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English is a lumpy mishmash of West German, Scandinavian, and Old Norman, leavened with generous helpings of Latin, Greek, and borrowed words from dozens of oth
by RyanMcGreal 14y ago
English is a lumpy mishmash of West German, Scandinavian, and Old Norman, leavened with generous helpings of Latin, Greek, and borrowed words from dozens of other languages. That makes for a big basket of grammatical, spelling and pronunciation exceptions held together by vestigial declensions and duct tape.
All in all, a delightful language to read and write if you know it, but a tar pit if you're trying to learn it.
- gruseom 14y agoA tar pit if you're trying to master it, but not necessarily so hard to get started with.
- rogerbinns 14y agoI've heard that English speakers are far more tolerant of sentences that don't follow the rules and can still understand what is said (eg "the mat cat sat upon"). A French friend said that it can be difficult to understand if the speaker merely gets the gender wrong.
- saraid216 14y agoWhen I played with constructing my own language, one of my concerns was how much poetry and wordplay that a logical semantic consistency prevented. For instance, "I pick... you!" is impossible in a language where the direct object comes earlier in the sentence.