4 ms·

> Sorry to say this (and I might get some flak for this) but English is a pretty dumb language. I am no linguist and not even a native English speaker and thus

by tivert 3y ago

> Sorry to say this (and I might get some flak for this) but English is a pretty dumb language. I am no linguist and not even a native English speaker and thus this may be my ignorance speaking. I would hazard to say it's a pretty common feeling to think every language is dumb except your own. You're so used to the weirdness of your own language you don't even notice it, but weirdness in other language is always grating. > I am native Hindi speaker and at no time in Hindi can you have a different pronunciations from how the word is written (cache, knowledge, repertoire...) IMHO, the only dumb thing about English is the cultural tendency of its speakers to not modify spelling of foreign words as they are imported, even when those languages have completely different sound assignments (see Pinyin). However, once a word has a standard spelling, it makes sense to keep it even as pronunciation changes. > You can also never have a word pronounced differently in different tense (for example, Read.) That's the remnant of an old grammar rule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_ablaut https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_ablaut. It's from Proto-Indo-European and was apparently still present in Sanskrit. > Furthermore, there are no words to my knowledge which sound the same but have different written spelling! (Write, Right, Rite.) There's a good reason for that: to help disambiguate homophones in writing.

bestouff 3y ago
I dunno. I'm French and perfectly aware that my language is difficult to master. I wouldn't say it's dumb but it's just because I'm stupidly proud of my country.
- HappMacDonald 3y ago
  What I've learned about french is that the end of many words are a mash of keyboard letters including at least a few vowels with bonus points for the hardest consonants that exist (x, k, j, z, p, go wild!) which regardless of its contents is always pronounced as a vowel sound halfway between English "ew" and English "uh". Seems to happen more frequently in last names and place names than anywhere else, as well.
  - monknomo 3y ago
    the last half of french words have letters out the oiseaux
- InCityDreams 3y ago
  As a very strict anti-nationalist - what is it about your country you are proud of? Nb I travel a lot and ask the question a lot (when appropriate). When i think of 'my country', i see nothing to be proud of. I didn't do it. I believe George Carlin summmed it up best: be proud of things you did, not countries, and stuff (sorry, can'tfind link)?
  - Zanni 3y ago
    I think everyone should be proud of their country, despite its flaws. If you choose not to be, that's fine. I'm proud to be American, despite our internal strife and external belligerence. If I were born Chinese, I'd be proud of its incredible history, despite its current capture by the CCP and human rights abuses, etc. There's a difference between patriotism and nationalism.
  - FrankoDelMar 3y ago
    Besides nationalistic propaganda, I would imagine the root cause is a form of tribalism — the same reason people tend to root for their home sports team. For that reason, I also think being proud of something you had no choice in is understandable, but irrational. There is no way to be proud of one’s immutable identity without making a value judgement of the out group. Maybe unsurprisingly, Germans tend to be allergic to nationalism since they’re intimately familiar with its natural outcome.
- karaterobot 3y ago
  I think OC made a poor word choice with "dumb". Whether they intended it or not, no human language is dumb, they're all valid and functioning. I've studied French for many years, and will never have an intuitive sense of noun genders, it's just something I have to memorize by rote. The same is true for how complex structures of pronouns and modifiers seem to collapse into a compressed string of apostrophes when used informally. But when I ask French people how they know the gender of a noun, they shrug and say "I just do". The same is true for English's infamously fussy collection of special cases for grammar and spelling, which (as a native speaker) I never remember having to consciously learn how to navigate in speech or writing, though I must have. Your native language seems natural to you, including all the parts that outsiders may call dumb.
euroderf 3y ago
> > (Write, Right, Rite.) > There's a good reason for that: to help disambiguate homophones in writing. Most spelling reform proposals for English ignore this. Many would-be reformers try to cut directly to some particular phonetic spelling scheme, which throws away a key benefit of having homophones. Disclaimer: like many English speakers, I too have my own spelling reform scheme, with the key difference that mine is better than all the others.
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  That's a really bad benefit. If it's worth distinguishing them, it's worth distinguishing them when pronounced. Change the pronunciation or write them the same. It's not like English avoids words that have very separate meanings spelled and pronounced the same way.
  - euroderf 3y ago
    Why unnecessarily hobble readers that have already learned the homophone sets by heart ?
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      If you're doing spelling reform, you have already decided it's worth hobbling what people have already learned in exchange for fixing things. It is not more unnecessary than any other part of the spelling reform.
      - euroderf 3y ago
        Spelling reform is a continuum from do-nothing to full-phonetic. There's plenty of grey. Consider tho that if English is nowadays a lingua franca, we submit its learners to a lot of mental torture, including vast amounts of rote memorization of both spelling and pronunciation. English may not be quite as obnoxious as its up-and-coming main competitor, Mandarin Chinese, but it's a difference of degree not of kind. My 0,02€; YMMV. Start with common words that are one-offs that are assertively misleadingly spelled. Lose, gross, broad, height. There are many more.
OJFord 3y ago
On the other hand though, my (especially initial) experience as a native English speaker learning Hindi has been(/was) 'wow this is amazing, so logical, everything makes sense' and 'I can read it! I don't know what it means, but I can read it and say it, I can ask someone', etc.

