English Is the Best Language in the World

I agree too.

<<People who don't speak English are illiterate in global terms.>>

I don't agree with you. What if you'll go to France. People in France rarely speak English. They think their language is better.

Yes, many people around the world speak English but not everyone. Even if we know English, it doesn't guarantee that we can talk with everyone.

English is definitely better, as a language at least. Here is a comment I read on some random blog:


"English is complex as well as invasive (I mean that in a positive sense). I often joke to others that translating from English to Cook Islands Maori (CIM) is like downscaling a blu-ray 1080p movie to VHS. English as a language has so many more colours, brush stroke patterns and palettes to chose from. And it is also for that reason it is much easier to translate CIM to English than the other way around. Got a manuscript you want to translate to English? I'll have a look at it. Want to translate that best-selling English novel into CIM? Climb Everest anyone?"


This shows that English (or at least the languages with a rich literary tradition) are much richer than primitive, until recently oral only languages.

<<This shows that English (or at least the languages with a rich literary tradition) are much richer than primitive, until recently oral only languages. >>

Many non-native English people consider English to be lacking in expressive powers.

Example: I recently read somewhere that one speaker of a native North American language compared listening to stories in English to seeing an old grainy black and white film, whereas hearing stories in their native language was like seeing movies in vivid high-definition color.

Also, right here at Antimoon, we've seen native Romance Language speakers complain/gloat about the simplicity and primitiveness of English, and how it's unable to express many of the subtle complexities that are so readily expressed in French, Spanish, or even German.

We've even heard that knowing only English is like wearing a mental straightjacket -- it keeps us from thinking verbally about a vast range of complex and subtle ideas that are easily accessible to speakers of many other languages. People like Freud, Einstein, Euler, Dirac, Nietzsche, etc. would never have dreamed up half of their brilliant stuff, if they had been native English speakers.

The only people who say that are non-native speakers with low proficiency in English. They think that just because their ability to express concepts in English is inadequate, everyone else's is as well. Their problem is that they're too lazy to study hard.

BTW, human language has very little use in mathematics and physics. Those subjects are too complex to describe with words. That's mathematicians and physicists use specialized symbols and diagrams in their work. Visual thinkers are those most likely to succeed in math and science, not verbal thinkers.

To Guest (Wed Aug 5),

ACTUALLY, from my studies in neuroscience, the brain has a much more foundational adaptability in connecting mathematical and linguistic ideas rather than mathematical visual. Those who are adept in linguistic constructions are those who usually have an inherent proficiency in mathematics and science. Of course, there is great overlap and every person is different, etc. etc...

To your point about those who complain about English grammatical simplicity (yet can't seem to use a phrasal verb construction correctly, or even succeed at basic grammar points... and one is frightened to think what their pronunciation must sound like!), I agree. I LOVE Romance languages (French is my second), however I also realize the beauty of English. They are both complex and beautiful in their own VERY DIFFERENT ways.

One last point... English is at once versatile and strict in its sentence construction and grammar. However, it is way more versatile than probably all Romance languages (or at the least the big five - Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, Romanian) because you can fuck it up very badly and still be understood... something which is impossible in those languages.

Hope my two cents makes sense. :)

Really, because while I will admit this is not exactly scientific, English majors tend to hate math and vice-versa with math majors and English. Would you also care to explain why heightened math skills and speech impairments are both associated with autism, for instance? One would think that if the two were really negatively correlated, then the same disorder could not possibly cause both at the same time.

<<Really, because while I will admit this is not exactly scientific, English majors tend to hate math and vice-versa with math majors and English. Would you also care to explain why heightened math skills and speech impairments are both associated with autism, for instance? One would think that if the two were really negatively correlated, then the same disorder could not possibly cause both at the same time. >>


It's because for native speakers of English the subject called 'English' is not really as much about the language as it is about literature and stuff.
Maths majors tend to be good at English in the language sense, that is they write grammatically correctly and can use English well on the technical level. The reason they often hate English is not so much because they're bad at the language but rather because they're not into literature and all the subjective analysis that goes into it.

As for autism, having a speech impairment doesn't necessarily mean you don't know the language. I think these speech impairments are more a psychological issue. If an autistic kid doesn't talk, it's because he's disturbed mentally, not because he actually doesn't know how the language. Although I could be wrong...

>>The only people who say that are non-native speakers with low proficiency in English. They think that just because their ability to express concepts in English is inadequate, everyone else's is as well. Their problem is that they're too lazy to study hard.

