/lit/ - Literature

It isn't

I speak English, but I completely agree with the way you feel. I hate English, it's a boring, complicated and bland language. I'm currently in the process of learning Italian. It's a language with some culture.

>>3347208

>implying

>>3347211

That's not what I was saying you immature child. It's not meant to tantilize your taste buds when you speak, but it is the most superior language. I wanted to know why you guys appreciate it.

English is an amazing language. There are some languages that are much less developed, that restrict what can be expressed and even restrict the ability of the user to generate ideas because of the languages limits. But English is very well developed, with various complex sentence structures, a variety of words that help the user express nuances that some languages just can't express or even comprehend. Praise English, thank god it was adopted as the World's international language.

>>3347205
English is like Unix. It is the bitch conglomerate bastard child that we've ended up with.

>>3347216
I might be biased because it's my native tongue, but English is a more malleable language than many.

The fam speaks Chinese and, comparatively, it's hard to toy with form in the same way with Chinese, IMO.

>>3347222

you should write for big bang theory

>>3347228
Read the Jargon File and get back to me on the true inheritor of the 1960s experiments with operating systems.

> tfw I spoiled my chance to be a fluent german reader years ago.

>>3347234

like i said

>>3347211
>English
>complicated

>>3347243

Exactly. It is the simpliest lanuage to learn and use. Changing the context, tense etc can all be done with a standard suffix, prefix etc

>>3347264

Pic related, you can totally fuck up a word and still understand what was meant.

>>3347268
because that doesn't work with other languages

As far as functionality and syntax, I've no opinion. But I love etymology, and as a language that developed over time from many other languages, it's pretty fuckin' rad.

<English
<superior
Is this a ruse?

>>3347282
Depends on the language. Fucking up chinese characters means that shit doesn't mean anything.

At the same time, because the English language has so many intuitive rules and exceptions, I hear it's hella difficult to learn.

It is generally simpler than most of the other languages, but it is fucking annoying to have to look in the dictionary every time I see a new word, because there are too many exceptions on the pronunciation.

>>3347292

>>3347287
>2012
>Fucking up the most simple thing ever.

>>3347309
Are you frustrated?

>Robust Anglo saxon foundation
>but refined by the manners of French
>massive vocabulary from germanic and latinate languages, able to use both to great effect
>world language of commerce, culture and politics

seriously is anyone not glad they are native english speakers? The first language I grew up speaking is spanish and I love it, but thank god I came to the US young

>>3347243
Linguisticly speaking, it is a very complex language because its development has happened very rapidly and has borrowed so much from so many other languages.

Two reasons English is cool!

1) The rich history of the language allows us to draw from 3 other languages and speak with more subtly! Think of the difference between a meeting (german) rendezvous (french) and convocation (latin). These differences come from German being the "common" base language (pig), french belonging to the upper-class people we served (pork) and latin being the lnguage of the church and later academia. Wooo

2) English is unique in how readily it absorbs other languages. This is related to it's complicated history, but fuck if I know the details. The point is if we don't have a word for something we just make one with greek or latin or straight-up steal it from another. This is in contrast to other languages resistant to foreign tongue, especially french, that need to invent words all the time.

BONUS: It uses an alphabet unlike those crazy-ass asian shit.

The only major downside is how it is written is not always how it is said, though this is an uncommon feature outside of italian.

>>3347292

It's very simple to learn basic English. The complication begins when one wants to speak it well/proper.

>>3347365
Now just learn Chinese and you can speak to every bilingual person on the planet.

Has anyone ITT learned english after knowing German? Ich lerne Deutsch, and I am loving the massive overlap with my native tongue.

>>3347404
why learn chinese when I could learn german, italian and french in less time, without having to learn thousands of characters which might end up being useless anyways (oh wait you learned simplified, we use traditional here in taiwan, LOL).

Also tones

fuck that shit

English is not a complex language. It's been picked up and flung around by so many different cultures over the millennia that it has been shorn of ornamental features.

In general, the more people that speak a language, and in particular, the more the language is learned by adults (who will not learn the language 100%, thus simplifying it to fit their needs), the simpler the language will be in general. Compare any of the European languages with say the languages of the Native Americans.

