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Your teacher might have overlooked the simple fact that English has taken the planet by storm. That's how hard it is. It's not the superficial, shower-thought i

by tgv 3y ago

Your teacher might have overlooked the simple fact that English has taken the planet by storm. That's how hard it is. It's not the superficial, shower-thought ideas that determine the practical ease of use, and they shouldn't be used to guide linguistic changes.

gampleman 3y ago
A language taking over usage has little to do with its qualities, but rather with the cultural domination practiced by its native speakers. English has some notably easy parts and some notably difficult parts. It's a language with remarkably simple grammar, but the orthography is notorious (see OP) as well as the very large vocabulary makes it difficult to master (although of course a high ceiling in a language isn't too much of a problem if you want your language to spread easily, as long as the floor is low).
- tgv 3y ago
  > as long as the floor is low All languages of highly developed cultures are equally complex, but English is definitely one that gives new learners a leg up. Its orthography is inconsistent, but we don't read through phonetic transcription. Chinese, OTOH, makes the start as a second language difficult, in all aspects.
TheDong 3y ago
English took over the world, yes, but it's hard to really determine that it's due to ease of use. The obvious reasons to me that English took over the world are because the British Empire forcibly killed other languages (often literally), and then the US's global financial and cultural influence aided it further. I don't think it's due to English that Britain and the US had such vast linguistic influence, and just as easily if the British spoke a different language, that would be the lingua franca. In short, there are too many factors in reality to really be able to say "so many people speak english, so obviously it's easy". No, rather, we can observe many people speak english, and perhaps that's because the internet and TV are dominated by english due to tech and hollywood, perhaps it's because the britsh rolled high on the "slavery and racism" stats a long time ago, and perhaps it's because it's easy to learn. My money's not on "easy to learn" being a leading reason there though.

by tgv 3y ago

gampleman 3y ago

A language taking over usage has little to do with its qualities, but rather with the cultural domination practiced by its native speakers. English has some notably easy parts and some notably difficult parts. It's a language with remarkably simple grammar, but the orthography is notorious (see OP) as well as the very large vocabulary makes it difficult to master (although of course a high ceiling in a language isn't too much of a problem if you want your language to spread easily, as long as the floor is low).

tgv 3y ago
> as long as the floor is low All languages of highly developed cultures are equally complex, but English is definitely one that gives new learners a leg up. Its orthography is inconsistent, but we don't read through phonetic transcription. Chinese, OTOH, makes the start as a second language difficult, in all aspects.

TheDong 3y ago

English took over the world, yes, but it's hard to really determine that it's due to ease of use. The obvious reasons to me that English took over the world are because the British Empire forcibly killed other languages (often literally), and then the US's global financial and cultural influence aided it further. I don't think it's due to English that Britain and the US had such vast linguistic influence, and just as easily if the British spoke a different language, that would be the lingua franca. In short, there are too many factors in reality to really be able to say "so many people speak english, so obviously it's easy". No, rather, we can observe many people speak english, and perhaps that's because the internet and TV are dominated by english due to tech and hollywood, perhaps it's because the britsh rolled high on the "slavery and racism" stats a long time ago, and perhaps it's because it's easy to learn. My money's not on "easy to learn" being a leading reason there though.