English - primitive or complex?

I've heard many people say that English is substantially less complex than the vast majority of indo-European languages; hence, making it considerably less flexible, nuanced, and more contextual as the result of all of this. While many others claim completely the opposite, saying it is the best human language that has gazillions of fucking words, - I personally tend to believe it is a myth - and I want to know who's in the wrong here.

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue–green_distinction_in_language
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Russian is better.

bumping

No language is more or less "complex" than another: structural complexity in one area is compensated by simplicity in another. For example, English has an utterly impoverished system of inflection (word endings to indicate grammatical categories), but its syntax is relatively fixed (more rules) to encode what would otherwise be done with inflection. In contrast, Latin has a vastly more rich inflectional system, and thus requires less syntactic rules (note that this could equally be thought of the other way around - i.e. English requires less inflection due to its syntactic rules)

Consider also the infamous Piraha, which, although purportedly missing some of the most basic and universal morphological and syntactic features of language, possess one of the most rich and complex systems of verbal inflection known. The point is, it's a give and take.

The larger issue at hand though is whether some languages are able to say things that others aren't. The answer is: no. All languages are capable of expressing the same meaning, although some translations may subjectively have greater aesthetic value. If we think of meaning as a space, all languages operate within that same space, although they each divide it differently.

Sources:
Pellegrino, François, et al. “A CROSS-LANGUAGE PERSPECTIVE ON SPEECH INFORMATION RATE.” Language, vol. 87, no. 3, (2011), pp. 539–558. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23011654.
Lyons, J. (1971). New horizons in linguistics. Harmondsworth: Penguin; Introduction
Greenberg, Joseph H. (1963). Some Universals of Grammar with Particular Reference to the Order of Meaningful Elements. In Greenberg, Joseph H. (ed.), Universals of Human Language, 73-113. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Daniel L. Everett , "Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Pirahã Another Look at the Design Features of Human Language," Current Anthropology 46, no. 4 (August/October 2005): 621-646.

>The larger issue at hand though is whether some languages are able to say things that others aren't. The answer is: no.
There are a lot of concepts in Russian English can't convey. Doesn't mean English isn't self-sufficient just like any other tongue tho.

That is categorically false. It might take a long time to describe it in English, and it might be ugly, but it can be described. This has to do with the formal logical structure of Language, and also its cognitive origin. See Searle (1979) "Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts"

>There are a lot of concepts in Russian English can't convey
Name some. Then realize you just expressed them in English and so proved yourself wrong.

There are numerous endings (like diminutives, suffixes intended to make a word sound sillier, derogatory suffixes and many other things) that can be applied not only to nouns, but also to adjectives and sometimes even verbs. And no, I can't show you any example in English since it's so retarded.

>All languages are capable of expressing the same meaning, although some translations may subjectively have greater aesthetic value.

>>aesthetics are subjective

This is your brain on positivism

>See Searle (1979) "Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts"

>>citing some oxbridge cunt from the 70s to defend an assertion about translation

oh my

Wouldn't that kind of being like taking the english word "tiny" and making it sound sillier by saying "teeny weeny"?

>That is categorically false
It isn't false at all.
>It might take a long time to describe it in English, and it might be ugly, but it can be described
Describing things peculiar to Russian as to how they work and all isn't the same as expressing them.

>diminutives can't be expressed in English

Are you retarded?

That would be only the tip of the iceberg, there are still many things that don't have any analogue in English.

Perhaps you should stop throwing strawman arguments at me. And since you mentioned diminutives, what are diminutive forms of the words small, beautiful, stupid, tiny, green etc?

>can't add silly suffixes to adjectives
>he doesn't realize English is one of the few languages where you can add curse words to any place in a word, even as infixes
What a re-fucking-tarded pseud

The point is that information is convayed in different ways than Russian but functionally work the same. That's the difference between an synthetic language and an analytic language.

Please read literally anything about Linguistics and Philosophy of Language.

>philosophy being remotely relevant to establishing whether different natural languages have fundamental differences

Fuck you, senpai.

this

this nigga knows his linguistics

Notice that I included "Linguistics".

