No, I think this is Katsuo himself!

Maybe I should start a blog




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Tak47 Wrote:Also, the word order is only similar to English because it is a SVO language like the vast majority of languages in the world.

Actually the most common order amongst world languages is SOV. SVO is second most common.

vosmiura Wrote:

Tak47 Wrote:Also, the word order is only similar to English because it is a SVO language like the vast majority of languages in the world.

Actually the most common order amongst world languages is SOV. SVO is second most common.

Does anyone know if there are other languages besides SOV or SVO?

We have Yoda with VSOV(I don't the grammar word for "are" and "traveling", verb phrase perhaps?)

"Traveling down the dark side you are"

This is late but does Taek47 really need to insult somebody, the topic at large, the posters at large, etc in every post. He sure posted a lot in here for disliking so much.

This board never had such hostility until recently.

For what it's worth, I'm going to disagree with the assertion that languages are incomparable. I think they're hard to compare, because they're complex, they're fundamental (essentially by definition, you can't get internal subjective data from anyone who doesn't know one), and they're highly entwined with personal and national identities, but I've seen no serious grounds on which to argue that they are fundamentally incomparable or equal.

~J

woodwojr Wrote:For what it's worth, I'm going to disagree with the assertion that languages are incomparable. I think they're hard to compare, because they're complex, they're fundamental (essentially by definition, you can't get internal subjective data from anyone who doesn't know one), and they're highly entwined with personal and national identities, but I've seen no serious grounds on which to argue that they are fundamentally incomparable or equal.

~J

An easy analogy..
Question: Which is closer? New York or Seattle?
Answer: It depends on where you are.

An equally easy analogy: which is smaller, 1 or 2?

I don't need a simple analogy, I need a defense of the assertion that the analogy in any way reflects the situation being analogized.

Edit: as a thought experiment, consider that we can construct a language that is decisively harder than any known human language; consequently, we know that languages can be compared.

~J

Erubey Wrote:This is late but does Taek47 really need to insult somebody, the topic at large, the posters at large, etc in every post. He sure posted a lot in here for disliking so much.

This board never had such hostility until recently.

I think Tak is trying to earn his troll badge.

Requirement 3: Accuse most of the people in the thread of using childish insults while spouting at least three times as many insults as anyone else in the thread.

woodwojr Wrote:An equally easy analogy: which is smaller, 1 or 2?

I don't need a simple analogy, I need a defense of the assertion that the analogy in any way reflects the situation being analogized.

Edit: as a thought experiment, consider that we can construct a language that is decisively harder than any known human language; consequently, we know that languages can be compared.

~J

Well, in mathematical terms, not every order is a total order.

For example, one may define an order on the set of positive integers by saying
that a is smaller than b if b is a multiple of a. Then 7 is smaller 14, 2 smaller than 8,
5 smaller than 15, etc.

Given two numbers, it is always possible to construct a number greater, in this sense, than both of them, simply by taking their product: 30 is greater than both 3 and 10. Still, 3 and 10 are not comparable.

Sigh.

Sorry, professional deformation. Couldn't resist.

adutrifoy Wrote:Well, in mathematical terms, not every order is a total order.

Of course. On the other hand, the assertion that language difficulty does not form a total order is a claim that is not self-evident; the mere possibility is not enough for me to let the assertion that it is true stand.

Edit: and even if it were true, that still says nothing about the comparability or lack thereof of any two specific languages, like Japanese and Chinese.

~J

My Japanese professor always told me that no language in intrinsically more difficult than any other. She cited research that indicated that children of the same age had the same language proficiency regardless of where they lived and what language they spoke. So Japanese youngsters, Chinese youngsters and American youngsters of the same age were found to have the same level of language proficiency.

The notion that one language is more difficult to learn becomes relevant only when we are talking about learning a second language. In such a case, the difficulty of learning a new second language is a function of how different is is from one's native language. So for example, it is asserted that languages that are more similar to English, such as French, are easier to learn for native English speakers than languages that are very different, such as Japanese.

Therefore, in order to answer this question, one's native language is perhaps the definitive variable. I have not studied Chinese, so I must defer to the experience of other native English speakers who have in fact studied both languages. However, for native speakers of languages other than English, the answer may well be different.

Perhaps Korean and Turkish speakers would find Japanese easier, as I understand that both of these languages include particles and use the SOV pattern. Are Swedish, Italian, Russian and other Indo-European languages sufficiently similar to English that their native speaker's experience would be similar to native English speakers? If so, than perhaps Tobberoth's and Serge's experience are relevant to native English speakers such as myself.

And finally, if one is learning Japanese or Chinese as a third, fourth or fifth language, maybe one's native language is not quite as important? Maybe the difficulty is some function of the relative difference between the new language and a summation of all the other languages already mastered?

