Is English the least narcissistic language?

Is English the least narcissistic language?

Question tip: English has borrowed TOO MANY words from other languages, even to extent of almost being identical with French, that we can hardly feel its uniqueness and distinctivenss.

English's experience is sort of similar to Japanese, the latter also borrowed heavily from Chinese that Shuimo regards Japanese as a dialect of Chinese!

Though the English language does share some words in common with French, German, Spanish and several other languages, English is very distinctive from each of these. There is no way that a native speaker of English will understand more than a word or two of French without studying it and vice-versa. The same goes for the other languages. Besides differences in vocabulary (English has more words than any other known language) there are significant differences in pronunciation, grammar and sentence structure. So, your assumption that English is almost identical to French is far from the truth of the situation.

I was reading Shuimo's message and I thought it was French for a moment.

<<English's experience is sort of similar to Japanese, the latter also borrowed heavily from Chinese that Shuimo regards Japanese as a dialect of Chinese! >>

If you can speak and understand Chinese, can you automatically speak and understand (spoken) Japanese, or is Japanese an unintelligible dialect?

I reproduce here the text that I posted in the languages forum.

(This text will be best understood if you know French at least a little).

English vs French:

1/ Same letters, different sounds vs same sounds, different letters.
English: tough, bough, cough, dough, hiccough, thorough, slough, through.
/t'ʌf/ /b'aʊ/ /k'ɔːf/ /d'oʊ/ /h'ɪkʌp/ /θ'ʌrə/ /sl'ʌf/ /θɹuː/
French: Ô, oh, ho, au, eau, haut, os.
/o/ /o/ /o/ /o/ /o/ /o/ /o/

2/ Unclear metaphor vs unclear abstract description.
English: soft shoulder (road sign)
French: accotements non stabilisés

3/ Same word, various roles, various ideas vs same word, same role, various ideas.
English: Here is my bicycle (noun). Bicycle trip (adjective). He wants to bicycle (verb).
French: Voici mon vélo (noun). Sortie à vélo (noun). Il veut aller à vélo (noun).

4/ Little inflexions, fixed word order vs many inflexions, more flexible word order
English: “Some blinding lights appeared” but not *“Appeared some blinding lights”.
French: « Des lumières aveuglantes sont apparues » but also « Sont apparues des lumières aveuglantes » or « D'aveuglantes lumières sont apparues » or « Sont apparues d'aveuglantes lumières ».

5/ Different word positions, different meanings vs different word positions, same meaning.
English: “A characteristic noble” is not “A noble characteristic”
French: « Une noble caractéristique » is only subtly different in meaning from « Une caractéristique noble » as the noun is « caractéristique » in both sentence.

6/ Stress-based topic marking vs repetition-based topic marking
English: *This* is good.
French: Ça, c'est bien.

7/ Noun modifier + noun vs imperative verb + noun
English: toothpick, lampshade, nutcracker, snowplow, hand towel, earwig, coat hanger, coin purse, spokesperson, hair band, pencil sharpener, dish washer
French: cure-dents, abat-jour, casse-noix, chasse-neige, essuie-main, perce-oreille, portemanteau, porte-monnaie, porte-parole, serre-tête, taille-crayon, lave-vaisselle

8/ ø vs « or »
English: “All men are mortal. ø Socrates is a man” (no word for it)
French: « Tous les hommes sont mortels *or* Socrate est un homme ». I have never heard of a satisfactory translation for this convenient little word that introduces the conclusive fact in a demonstration.



Credits to Claude Piron for some of the examples.

English is just like french once you hit university. However out about 90 percent of the words used in every day speech are germanic. English pomp and bs is directly from french. However with a little work one could use nothing but germanic words to speak. English is German with Scandanvian grammar and french as decoration.

If you ever try to learn to speak french from people in a village or a small community you will quickly realize there is very little in common. Of course there is in the sense that they are both european languages but the connection is often over exaggerated. Of course the largest reason for this is that we use latin based education systems. Where wurds like perfection are using partials french spelling when it should be spelled perfekshon. Outdated spelling gives us a false sense of kinship.

Vinlander: «However with a little work one could use nothing but germanic words to speak.»

In many cases yes, but some everyday English words from French would be difficult to replace. Consider this text from the Corpus of American Contemporary English:

♒♒♒♒♒♒♒♒♒♒♒♒♒♒♒♒
❝
— And so you've got a lot of things to eat here and to {pass} around. And there's a lot of things that you can {prepare} in {advance} so you're not doing it when {people} are coming over.
— {Exactly}. So, you know, do a shopping {list}, do your {prep} {list}. Spread food out on a {table}, like nuts and {olives}, and have a {fruit} bowl.
— All right.
— So there's something for {people} to {choose} from.
— And which one of these can I try?
— They're all good.
— I want to try.
— They're all {tasty}.
— OK. {Terrific}. All right.
❞
♒♒♒♒♒♒♒♒♒♒♒♒♒♒♒♒

Some words I could replace — not always accurately (though I'm sure native speakers could find better synonyms): {people-> the guests (in this context), prepare-> get ready, in advance-> early on(?), exactly-> that's right, choose-> pick, tasty-> yummy, terrific-> awesome}.

However, I'm not sure how to replace the words in that second list: {prep-> ?, pass around-> ?, list-> ?, fruit-> ?, olives-> ?, table-> ?}

Well certain nouns wouldn't make sense to replace such as table fruit or olives. However for list it would be "before you go write what you want down, pass around could be subbed with share it around.
Sure a lot of this would sound strange but it would be understood very quickly, within a generation all the Latin words could be forgotten.

A bigger problem would be rewriting advanced texts using Germanic words:


In a {quantum} field {theory} the {notion} of a {coupling} {constant} and a {charge} are {different} but {related}. The {coupling} {constant} sets the {magnitude} of the {force} of {interaction}; for {example}, in {quantum} {electrodynamics}, the {fine-structure} {constant} is a {coupling} {constant}. The {charge} in a {gauge} {theory} has to do with the way a {particle} {transforms} under the {gauge} {symmetry}; i.e., its {representation} under the {gauge} {group}. For {example}, the {electron} has {charge} -1 and the {positron} has {charge} +1, {implying} that the {gauge} {transformation} has {opposite} {effects} on them in some {sense}. {Specifically}, if a {local} {gauge} {transformation} φ(x) is {applied} in {electrodynamics}


Haha, basically every word. Try fixing that. Not to mention that those words have specific, precise connotations in a physics context that would be lost.