So I will refer you to my original post in which I give a relatively thorough explanation of these alleged differences, and list several sources which you may use to inform yourself.

Just off yourself.

:^)

>itt: pseuds get wrecked
lesson: post sources

My Japanese professor explained to me once that although English has a wealth of words, it's pool of commonly used words is actually smaller than Japanese. As a result most things written in English will require less effort for a Japanese student of English to understand than the other way around, and that's not even factoring in things like writing systems and Kanji, this is straight up vocabulary.
That said, English has a strong literary tradition and many native speakers, and as writers learn from and derive from other writers in their base language it's hard to say that English literature is in general more or less complex than Japanese, for example.

I'd like a better source on that. A quick google suggests there are likely more commonly used words in English than in Japanese.

Why would you ever buy a dictionary when you can look up the word instantly?

I already made clear my source is anecdotal, you'll have to research more on your own. The only other thing I have to back it up is how hard it is to read a newspaper in Japanese even after learning the "basic" 2000 kanji.

I'm pretty sure your Japanese professor is just full of shit.

Okay , but we're both fluent in two languages and I doubt you're fluent in even one so I'm pretty sure I don't care what you think about the topic.

This nigga used citations in a Veeky Forums post

Not him, but my quick google search shows that a 90% coverage of English requires 2800 words while a 90% coverage of Japanese requires 5500 words. 95% for English requires 5000, 95% for Japanese 11000. 98% for English requires 8000 words while 98% for Japanese requires 20000.

The people who complain about English are butthurt ESL, most likely Chinese. See, they have such a poor grasp on the language, and are used to a complete absence of grammar, so naturally they are offended by English.

Wouldn't be it be reasonable for people who complain about English to be ESL?

English is more intelligent than you, that is why you cannot conquer it. You cannot provide examples because your grasp of English is academic at best.
>diminutive
Pig: piggie, piglet.
>silly suffixes
Jerk: jerkasaurus
>derogatory suffixes
Shit: shitter

English can also do much of this through alternative means. Typical slav(e), demanding that everything function one way.

Sure, but the fact that they are ESL (and they always are) instantly takes away any validity their complaints might have had.
For Chinese, especially students (little fucking shits), it comes down to actually practicing the language. No, speaking it (poorly) when required to is not 'practice'.

>small
Smalllet
>beautiful
Beautifullet
>tiny
Tinylet
>Green
Greenlet
>stupid
(you)

No one fucking said English doesn't have diminutives at all, you fucking twat.

smallish
beautifulish
stupidish
tinyish
greenish
etc.ish

>no language is more or less complex than another
So you know little to nothing about African languages, then?

>MLA citations on Veeky Forums

I have truly seen everything now.

I feel like I should be applauding, and I'm not even American.

Not an expert but there's a problem with regards to what constitutes a 'word' in agglutinative languages like japanese, so it would be worth looking into whether those numbers include just roots or their inflected forms as separate words.

Those are not diminutives.

At least when I say diminutive, in Russian it adds cuteness but does not necessarily diminish it by size or quality. Anyway, we have exact same analogue of -ish in russian too.

You're right, I apologize for being retarded.

BRUMPFFF

But in English we convey that information not through suffixes but in other words. Like "Look at that adorable (noun)!" and in a translation you'd just unpack the information into other words. It makes English less succinct but arguably more descriptive and flexible as we can add as many descriptive words as we feel.

You're too stupid.

;-)

Nabokov was very fond of English and I think even preferred it (at the very least the English Lolita) to his native Russian. He also spoke French. Reading Lolita or any great English literature makes you realize the breadth, elegance and complexity that can be achieved with the language. Whether it's 'primitive' or not is hard to answer when artists use it as a tool to craft something special. Maybe you could say it's a simple language, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's lacking anything.

As someone whose first language is German yet consumes most media in English, I can't consider one 'better' than the other. What criteria do we have to establish and who shall do so?

Russian second language speaker here, English first language.

I can categorically tell you that English can indeed express all of these concepts that you speak of.

