4 ms·

English is way too hard to learn and they have an irrational fondness for their spelling system.

nl 8y ago
I'm a native English speaker and I'm not going to defend how hard it is to learn. But I would note that spelling in English over the last 20 years has rapidly gotten more fluid, thanks perhaps to texting. I don't think we'll ever overcome the damage the timing of the great vowel shift[1] did, but perhaps in 50 years time it might be somewhat improved. [1] "English spelling was first becoming standardized in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the Great Vowel Shift is responsible for the fact that English spellings now often strongly deviate in their representation of English pronunciations." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift
- Sylos 8y ago
  So, this Great Vowel Shift caused most of the pronunciation differences that English has compared to other Germanic languages. I always thought it was just so odd compared to its siblings, because it had lots of influences from the colonization phase, but that apparently was done beforehand already.
  - jcranmer 8y ago
    The Great Vowel Shift is why we write words in Modern English as if we were speaking Middle English. But even before then, the shift from Old to Middle English radically simplified the Germanic grammar of English. The other major change is the tendency in English to borrow foreign words rather than the tendency to adapt them to English--for example, we say television, not farseeing. Since many technical roots derive from Latin, this somewhat artificially inflates the Romance root contribution to English.
    - kwoff 8y ago
      maybe interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_influence_in_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_influence_in_English
deleted 8y ago
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hsivonen 8y ago
Turns out that of various difficulties that languages can pose, English spelling is much less of a barrier than some difficult features that other languages have and that English notably doesn't have. (E.g. copious verb conjugations or noun cases or grammatical gender.)

nl 8y ago

I'm a native English speaker and I'm not going to defend how hard it is to learn. But I would note that spelling in English over the last 20 years has rapidly gotten more fluid, thanks perhaps to texting. I don't think we'll ever overcome the damage the timing of the great vowel shift[1] did, but perhaps in 50 years time it might be somewhat improved. [1] "English spelling was first becoming standardized in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the Great Vowel Shift is responsible for the fact that English spellings now often strongly deviate in their representation of English pronunciations." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift

Sylos 8y ago
So, this Great Vowel Shift caused most of the pronunciation differences that English has compared to other Germanic languages. I always thought it was just so odd compared to its siblings, because it had lots of influences from the colonization phase, but that apparently was done beforehand already.
- jcranmer 8y ago
  The Great Vowel Shift is why we write words in Modern English as if we were speaking Middle English. But even before then, the shift from Old to Middle English radically simplified the Germanic grammar of English. The other major change is the tendency in English to borrow foreign words rather than the tendency to adapt them to English--for example, we say television, not farseeing. Since many technical roots derive from Latin, this somewhat artificially inflates the Romance root contribution to English.
  - kwoff 8y ago
    maybe interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_influence_in_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_influence_in_English

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

hsivonen 8y ago

Turns out that of various difficulties that languages can pose, English spelling is much less of a barrier than some difficult features that other languages have and that English notably doesn't have. (E.g. copious verb conjugations or noun cases or grammatical gender.)