Most complex IE language (Morphologically)

Guest   Tue Dec 11, 2007 9:15 pm GMT
Only for Albanians.
Enevoldsen   Fri Dec 14, 2007 11:36 am GMT
I think Stewart is pretty right about polish. I once asked a Japanese professor, that could speak about 10 languages (Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Polish, German, French etc.), and he said that polish was most complex and difficult to learn.

Grammar with 7 times (accusative, nominative, dative, genitive, vocative, locative and instrumental) is tough enough for poles. But I think most Slavic tongues have 7 times (Russian have 6). But try to say correctly things like:
“Chsząszcz brzmi w czcinie i z tego Szczebrzeszczyn słynie. Brzęnszyszczykiewicz źrombał dźiencioła powyłamywanym szpikulcem.”

If this was not enough they make words “smaller” or more “cute” like in Russian: Girl will be: dziewczyna – dziewczynka – dziewczyneczka – dzieweczka – dziewczynusia. In German language for example this aspect is easy, and is most often solved with the “chen” ending.
Enevoldsen   Fri Dec 14, 2007 12:40 pm GMT
PS: “Most Difficult Languages – Polish”: http://hubpages.com/hub/Most_Difficult_Languages_-_Polish

17 grammatical forms for the number 2 (polish):

1. dwa
2. dwie
3. dwoje
4. dwóch (or dwu)
5. dwaj
6. dwiema
7. dwom (or dwóm)
8. dwoma
9. dwojga
10. dwojgu
11. dwojgiem
12. dwójka
13. dwójki
14. dwójkę
15. dwójką
16. dwójce
17. dwójko
Guest   Fri Dec 14, 2007 2:07 pm GMT
Russian or polish verbal systems are pretty easy compared to latin languages for instance. As far as I know, Polist noun declension is quite regular unlike most slavonic languages. In russian there are plenty of irregularities and besides the mobile accent is really tricky
Guest   Fri Dec 14, 2007 2:17 pm GMT
In Polish both nouns and verbs are inflected. In Spanish only verbs.
Guest   Fri Dec 14, 2007 2:22 pm GMT
Yes, I course but Polish has fewer tenses and moods than Spanish. No subjunctive mood, simple past nor imperfect
Guest   Fri Dec 14, 2007 11:51 pm GMT
Well, Romanian has aproximatively 70 types of conjugation patterns (not including irregular verbs),but the complexity of languages can go far beyond that. The most complex of the (living) IE languages are the Iranian languages.
Guest   Sat Dec 15, 2007 8:50 am GMT
Romanian verbs are quite easy. Romanian subjunctive mood is a piece of cake compared to the portuguese or spanish ones. The simple past is archaic in standard Romanian it's not used in modern literature, either. Romanian, like Spanish, only uses the verb "to have" to form the compoud tenses, unlike French or Italian.
Guest   Sat Dec 15, 2007 10:27 am GMT
You are kind of clueless about this.They're anything but easy . 70% of Romanian verbs are irregular. If they don't give you the present form you simply don't know how to conjugate it. First person present is the most simple thing in all other Romance languages,it's never more than one termination,while in Romanian you have at least five.And it uses 3 auxiliary verbs: "a fi", "a avea" and "a voi".(to be ,to have,to want).
Nouns are also the most complex .Non natives can't even determine the plural in most cases, if it is not given. Then come the five cases,three genders,etc.
When it comes to complexity in Romance languages ,you can outrule all the others,because Romanian is the most complex in almost every aspect.
Guest   Sat Dec 15, 2007 10:30 am GMT
I was talking about Romanian verbs not plurals or cases! Most romance languages have irregularities in their verbal systems.
Guest   Sat Dec 15, 2007 10:38 am GMT
Can anyone translate all the seventeen Polish two's? I'm curios to know why would anyone need 17 ways to say a simple number.
Guest   Sat Dec 15, 2007 10:42 am GMT
"a voi" is used to form the future tense or the conditional tense. That's because Romanian hasn't got synthetic future or conditinal forms like Spanish or French. That's easy! " a fi" is used to form the passive form like in all Romance languages. Besides Romanian doesn't have dictinctive endings in the subjunctive mood, except in the third person singular and plural ( the same ending, I'd say it's pretty childish) This feature is much easier than in the other romance languages, which have even more tenses than Romanian. Plurals are pretty hard in Romanian but that's another story. The difficulty of Romanian is a myth, on the whole is not harder than the other romance languages.
Guest   Sat Dec 15, 2007 11:36 am GMT
You are out of your way. It's not the number of tenses that makes it complicated,but the irregularity, frequent sound alternances,ending patterns and vowel changes . I told you it has more than 70 patterns,who beats that?
Wikipedia:
<<Class Identification Examples (one from each sound change type)
V1 infinitive ending in -a, present indicative without infix a ajuta, a arăta, a aştepta, a ierta, a toca, a apăra, a îmbrăca, a prezenta, a apăsa, a măsura, a căpăta, a semăna, a pieptăna, a amâna, a intra, a lătra, a apropia, a mângâia, a tăia, a despuia
V2 infinitive ending in -a, present indicative with infix -ez- a lucra, a studia
V3 infinitive ending in -i, present indicative singular 3rd person ending in -e a fugi, a despărţi, a ieşi, a repezi, a dormi, a muri, a veni, a sui, a îndoi, a jupui
V4 infinitive ending in -i, present indicative singular 3rd person ending in -ă a oferi, a suferi
V5 infinitive ending in -i, present indicative singular 3rd person ending in -eşte a povesti, a trăi
V6 infinitive ending in -î, present indicative singular 3rd person ending in -ă a vârî, a coborî
V7 infinitive ending in -î, present indicative singular 3rd person ending in -ăşte a hotărî
V8 infinitive ending in diphthong -ea a apărea, a cădea, a şedea, a vedea, a putea
V9 infinitive ending in -e, past participle ending in -ut a pierde, a cere, a crede, a bate, a cunoaşte, a coase, a vinde, a ţine, a umple
V10 infinitive ending in -e, past participle ending in -s a prinde, a rade, a roade, a plânge, a trage, a merge, a zice, a întoarce, a permite, a scoate, a pune, a rămâne, a purcede, a scrie
V11 infinitive ending in -e, past participle ending in -t or -pt a rupe, a fierbe, a înfrânge, a sparge, a frige, a coace

Nevertheless, even such a classification does not consider all possible sound alternances. A full classification, considering all combinations of sound changes and ending patterns, contains about seventy types, not including irregular verbs.
>>

Compare that with Spanish
ar, ir ,er.
-o,-s,-e,(-a),-mos,-is,-n.
Guest   Sat Dec 15, 2007 12:10 pm GMT
In my view romanian verbs are much easier than the spanish ones. I'm sorry
Guest   Sat Dec 15, 2007 12:13 pm GMT
Don't be . I'm sure it's just you.