Firstly, diminutives. As people have said "let" is the formal english diminutive, and it's the standard English one. What you might be missing as a non native speaker is all the various regional forms of the diminutives that get every bit as diverse as Russian diminutives. I live in Ireland and believe me when I say we can get as creative with diminutives and cram as much meaning into them here as you can in Russian.

On the subject of prefixes, I'll admit firstly that English doesn't use them nearly as often as Russian, but that doesn't mean that we can't and don't. The vast majority of prefixed verbs and nouns that you seem to think hold such untranslateable meaning can in fact be translated literally in a comprehensible way, and yes, fair enough it seems awkward. But how is English any different in that regard? The fact that you can't break English words up into component parts like you can with Russian words I think is more of a sign of your lack of mastery of English.

I'm assured by well read Russian natives that Nabokov is decidedly worse in Russian

And Nabokov would agree.
What are you hinting at?

Can I say looky at his scarylet facelet? You see, I have some pretty fucking serious reservations about the validity of this sentence. Perhaps your Russian just isn't that good after all to understand what I'm saying.

What a mature response.

this thread is racist

The slav(e) did. He is afraid of English.

Kys.

>this is your brain on Russian nationalism

Since no one hitherto succeeded to privide me with any counter evidence to English not being primitive, my final verdict is that it is indeed primitive.

Problems with this statement.
>You didn't bring forward any evidence in the first place.
>Counterevidence was nonetheless supplied, rebuffing you, and you ignored it.
>You are in no position to make any verdict, especially considering your obvious bias.

I fucked you mom the other night and she seemed to enjoy it immensely, you massive faggot.

You realise there's no benefit to posturing online? Nobody thinks you're a big man because you act tough on the internet.

I'm speaking of dialectised english, something you would know if you had actually read my post.

Take for example West Cork English. One might say something like "have a sconce at the frightnin big faceen on him"

Which means exactly what you say and used diminutives in a very similar way. Standard English can't do this, I'll admit. But only middle and upper class city folk speak anything that could be called "standard"

>Which means exactly what you say and used diminutives in a very similar way
Where? I can't see any diminutive whatever except that weird word faceen which I've never seen before. I doubt such a word even exists tbqn.

bump

both

Cyka!!!!!

I think this discussion is just fundamentally pointless for a couple of reasons.

There's no way you can possibly explain to anyone how other languages work on a practical level if the person can't speak any other language. The person would only fully understand it if he/she could already speak another language. So this argument will most likely last forever in that situation.

Languages shape the way we think, to a certain extent. There are words that are just lost when translated because they simply don't exist in other languages. Many african languages lack expressions and words describing abstract concepts, for instance. Japanese has different names for different shades of colors that english doesn't. And so on.

So, you can't get to a consensus over this subject, specially if the person you're trying to debate can only speak english, and I can understand why they think that way.
Native english speakers tend to see a lot of people having a hard time learning english, presenting heavy accents and so on, and they tend to take this for a hint that people do this because english is "hard", or "difficult", or whatever. I think it has nothing to do with how hard the language is, it has to do with other things.

The thing is, you can't deny that english lacks many grammatical concepts that virtually all other indo european languages share; for instance, gender nouns, inflection, verbal conjugation and so on. This makes it harder for native english speakers to learn other languages because these concepts are foreign to them, but it doesn't necessarily mean that english is a primitive language when it comes to other things.

>apanese has different names for different shades of colors that english doesn't. And so on.

the english language has many names for differant shades, there just not put into use

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue–green_distinction_in_language

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>all languages can express the same meaning
Imagine being so brainwashed by egalitarianism that you actually believe this lmao

i wouldn't say it's, like, COMPLEX so much as it is a contrived mess.

Show a counter example brainlet.
Give examples.
Legit impressed by this post. Linguistics is a topic everything think they know a lot about because everyone get a lot of exposure to it, and a lot of the most basic concepts relate very concretely to everyday situations.

However, people obviously dont actually know much about the subject, its just a giant prime example of Dunning-Kruger.

Anyways, this post is 100% correct.