It seems to me that there are no absolutes here... it is all relative...

gibosi Wrote:It seems to me that there are no absolutes here... it is all relative...

Very much so which is why I stated right away in the start that I'm biased because I already learned Japanese making Hanzi extremely simple for me while complete beginners to Asian languages will have a very hard time grasping the concept.

Though I still think languages can still be objectively harder to learn than others. I mean yeah, a Korean person will think it's easier to learn Japanese than English while for a Swedish person it's the opposite. However, what about someone from Africa who's native language is completely different from both? They could probably speak for someone who does not have the benefits of either and say which languages is harder.

I think that if an alien came here and that alien had no real language so it would have no advantage in any language, they would find Latin to be a much harder language to learn than say... Esperanto.

gibosi Wrote:My Japanese professor always told me that no language in intrinsically more difficult than any other. She cited research that indicated that children of the same age had the same language proficiency regardless of where they lived and what language they spoke.

Did this study account for the possibility that differing amounts of effort were required? Also, what was the methodology for measuring language proficiency, and what was included in "language profiency" (for example, presumably all native speakers of languages without written forms are illiterate until they learn a second language)?

Quote:It seems to me that there are no absolutes here... it is all relative...

This is precisely the attitude that I'm trying to show the unfoundedness of. If you're going to tell me that there are no well-defined absolutes, that measuring one language against another in this manner is difficult enough that it isn't even worth attempting, I'll agree. If you're going to tell me that languages are actually either incomparable or equal, I'm going to ask you for, if not proof, at least some evidence to distinguish it from the previous statement.

~J

Tobberoth Wrote:

gibosi Wrote:It seems to me that there are no absolutes here... it is all relative...

Very much so which is why I stated right away in the start that I'm biased because I already learned Japanese making Hanzi extremely simple for me while complete beginners to Asian languages will have a very hard time grasping the concept.

Though I still think languages can still be objectively harder to learn than others. I mean yeah, a Korean person will think it's easier to learn Japanese than English while for a Swedish person it's the opposite. However, what about someone from Africa who's native language is completely different from both? They could probably speak for someone who does not have the benefits of either and say which languages is harder.

I think that if an alien came here and that alien had no real language so it would have no advantage in any language, they would find Latin to be a much harder language to learn than say... Esperanto.

Wait. You just said you think some can be objectively harder to learn than others, but then that an an alien with no linguistic advantage would have...well, no advantage. Which way are you going on this?

Erubey Wrote:This is late but does Taek47 really need to insult somebody, the topic at large, the posters at large, etc in every post. He sure posted a lot in here for disliking so much.

This board never had such hostility until recently.

This is what happens when two strong personalities collide. It gets heated. One individual eventually backs down, especially if the entire course of convo is sparked by a misunderstanding like this one.

On a more positive note, it's topics like these, regardless of who started them and why, that provide us with a wealth a knowledge about a given topic and each other. While we all know that there are no absolutes (or do we) you can learn a lot from an opinion.

igordesu Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:

gibosi Wrote:It seems to me that there are no absolutes here... it is all relative...

Very much so which is why I stated right away in the start that I'm biased because I already learned Japanese making Hanzi extremely simple for me while complete beginners to Asian languages will have a very hard time grasping the concept.

Though I still think languages can still be objectively harder to learn than others. I mean yeah, a Korean person will think it's easier to learn Japanese than English while for a Swedish person it's the opposite. However, what about someone from Africa who's native language is completely different from both? They could probably speak for someone who does not have the benefits of either and say which languages is harder.

I think that if an alien came here and that alien had no real language so it would have no advantage in any language, they would find Latin to be a much harder language to learn than say... Esperanto.

Wait. You just said you think some can be objectively harder to learn than others, but then that an an alien with no linguistic advantage would have...well, no advantage. Which way are you going on this?

They wouldn't have an advantage, thus they are the only ones who can judge objectively. If an alien says it's harder to learn latin than esperanto, it would be proof that latin is objectively harder to learn.

What if another species of alien come later and say that Esperanto is harder?

ah, okay. Thanks for clearing that up.

edit: we are only talking about linguistically and culturally different aliens within the human species....correct?...

igordesu Wrote:ah, okay. Thanks for clearing that up.

edit: we are only talking about linguistically and culturally different aliens within the human species....correct?...

Um no, I was referring to extraterrestrials. I seriously doubt there are two languages on this planet which are so radically different that objectivity can be found here.

adutrifoy Wrote:What if another species of alien come later and say that Esperanto is harder?

Then evidence would lean toward language being subjectively difficult, that is of course, if the second ET came from the exact same location as the first, had equal schooling, and life experiences, and ... this has gone into infinity and beyond...

You guys are all crazy. Luv it!

What if a language had random grammar and you needed ESP to understand the speaker?