by tivert 3y ago

bestouff 3y ago

I dunno. I'm French and perfectly aware that my language is difficult to master. I wouldn't say it's dumb but it's just because I'm stupidly proud of my country.

HappMacDonald 3y ago
What I've learned about french is that the end of many words are a mash of keyboard letters including at least a few vowels with bonus points for the hardest consonants that exist (x, k, j, z, p, go wild!) which regardless of its contents is always pronounced as a vowel sound halfway between English "ew" and English "uh". Seems to happen more frequently in last names and place names than anywhere else, as well.
- monknomo 3y ago
  the last half of french words have letters out the oiseaux
InCityDreams 3y ago
As a very strict anti-nationalist - what is it about your country you are proud of? Nb I travel a lot and ask the question a lot (when appropriate). When i think of 'my country', i see nothing to be proud of. I didn't do it. I believe George Carlin summmed it up best: be proud of things you did, not countries, and stuff (sorry, can'tfind link)?
- Zanni 3y ago
  I think everyone should be proud of their country, despite its flaws. If you choose not to be, that's fine. I'm proud to be American, despite our internal strife and external belligerence. If I were born Chinese, I'd be proud of its incredible history, despite its current capture by the CCP and human rights abuses, etc. There's a difference between patriotism and nationalism.
- FrankoDelMar 3y ago
  Besides nationalistic propaganda, I would imagine the root cause is a form of tribalism — the same reason people tend to root for their home sports team. For that reason, I also think being proud of something you had no choice in is understandable, but irrational. There is no way to be proud of one’s immutable identity without making a value judgement of the out group. Maybe unsurprisingly, Germans tend to be allergic to nationalism since they’re intimately familiar with its natural outcome.
karaterobot 3y ago
I think OC made a poor word choice with "dumb". Whether they intended it or not, no human language is dumb, they're all valid and functioning. I've studied French for many years, and will never have an intuitive sense of noun genders, it's just something I have to memorize by rote. The same is true for how complex structures of pronouns and modifiers seem to collapse into a compressed string of apostrophes when used informally. But when I ask French people how they know the gender of a noun, they shrug and say "I just do". The same is true for English's infamously fussy collection of special cases for grammar and spelling, which (as a native speaker) I never remember having to consciously learn how to navigate in speech or writing, though I must have. Your native language seems natural to you, including all the parts that outsiders may call dumb.

euroderf 3y ago

> > (Write, Right, Rite.) > There's a good reason for that: to help disambiguate homophones in writing. Most spelling reform proposals for English ignore this. Many would-be reformers try to cut directly to some particular phonetic spelling scheme, which throws away a key benefit of having homophones. Disclaimer: like many English speakers, I too have my own spelling reform scheme, with the key difference that mine is better than all the others.

Dylan16807 3y ago
That's a really bad benefit. If it's worth distinguishing them, it's worth distinguishing them when pronounced. Change the pronunciation or write them the same. It's not like English avoids words that have very separate meanings spelled and pronounced the same way.
- euroderf 3y ago
  Why unnecessarily hobble readers that have already learned the homophone sets by heart ?
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    If you're doing spelling reform, you have already decided it's worth hobbling what people have already learned in exchange for fixing things. It is not more unnecessary than any other part of the spelling reform.
    - euroderf 3y ago
      Spelling reform is a continuum from do-nothing to full-phonetic. There's plenty of grey. Consider tho that if English is nowadays a lingua franca, we submit its learners to a lot of mental torture, including vast amounts of rote memorization of both spelling and pronunciation. English may not be quite as obnoxious as its up-and-coming main competitor, Mandarin Chinese, but it's a difference of degree not of kind. My 0,02€; YMMV. Start with common words that are one-offs that are assertively misleadingly spelled. Lose, gross, broad, height. There are many more.

OJFord 3y ago

On the other hand though, my (especially initial) experience as a native English speaker learning Hindi has been(/was) 'wow this is amazing, so logical, everything makes sense' and 'I can read it! I don't know what it means, but I can read it and say it, I can ask someone', etc.