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In Search of the World's Hardest Language (pg. 2)
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| Rose |
| quote: | Originally posted by Meat187
But the clear winner is probably whatever Googooly speaks. |
QFT :stongue:
Oh yeah and I just wanted to see Lira's reply. |
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| Ian |
| Well since a good 60% of England either don't speak english as a first language or can't speak/write it properly, and often get out-spoken by people who speak it as a 2nd, 3rd even 4th language...... |
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| Acton |
| quote: | Originally posted by Meat187
But the clear winner is probably whatever Googooly speaks. |
:stongue: |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by Meat187
That's gotta be crap, man. No one can tell me that storm of a language they speak in France is not harder than English. |
All right, I'm going to just one thing that is harder in English, for comparison's sake:
Word Stress: Word stress in French doesn't really matter that much, falling always on the last syllable (though apparently some Parisians put a vowel after the last consonant in some words, and that changes the pattern a bit). In English, however, word stress is a mess - it's pretty hard to tell what the stressed syllable of a word is unless you already know it, and it can be contrastive: In the noun "record", the "Re" is stressed; however, in the verb "to record" the "Re" is weak.
See, it's no absolute. I'm short of time but I'm sure you can find some more examples ;)
Regardless of that, languages share a similar structural complexity: of course, some languages are more fun in an area rather than another, and there are many factors that may come into play making one language less complicated overall than another (such as language contact, foreign assimilation, and so on). That's why English is often considered simpler than other languages, but it too has its traps.
If you like this topic, do some research on creole languages. They're languages that arise when two communities that didn't speak a previously shared language need to "build one" from scratch (the so-called pidgin) and then their children juice it up. |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by Ian
Well since a good 60% of England either don't speak english as a first language or can't speak/write it properly, and often get out-spoken by people who speak it as a 2nd, 3rd even 4th language...... |
I know you said this in jest, but there's no such a thing as a speaker that can't speak his or her language... unless they're impaired (either mentally of physically... or experientially i.e. someone locked them up :p). |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
| quote: | Originally posted by Meat187
But the clear winner is probably whatever Googooly speaks. |
Googooly speaks googooly. It's not that hard when you make it up as you go. |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| I've always heard that Hungarian is nigh impossible for outsiders to pick up. |
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| Meat187 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
Word Stress: |
Dude, we're talking about people who count like retards here, and you're arguing with pronunciation issues. I'd like to slap you four-twenty-sixteen times for that. Also when it comes to pronunciation, try counting how many ways the French have to write an 'o'-sound. Many of which don't even involve an o. :stongue: :whip: :wtf: |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by Meat187
Dude, we're talking about people who count like retards here, and you're arguing with pronunciation issues. I'd like to slap you four-twenty-sixteen times for that. |
That's only hard because you're used to a completely decimal system (rather than a vigesimal one). Counting does have to repeat itself at some point, and both 10 and 20 are quite logical possibilities. Try learning a duodecimal system: now that's a mess :p
| quote: | Originally posted by Meat187
Also when it comes to pronunciation, try counting how many ways the French have to write an 'o'-sound. Many of which don't even involve an o. :stongue: :whip: :wtf: |
The so-called grammarians are to blame here, this has nothing to do with the language whatsoever. This is just an arbitrary representation of the language. If you want to write "水" instead of "l'eau", you can, because writing is just a system of symbols used to represent yet another system of symbols.
We're talking about the spoken language here mostly. |
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| Ian |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
I know you said this in jest, but there's no such a thing as a speaker that can't speak his or her language... unless they're impaired (either mentally of physically... or experientially i.e. someone locked them up :p). |
You've never gone to london then, innit. :p |
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| bas |
| quote: | Originally posted by Meat187
But the clear winner is probably whatever Googooly speaks. |
Bah! I knew I should have came into this thread earlier :mad: |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by Ian
You've never gone to london then, innit. :p |
Not really, but I do know a thing or two about Estuary English, Cockney, and Mockney :p |
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