complexity of languages

Pacoup   Tue Oct 09, 2007 12:38 am GMT
What would be interesting is observing how languages actually relate to one another.

For example, we could place a timeline such as this one that shows how far a langue is from another:

German <> English <> French <> Korean <> Japanese <> Chinese

I'm a French native speaker and I have learned English since young age because of the location of where I live. Thus being Gatineau, a city close to Ottawa, the capitol of Canada, is right on the border of French and English people in Canada.

But I'm also learning Japanese and German actively and have some basis in Korean and Chinese.

From this knowledge, I can make the timeline you see up there.
If we base ourself from that, learning German from the basis of English is easier than learning it from the basis of French, regardless of your native language.

I can say this because I'm currently learning German in school from the basis of French, which is very difficult. If I switch to English thinking though, German suddenly becomes very obvious.
K. T.   Tue Oct 09, 2007 1:23 am GMT
Knowing Japanese has helped me with Korean and Chinese.

Specifically, knowing the on-yomi (Chinese readings) has helped me figure out and remember some Chinese words (which is a great memory boost)...

Some people argue this, but honestly, if you know Japanese, you will be able to understand some things intuitively about Korean without going through tedious explanations necessary for someone who only knows a European language.

Languages, imo, just get easier as you learn more. There are more connections. Of course people still have to make some efforts in learning. So far, there is no injection to learn a language.
Complex   Tue Oct 09, 2007 10:29 am GMT
One single language can be used in a complicated or in a simple manner, for example you can say
"me Tarzan, you Jane"
"me is Tarzan, you is Jane"
"I am Tarzan, you are Jane"
"My name is Tarzan, your's is Jane"
"I am called by pesons knowing me by the name of Tarzan, thou arst probably Jane, I presume?"
etc.;-)

Complexity of languages obviously depends on which level is chosen for comparison.
Guest   Tue Oct 09, 2007 11:56 am GMT
<<
German <> English <> French <> Korean <> Japanese <> Chinese
>>

Does this timeline indicate that Korean and French are very close?


One line I've sometimes thought about:

German <> Dutch <> English <> French <>?Catalan?<>Spanish
Guest   Tue Oct 09, 2007 9:45 pm GMT
Italian doesn't always mark stress, the letter 'z' can be either voiced or devoiced, and whether a vowel is open or closed is not always marked, so I'd say Italian is about on par with Spanish as far as being "phonetic", just in the other direction: with Spanish, it's trivial to know how to say any word given its spelling; with Italian, it's trivial to know how to write a word given its pronunciation. Both are still pretty easy going the other way around, but there is more room for error.

In my view Italian is trickier than spanish. As you said Italian doesen't have always mark stress, the letter "z" can sound tz or dz and whether a vowel is open or closed is never marked. Besides, and this is the main difficulty of the Italian language, compared to Spanish and Portuguese, Italian has got plenty of double consonants and it's quite hard both their pronunciation and their spelling
furrykef   Tue Oct 09, 2007 10:52 pm GMT
It's a good idea to mark quotations, Guest. If I didn't know that I wrote the first paragraph of your post, I'd have thought that they were your words, rather than the preparation of a response.

- Kef
K. T.   Wed Oct 10, 2007 4:03 am GMT
<<
German <> English <> French <> Korean <> Japanese <> Chinese
>>

Does this timeline indicate that Korean and French are very close?


One line I've sometimes thought about:

German <> Dutch <> English <> French <>?Catalan?<>Spanish -Guest

I suspect Pacoup was using French in the middle as the starting point for either direction, not that French and Korean are close.

This would mean that someone starting from French could learn Korean, move to Japanese, then Chinese or that someone starting from French should study English, then German.

I think your (Guest's) timeline is reasonable. What's weird to me is that while I understand both English and German, I don't understand spoken Dutch easily. I thought it would be a cakewalk after German, but no, it isn't instantly intelligible to me. On the other hand I understand Spanish and French and Catalan is pretty easy to understand without study.
another guest   Wed Oct 10, 2007 12:28 pm GMT
<<What's weird to me is that while I understand both English and German, I don't understand spoken Dutch easily. I thought it would be a cakewalk after German, but no, it isn't instantly intelligible to me. On the other hand I understand Spanish and French and Catalan is pretty easy to understand without study.>>

I'm German native speaker (Hochdeutsch, never really learnt a dialect) and I also know English. Upto now, I've visited the Netherlands 4 times but never understood something. Dutch is a completely unintelligeable language to me.
another guest   Wed Oct 10, 2007 12:31 pm GMT
I also had French in school. On websites with romance languages, I at least get some notion of the content.
K. T.   Wed Oct 10, 2007 4:29 pm GMT
I'm German native speaker (Hochdeutsch, never really learnt a dialect) and I also know English. Upto now, I've visited the Netherlands 4 times but never understood something. Dutch is a completely unintelligeable language to me-Another guest


Thank-you for saying that. It's not just me, then.
K. T.   Wed Oct 10, 2007 4:36 pm GMT
I wonder if just a bit of study would make Dutch understandable. LOL! I hate to admit this, but even though I speak a few languages, I find Dutch intimidating.
Arthur   Wed Oct 10, 2007 5:06 pm GMT
K.T.,

>I hate to admit this, but even though I speak a few languages, I find Dutch intimidating.

It happens exactly the same to me, even if I speak English, Swedish and German fluently. In fact I started a thread a bit more than a year ago, trying to find out why Dutch and Danish seem to have developed a more complex phonetics than other Germanic languages....

I'm studying both languages now... and it is taking more time than it took with German and/or Swedish to learn them.
Guest   Wed Oct 10, 2007 5:54 pm GMT
Why do u think that Dutch is so hard? Pronunciation is quite hard maybe the hardest among germanic languages but the grammar is pretty simple, much easier than german, that's for sure. In my opinion it's a typical germanic language..
Arthur   Wed Oct 10, 2007 6:54 pm GMT
Guest,

I don't know why I have this impression. It is a very good question, and perhaps it has a very silly answer, but I have never felt so confident in writing something in Dutch if I compare the same stage of command of the language, with the times I was learning German or Swedish. You can call it orthographically less friendly at first sight, I don't know. I have to say that this has by no means disencouraged me to learn it, and I do like this language a lot. The same for Danish.
Travis   Thu Oct 11, 2007 4:05 pm GMT
>>Why do u think that Dutch is so hard? Pronunciation is quite hard maybe the hardest among germanic languages but the grammar is pretty simple, much easier than german, that's for sure. In my opinion it's a typical germanic language..<<

Actually, the only thing that seems atypical for a modern Germanic language about it is that it has lost the aspiration of fortis plosives, likely due to Romance influence, and that it has more than its share of Romance loanwords (even though it still has far less than English as that goes). Aside from that, it seems to be a rather average Germanic language, and even its weird aspects such as its use of [G] are not actually that weird all things considered (as it should be noted that such is also used by West Frisian and Low Saxon).