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Weird English

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Re: Weird English

#81

Post by Longhanks »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #62
mathieuh wrote: post #3

People always seem to complain about the etymological spelling of English but I love it. I love being able to look at a word and quickly know what its likely origin language was and get an idea of its meaning. N.B. I'm not a prescriptivist and I don't really care how you spell something as long as I can make it out. I'm just interested in languages and think it's really cool that looking at English words is like peer…

> Fair, it makes it more difficult for learners, but I'm not sure how relevant that is for a language unless you debase languages to being simply brutal ways of conveying meaning. It makes it difficult for everyone. So many hours of L1 and L2 speakers are sunk for no good reason just because someone finds it cool to have “p” in “receipt”.

Your complaint comes down to the meme „why use many word when few do trick“.

Re: Weird English

#82

Post by LudwigNagasena »

Longhanks wrote: post #81
LudwigNagasena wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fair, it makes it more difficult for learners, but I'm not sure how relevant that is for a language unless you debase languages to being simply brutal ways of conveying meaning. It makes it difficult for everyone. So many hours of L1 and L2 speakers are sunk for no good reason just because someone finds it cool to have “p” in “receipt”.

Your complaint comes down to the meme „why use many word when few do trick“.

There is literally no connection between my “complaint” and the meme.

Re: Weird English

#83

Post by Borrible »

bagacrap wrote: post #75
Asraelite wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A funny thing is that there do exist "closed source" constructed languages whose use it legally restricted, like Loglan.

or French

Le monde est peut-être un endroit étrange, mais il y a des endroits encore plus étranges...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toubon_Law

Merci beaucoup

Re: Weird English

#84

Post by dragonwriter »

InitialLastName wrote: post #79
BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly enough, I actually learned more about the mechanics of English through learning Spanish than I did through high school English class. The English curriculum was geared towards reading literature and summarizing the morals and themes rather than learning the rules of English language. Having to understand the concept of grammatical tense through conjugating verbs in Spanish made me actually think about things li…

I've always thought that "English" class was a misnomer. There are really two different pedagogical goals: - Learn to read and write accurately and clearly in the English language (what would, in Spain, Germany or China also be "English Class") - Practice a REPL regarding things that other people have written (in the context of a larger corpus of things that people have written), by happenstance in English because th…

Those aren't separate goals; the thing you call a REPL for Literature that happens to be in English is exactly for learning to read (the Read part of REPL) and write (the Print part) English accurately.

There are different components (the REPL part is called “Literature" when separated out, and other major, though conceptually lower-level, parts are called “Composition” and “Grammar”, and there are probably more; equal with Literature, and also a kind of REPL, are “Conversation” or “Speech”, where the P and, in the former case, the R of the REPL are oral rather than written.)

Foreign languages are often taught similarly, including the REPL parts.

Re: Weird English

#85

Post by seanhunter »

Two of my favourites: - Why do we have guarantee and warrantee that mean essentially the same thing? (Because one word was imported into English from French at two different periods in history) - Why do we have child -> children, brother -> bretheren (obv archaic but still would be understood by most people) but no other plurals that work that way? You can't say one sister many sistren for example. Even though that word existed in Old English it didn't survive into modern English.

Re: Weird English

#86

Post by mbg721 »

seanhunter wrote: post #85

Two of my favourites: - Why do we have guarantee and warrantee that mean essentially the same thing? (Because one word was imported into English from French at two different periods in history) - Why do we have child -> children, brother -> bretheren (obv archaic but still would be understood by most people) but no other plurals that work that way? You can't say one sister many sistren for example. Even though that w…

I have heard, I think from a user on here, that crimes are often listed as a pair of synonyms (e.g. "aiding and abetting") because one word was Norman French and the other was English, and the law required both to be understood.

Re: Weird English

#87

Post by dghf »

rich_sasha wrote: post #64
dghf wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incoming pedantry: IIRC, Tolkien "only" invented two full languages, Sindarin ("Grey Elvish") and Quenya ("High Elvish"), if "full" means you could write a letter or have a conversation in it. He did create the foundations and some vocabulary for several others, like (as you mentioned) Dwarvish, and the Black Speech of Mordor, and Westron (a.k.a. the Common Speech), the language represented in the books by English (w…

I don't have much to say, other than it's nice to meet other (more knowledgable too) language nerds. Have a good day :)

Thank you, and likewise.

Re: Weird English

#88

Post by mbg721 »

BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #52
nkrisc wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every person I’ve talked to who’s learned English as a second language told me it was pretty easy. There’s lots of weird shit to learn to truly master it, but to learn enough to speak conversationally is easy, I’ve been told. When I was in Costa Rica learning Spanish, the folks there pitied me since they thought learning Spanish would be difficult. Funnily enough, in contrast I thought it wasn’t so hard: having clear…

Oddly enough, I actually learned more about the mechanics of English through learning Spanish than I did through high school English class. The English curriculum was geared towards reading literature and summarizing the morals and themes rather than learning the rules of English language. Having to understand the concept of grammatical tense through conjugating verbs in Spanish made me actually think about things li…

Studying Latin is great for that purpose, since mostly you get to skip the "Good evening! My passport is in the fishpond. Where is the bathroom?" lessons. I think the biggest a-ha moment there for me was realizing when an entire clause is acting as a given part of speech.

Re: Weird English

#89

Post by nobody9999 »

jeroenhd wrote: post #48
altacc wrote: post #12

English is a beautiful slow motion car crash of multiple languages & influences and the result is a great language but I do pity anyone trying to learn it. When I was having difficulty learning the rules & oddities of another language, it really helped me to look back at English and remember that there are so many oddities, inconsistencies and variances, that most other European languages are easy to master in compar…

I think English is actually not that hard to master. What's difficult is writing it down . For every common word, English has a version derived from Celtic, Germanic and early French. Sometimes there are also versions with Latin or Greek descent. If you know any European language (stemming from Indo-European, languages like Hungarian and Finnish are something else entirely) then you'll quickly find words that you can…

>Written English and spoken English rarely corresponds in any way that makes sense. The easiest example is that you can't tell if "read" is past or present tense, because -ea- has two entirely different pronunciations that are used arbitrarily

That's a good example, but since regardless of tense, both pronunciations have the same essential meaning (to consume/have consumed written material), it's not hard to pick up the meaning from context.

Incorrect usage can be much more problematic. The lose loose issue is a really egregious example.

Lose (luz) is to "not win" or to "no longer have something", while loose (lew-se) can be "not tight" or "freed from some constraint."[0]

I imagine that sort of incorrect usage confuses non-native English users more than differences in pronunciation.

[0] Definitions and pronunciation are inexact, but close enough IMHO.

Re: Weird English

#90

Post by nobody9999 »

dghf wrote: post #13
rvba wrote: post #8

What I find interesting is that English speakers will rather invent a new language than use an already existing one. Klingon, Dothraki, the belter language in "The expanse" - all tv shows try hard to create something new. And I dont think politics is the reason here.

Wouldn't it break the illusion if Klingons and Dothraki just happened to speak a real Earth language? And Belter is meant to be an English-based creole, reflecting the in-book/in-show history of the Belters as the descendants of speakers of several different languages who needed a lingua franca.

>And Belter is meant to be an English-based creole, reflecting the in-book/in-show history of the Belters as the descendants of speakers of several different languages who needed a lingua franca.

Heinlein did something similar with the Luna patois in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

I'm sure it's been done many times, both in literature and in fact.

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