously after you say something so stupid. I will take that as a proof that you don't know what you are talking about. Seriously where do you think you are right now? Here's a clue the Internet. Think of where 90% of it's content comes from.
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