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Which Language Uses the Most Sounds?

nytimes.com

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Re: Which Language Uses the Most Sounds?

#31

Post by hasenj »

jfaucett wrote: post #8

A long time ago I was interested in finding out what the intersection of all languages sounds would be, would it be an empty set or was there enough overlap that someone designing the next esperanto could build it using universal sounds thus allowing any human speaker to pronunciate it without difficulty. Turns out there is a good degree of overlap if you allow for a very small bit of fuzzyness. For instance, 'a','m'…

Many Middle Eastern languages/dialects don't have the 'p' sound. For example, a native Egyptian with no training in English pronunciation would pronounce 'people' as 'biibul'.

Re: Which Language Uses the Most Sounds?

#32

Post by arundelo »

jfaucett wrote: post #8

A long time ago I was interested in finding out what the intersection of all languages sounds would be, would it be an empty set or was there enough overlap that someone designing the next esperanto could build it using universal sounds thus allowing any human speaker to pronunciate it without difficulty. Turns out there is a good degree of overlap if you allow for a very small bit of fuzzyness. For instance, 'a','m'…

If you're not already familiar with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toki_Pona , check it out. "Both its sound inventory and phonotactics (patterns of possible sound combinations) are found in the majority of human languages and are therefore readily accessible."

Re: Which Language Uses the Most Sounds?

#33

Post by labster »

DasIch wrote: post #4
blue1 wrote: post #2

I am thinking that Perl is (probably) the computer language which uses the most operators, but not everyone believes this is a good thing. I mean, it seems there is somewhere a sweet spot between lack of expressiveness and overcomplication.

Perl might have a lot of operators but Haskell's ability to define your own operators leads to a ton of operators in the standard library and third party packages.

Perl 6 has a similar ability to define custom operators. In addition to the rich selection of normal operators, there are the meta operators like summation [+] and the bat operator ^..^ and a full range of set operators like ∈.

Re: Which Language Uses the Most Sounds?

#36

Post by vorg »

blue1 wrote: post #2

I am thinking that Perl is (probably) the computer language which uses the most operators, but not everyone believes this is a good thing. I mean, it seems there is somewhere a sweet spot between lack of expressiveness and overcomplication.

Programming language operators seem more analogous to words like prepositions and pronouns in natural languages than to sounds. I think the analogous concept to a NL sound in a PL is a token (ASCII or Unicode).

Re: Which Language Uses the Most Sounds?

#37

Post by tome »

Cyph0n wrote: post #29
nv-vn wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many claim that Haskell is easiest to learn as a first language.

I don't know Haskell, but from what I've seen, it doesn't look like a beginner-friendly language. I think Python is the undisputed king of introductory languages.

It means that the easiest time to learn Haskell is as a first language, not that it's the easiest of all first languages!

Re: Which Language Uses the Most Sounds?

#38

Post by ue_ »

Cyph0n wrote: post #29
nv-vn wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many claim that Haskell is easiest to learn as a first language.

I don't know Haskell, but from what I've seen, it doesn't look like a beginner-friendly language. I think Python is the undisputed king of introductory languages.

The strange syntax of Haskell is what's turning me off from learning it. With Lisp, the syntax was strange still, sure, but it wasn't confusing, it made sense. I feel like I can't even get in to reading Haskell or even OCaml.

However if Haskell had macros (like Perl 6's or even Lisp's), I'd jump ship from Lisp quite quickly. It's a mature language with the libraries I want.

Re: Which Language Uses the Most Sounds?

#39

Post by Cyph0n »

tome wrote: post #37
Cyph0n wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know Haskell, but from what I've seen, it doesn't look like a beginner-friendly language. I think Python is the undisputed king of introductory languages.

It means that the easiest time to learn Haskell is as a first language, not that it's the easiest of all first languages!

Ohh I see. That makes sense!

Re: Which Language Uses the Most Sounds?

#40

Post by dllthomas »

ue_ wrote: post #38
Cyph0n wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know Haskell, but from what I've seen, it doesn't look like a beginner-friendly language. I think Python is the undisputed king of introductory languages.

The strange syntax of Haskell is what's turning me off from learning it. With Lisp, the syntax was strange still, sure, but it wasn't confusing, it made sense. I feel like I can't even get in to reading Haskell or even OCaml. However if Haskell had macros (like Perl 6's or even Lisp's), I'd jump ship from Lisp quite quickly. It's a mature language with the libraries I want.

> if Haskell had macros

What are you wanting that's missing from Template Haskell?

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