>t. someone with a degree

Is correct, and the fact that english has a ton of words is meanings less because

1. Like 1/2 of it is just synonyms.
2. Its all borrowed from latin and old norse.
3. Other languages can just borrow form english is the dont have a term for something (which is pretty rare in reality).
4. The average english speaker has a pretty small active vocabulary in comparison with the total vocabulary of the english language.

Why are people still posting after that third post?

Some Russian wanted to sound smart but got BTFO so bad he chimped out.

It's engaging listening in to those, who in essence are complete monoglots, furthering the idea that all languages are equal, kek. And what's next? You're gonna tell me that niggers and whites have the same iq on average?

english is pretty good, it make nuance and doesnt afraid of filthy polyglots

Who cares about inflections, diminutives and shit.

To express complex thoughts you need words, lots of them. I doubt every language has the same quantity of words.

In before German: when I say "quantity of words", I mean quantity of different roots.

>muh post with citations
If you want to shut up and listen to experts, you go to reddit.
If you want to exchange your uneducated opinions, you come here.

The spelling system is English actually helps it carry more words than other languages which are more phonetically written.

We spell it philosophy rather than filosofi to distinguish it from more common words (as does French and German I believe)

If by experts you mean whoever has the most popular opinion

Also English spelling system helps to keep different dialects with different pronunciation rules together.

Actually, since writing systems are artificially created, some are indeed better than others.

However, i still wouldnt call english's better than others, its just different, and not for the reason you wrote. The reason one can forgive english being written non-phonetically is because this allows it to reflect a lot of history behind the words.

Its easy to see that nothing = no thing, but if it were written phonetically it'd be written like nuhthing, or n[new vowel]thing.

However, this does not prove that english has a better writing system, just that its different.

I speak 4 langauges and can read/write 9-10.

See thread
Control f "linguist"
First find
Pleasantly suprised

I am not a native speaker of English.
It is true that English grammar is extremely simple, but that doesnt make it bad in any way, simple does not mean bad.

Also, English phonology, the pronounciation, is pretty hard.
And English is very efficient. By that I mean, translations into English from other European languages, always take less space.

I dont know much about linguistics. But I always thought the reason why English phonology is so complex, is words in English tend to be short, very often monosyllabic, so they need more "sounds" to not be ambiguous. In languages with longer words, they can be unambiguous with less sounds, just ordering the sounds they have differently along the different syllables of their longer words.

The only real "bad" things about English is having "You" be both plural and singular, and the spelling. But both are "fake" problems, if a consensus existed to use Youse/Yall and for a spelling reform to make it more phonetical, those problems would be eliminated.
I guess the restrictive word order could be seen as bad too, but then, that can't be changed. Although the reason why Yoda speak is unacceptable seems to me more psychological than grammatical.

english is objectively more crude compared to russian or french, because in it, functional expression is achieved via a set of immutable rules that dictate strict patterns of expression, word order is one such rule, verb transition another, etc.

All good answers.

bump

It seems English has suckes a dick by a long way.

Truly the opinion of a master linguist, folks.

Truly the respond of a reddit fag, getlemen.

>Read Anna Wierzbicka /thread

>English - primitive or complex?
Neither. All human languages are have same complexity mechanically and grammatically.

What makes a language 'complex' is the complex literate and/or technological tradition standing behind it. In that sense English is no more or less complex than Russian or Mandarin or German, etc.

Modern Norwegian is only about 100 years old, and as a result might have some of the simplest grammar of the European languages. However, as in the Norse poetry, metaphors are created by joining words, and you can even change adjectives into nouns as methaphors. In English these joined words would be spelled out into several words explaining the meaning.

Here are some examples: Morgengry, Morgenrode, Lysning, Brytning, Frembrudd, and I could just go on...

All of these are commonly used metaphors that would translate to "dawn". And you can even create new ones as well, how about... "himmelrod" (heavenly red) as an adjective, or "himmelrode" (the heavenly red) as a noun. The translation would depend on the context, but could also be understood as "dawn".

Thus the language can possibly be infinitely complex, if you truly master it. The most important difference is probably not in the language itself, but how it is used. In Norwegian it is common to use (and create) metaphors like this in every day language. In English, I hardly see anything like it outside of poetry.