[am_amx]

oops they missed my name,congo to them

[The Art of War]

Originally Posted by FiFiX Show us how many words do you know ;]

Mi verly good at ingrish jees!!!

No seriously... Lets stop this stupid spamming

[Seta00]

You guys stop or I'll call swixel in here.

Mwahahahaha you are all fucked now:

[Swixel]

First of all, I'm here because of this:

07:02 < Seta00> swixel, http://forums.alliedmods.net/showthr...88#post1343088

Second, superlatives ... why? Big claims, no support? D:

Third: WALL OF TEXT! Running on about 3 hours of sleep with massive sleep-debt, so I hope this all makes some sense.

Originally Posted by meTaLiCroSS Also, if you don't know, the spanish language is the most difficult one

What? Since when?

Citation?

Originally Posted by The Art of War And if spanish is so hard, why dont people learn the easy, lovely language of english?..

English is a horrible language. I'm a native English speaker, but there are so many exceptions, and screw ups, and messed up bits ... seriously. We don't even have a set grammar. It's too dynamic, meaning it's a dialect-by-dialect disaster.

Originally Posted by Javivi French isn't hard to read, it's hard to write, because it has too many "tildes" ( `, ´, ^ ). I have been studing french for 4 years, and my mark in the DELF B1 exam was 7'6, so, it's not hard.

Complexity of understanding is based solely on what you're used to reading...

Originally Posted by papyrus_kn Bulgarian is the most difficult

No. Just no. Bulgarian is annoying, but it's relatively regular ... okay, there are some irregularities, but whatever. It isn't as widely adapted/mucked up.

Anyway, I'd buy it that Bulgarian's the most complex if anyone's got a citation...

Originally Posted by fezh As far as I know Spanish is one of the most difficult languages just because we have a word for everything, and every word has a different meaning. For example, the word "the" includes what for me are "las", "los", "el" and "la".

Having a word for everything doesn't make it any more or less difficult ... it just means you have more words. Polysemy (multiple meanings per word) doesn't necessary make things more complex, because context can repair ambiguities ... It just makes it more annoying for people to learn the language, but they can still use descriptive techniques to explain what we mean. We use it to educate people, and we don't even realise we go through a lot of it when we're younger (e.g. "A boulder is a large rock of over 256mm in diameter".).

You need to remember what the lexicon adds in complexity must be balanced elsewhere... so if you have a large lexicon, your syntax can be less complex (mostly because you don't need gigantic nominal groups (i.e. phrase acting as a noun/object)). My making syntax complex or difficult (English does this) you allow nesting of structures (phrases within sentences are a wonderful example), you remove the need for new words. (Not that you can't have both, but you replace the complex structure with the word (a lexical shortcut). A bit like macros in programming ...)

Originally Posted by fezh But in fact, if you know a language you can easily learn a language from the same "tree". For example, a person who knows how to speak almost perfectly in English can easily learn German. In my case, nowdays, I can easily learn every "west germanic" and "romance" language but unfortunately I don't like these, I'll always stick with my loved Japanese.

I'm not going to knitpick this, because it's about right ... it's because the grammars are similar, even if the lexicon (read: 'dictionary') isn't. (Fezh, have you studied linguistics?)

Originally Posted by Seta00 Portuguese is the same, the tree you talk about is latin

Seta's already had enough of my ranting about Portuguese on IRC ... it's not that bad.

Originally Posted by Hawk552 Everyone should learn Lojban.

No. Nor should they learn esperanto. Synthetic languages aren't flexible enough, and extending the lexicon will "corrupt" them in the same ways natural langauges "extend" into "corruption". ( Notably the so called "vulgar" forms are trouble, but it's how we communicate, add new meaning, and enable more efficient interpersonal transmission of data (i.e. "better talking"). )

Originally Posted by wariorman Pfft, please go learn arabic and tell me if it is easy

It's not that bad, it's just different.

Originally Posted by grimvh2 Exactly the same in french. No, sorry, french has even more shitty words.

French is, at the very least, maintained. It has a maintained form (Académie française) from which the "vulgar" (that is to say "spoken"/"adaptive"/"flexible") dialects stem. That takes away a lot of complexity because while there may be extension, you can still fall back onto a base form for communication.

Originally Posted by abdul-rehman I agree with you In Arabic, there are many words so its really difficult

The same applies to every language... >_>

Originally Posted by aaarnas What about Chinese ?

Which dialect? ... but I don't need an answer because ...

Originally Posted by fezh Asian languages are easy because they always keep almost the same syntax. What is difficult is writting.

Case markings make life easy ... so does word order ...

Originally Posted by fR4gn0tiX! Georgian Language is one of the most difficult languages of the world. The most difficult is our grammar. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_grammar And yes, we have our own THREE alphabets xD

I disagree. You have case markings and your irregularities are relatively limited. It's just that the language isn't something English speakers are used to, so transitioning into, or out of, Georgian, is difficult.

Originally Posted by fR4gn0tiX! BTW, Congrats to both of new approvers

Agreed! Congratulations guys.


Finally: No language is "the most difficult". If you are a native speaker of a language, learning any other is more difficult than simply speaking your own. You're talking about A->B transitions, not A->A. The similarities between German and English make it easier for native speakers of one to learn the other, but it's only the similarities which make it easy; neither language is "easy", they're just similar.

English is messed up, so is Russian, so is Turkish. There are a lot of languages which have been adapted in various ways by various groups. It causes all sorts of issues, as people adapt the syntax, add to the lexicon, and change the way they spell or say things (graphological or phonological adaptations). Change is a necessary evil of language -- only through change can we keep up with technological, societal, and cultural, advances. We are still able to describe our way out of issues (e.g. one contextually set meaning for "bucket" vs "that vessel, over there, used to transport small quantities of material, be they liquid, or solid"). However, it is faster to use specific words as "shortcuts" for our meaning. We rely on context, syntax, lexicon, intonation (something we don't have to address here, thankfully), phonology (i.e. how it sounds / is adapted based on sounds around it) OR graphology (spelling/alphabet/a whole world of pain), and deixis (we can point to things or use references).

Language is a mess, nothing is easy, nothing is hard, it's just a question of understanding the inherited shortcuts. After all, language is just a series of references to abstractions and understandings.

* shrugs *

I hope that covers what Seta was hoping to provoke. Enjoy the wall of text?

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tl;dr: [CITATIONS NEEDED]

[theY4Kman]

So Tibetan is the hardest language.

[Seta00]

Imagine if he hadn't been sleepy.

Oh dear, what a large yak you have.

[Swixel]

Originally Posted by theY4Kman So Tibetan is the hardest language.

No, no, Tibetan monks are the hardest people. I can see where you'd make the mistake.

Originally Posted by Seta00 Imagine if he hadn't been sleepy. Oh dear, what a large yak you have.

That's what she said (to both parts).

[Seta00]

rofl

[hleV]

Hawk552 is pro at foruming.

[abdul-rehman]

Originally Posted by Swixel *Alot of Rubbish which was not a good idea to quote

How did you get time to reply to all this shit !!