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to be honest most of those neat things exist in many other languages - for example all the slavic languages + the more conservative germanic ones have a way roo
by llcoolv 15y ago
to be honest most of those neat things exist in many other languages - for example all the slavic languages + the more conservative germanic ones have a way root+prefixes/suffixes that plays a similar role. also most of the slavic languages have separate endings for feminine/neuter plural and slovene even has the dual.
Apparently, to a person who only knows english, which is a very inconsistent and mixed language, these features could look extremely neat, but the reality is that they are quite common.
- timsally 15y ago> Apparently, to a person who only knows english, which is a very inconsistent and mixed language, these features could look extremely neat, but the reality is that they are quite common. I don't know enough to comment on the issues of language, but Maciej speaks Polish, French, and Russian. This is like the umpteenth comment that has assumed the author only speaks English. A curious pattern.
- aclimatt 15y agoThe main point of the article is not that Arabic has a list of things that are impossible to find in any other language. It is that Arabic has many intriguing features that are in contrast to what a native English speaker might be used to. (This is about native English speakers learning Arabic, not Arabic vs. The World.) When English speakers look to learn an "exotic language", the general go-tos are Chinese and Japanese, which have comparatively very simple grammars. Thus in the exotic language category, as the author points out, Arabic is a very intriguing choice. (And while many Indo-European languages may share a few related grammar rules, using the Latin alphabet hurts your candidacy as an exotic language.)