Then this low proficiency would be very difficult to go beyond. I, too, find it near to impossible to translate many shades of meanings in Chinese to English, given my present level. But on the other hand, I also find many shades of meanings in English difficult to translate, since multiple meanings may correspond to just one word. In this sense, I'd say I don't really know which has greater expressive power. Or perhaps, they are stronger in some areas than some areas, or are strong (no comparison) in their own right. For example, I certainly know LOADS of shades of meanings in Chinese poetry, all of which are untranslatable to English. But I also find some English poetry untranslatable to Chinese as well.

People like Freud, Einstein, Euler, Dirac, Nietzsche, etc. would never have dreamed up half of their brilliant stuff, if they had been native English speakers.
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That's not true. Great scientists such as Newton and Darwin were native English speakers.

"Also, right here at Antimoon, we've seen native Romance Language speakers complain/gloat about the simplicity and primitiveness of English,"

TRUE

"The only people who say that are non-native speakers with low proficiency in English. They think that just because their ability to express concepts in English is inadequate, everyone else's is as well"

NOT TRUE

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Come on dude, Modern English grammar is a joke, there is no case system, gender, etc. and the old English of Shakespeare is DEAD! Modern English is not that good for literature, law, philosophy, poetry, sociology, philology, politics, etc. English is very good for texting and ather primitive crap...

c u l8ter

and do not mention the CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY English spelling !

***Many non-native English people consider English to be lacking in expressive powers***

Well, how wrong these non-native speakers are, and no mistake. Obviously their sheer lack of knowledge and understanding of our precious Language is the reason for this consideration of theirs.

Lacking in expressive powers? What codswallop, what tosh, what total clamjamphrie!

I suggest they devote a great deal of time delving through all the works of our great poets and writers of prose in English, all the way along from Chaucer and Langland, through to the wondrous Shakespeare, naturally, to the great Victorian novelists right down to the writers of the modern day. All of that involves the written word, of course - until it is transposed onto the stage or screen and verbalised via the skill of actors when we can really enjoy the demonstration of the true expressive power of the marvel that is the English Language, one of our greatest possessions in these islands of ours - and in all those lands across the seas to where we "spread the word", linguistically speaking.

Listen to the impassioned speeches of many of our great political leaders of the past if you want proof positive just what kind of "expressive powers" the Language possesses in what is termed oratory....Sir Winston Churchill comes to mind here, the author of a book on the English Speaking World and its Peoples, a topic very dear to this great man's heart.

If anybody could raise the spirits and resolve and optimism of a whole nation of people left isolated and alone at a time of great danger and threat from outside its borders merely from the spoken word then as sure as eggs is eggs this man could.....he certainly used the English Language to very great effect without a doubt.....expressive powers at its best.

Sir Winston was just one example of this...many another historical figure has utilised the English Language in much the same way, so not only is the pen mightier than the sword most of the time, so is the tongue, and it's far less bloody.

Perhaps many non-native speakers of English regard the English people, in particular (I mean people from England, of course) lack passion and expressive power when speaking simply because they tend to be much less vocally "decibel fuelled" than most Continentals, and do not use their hands to add further expression in anything like the same way as many other Europeans do, especially from the more southern countries bordering onto the Mediterranean. We all know the Italians, the Spanish and the Portuguese and the Greeks, especially, often let their hands do a lot of the talking and if they are in groups, as they often are, they all do it at the same time most of the time....the tongues and the hands all going full throttle simultaneously.

The Mediterraneans therefore regard the British as being "cool and dispassionate" because they don't adopt the same procecure when chatting together...it's much more restrained in comparison with those from the hotter and sunnier climes of Europe.

Clearly it's not the case, as Sir Winston demonstrated. Actions do not necessarily speak louder than words!

English is a very powerful Language, it's a very beautiful Language, it's an extremely expressive Language, if spoken and written at its best, as it has on very many occasions.

I adore my Language and I am just a wee bit biased, to say the least....I started speaking it when still in my cot, and I dare say my last dying word will be in English, too.

It should be "procedure" of course.

<<Clearly it's not the case, as Sir Winston demonstrated. Actions do not necessarily speak louder than words!

English is a very powerful Language, it's a very beautiful Language, it's an extremely expressive Language, if spoken and written at its best, as it has on very many occasions. >>


Where the fuck is this tendency to capitalise words for no reason coming from? It seems a lot of people do it and it is just downright weird. It appears you're trying to emphasise the word 'language' although it doesn't really doesn't make a whole lot of sense... what is the difference between a 'language' and a 'Language'? lol

Because the language in question is English, and the language in question deserves to be Capitalised! End of......

Actually I have always capitalised the word "Language" in this forum, because this Forum is dedicated to Language, any Language, be it English, Gaelic, Welsh, Finnish, Serbo Croat, Swahili or whatever.

So There! Cheers!