>>3347409

sounds kinky

>chinese tones
>mfw chinese poetry

Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī.
Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī.
Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì.
Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì.
Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì, shǐ shì shí shī shìshì.
Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shíshì.
Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shíshì.
Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī.
Shí shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī shī, shí shí shí shī shī.
Shì shì shì shì.

>>3347413
>In general, the more people that speak a language, and in particular, the more the language is learned by adults (who will not learn the language 100%, thus simplifying it to fit their needs), the simpler the language will be in general. Compare any of the European languages with say the languages of the Native Americans.

do you have a source for this? if not I call bullshit

>>3347292
Never mind all the fucking idioms.

>>3347446
excuse me? I learned english young as well, but what does this have to do with anything? Point me to a credible source on linguistics or gtfo

>>3347422
It is bullshit. If it were true, we wouldn't have Creoles developing out of Pidgins. The closest true thing would be convergence (different dialects become more similar) since the rise of mass media and Standard English.

>>3347422
My mom started learning English when she was 44 and now by the age of 46 she can speak English at an average level. I became fluent in English at the age of fourteen yo and when I got to 16 I already had a posh accent. Factually, English is one of thee most easiest languages in the whole world. Which isn't something to be sad about, lad.

By the way, I'm Portuguese.

>>3347462
>I became fluent in English at the age of fourteen yo
Why do you write like a robot then?

>>3347205
Most difficult language to learn, no uniform endings, very large vocabulary(which is also a plus), many many different roots from different languages.

>>3347456
Even though you learned English at an young age thou clearly haven't master it.

I'm not going to search some shit for you at 4 AM. I guess what I said is common sense. Do you think English is hard or even remotely difficult language? Oh lad, stop.

>>3347477
Because when you work in the law department you don't have much space of maneuver to write/talk in any form besides of a formal one. Synthesizing, my speech got conditioned by my work.

>>3347496
How do you work in law with such poor English?

>>3347478
It's so difficult it's a world language. Such coherency.

>>3347500
Define poor english. Barking ad hominems doesn't make you right and I'm looking forward for your response since it's ingeniously ironic how someone who eats determinants claims I have an unhealthy English. I repeat, I'm looking forward for your response.

>>3347487
>thou
Where'd you learn english? in a time machine?

Also, I for one am happy to hear english is easy for foreigners, don't know what all the hubbub is about

>>3347521
>most easiest languages
>an young age
>thou
>haven't master it
>looking forward for
I call "pretending to be retarded".

>>3347521
I feel you man my English is also unhealthy, I left it in my house when I went on holiday and it had developed a tumor when I arrived back.

>>3347535
I hope a linguist can do something, hope it doesn't need to be put down.

>>3347205
Because potato.

>>3347421
as a guy who spent 6 months trying to learn chinese I find this very funny.

>>3347531
I enjoy the word "thou", it's posh.
>>3347533
>already mentioned it's 05:20 AM
I call "Sleep deprivation".
>>3347535
"Unhealthy" isn't only correlated with physical/biological contexts. I thought a native would know this. Well after all, it's your native language.

>>3347487
>I'm not going to search some shit for you at 4 AM. I guess what I said is common sense. Do you think English is hard or even remotely difficult language? Oh lad, stop.
>>3347462

Do not speak as though this language holds no secrets to you. Had Shakespeare lent you his pen your hand would have shattered under it's weight.

Your condescending hubris, tripfagging and multiple grammatical errors work in unison to guarantee pedestals for you, and your mother, in the hall of fucking cretins.

Signed, a French-Canadian.

>>3347582
10/10, laffed

>>3347586
My english is ten times better than yours and it's a second language. How does it feel to get passed on the bell curve?

>>3347579
>I enjoy the word "thou", it's posh.
It's the exact opposite. Nothing posh tut Yorkshire way lad.

Because it's the most widely spoken /thread

...and by virtue of this global usage, it has necessarily developed the ability to express essentially any meaning in any context, whereas most other languages will necessarily be limited by the limit horizons of their speakers.

p.s. from an objective POV, I think English gets it right in having a simple grammar (relative to other highly expressive language, having dispensed with almost all unnecessary/meaningless conjugation), while having an ENORMOUS vocabulary which gives speakers a huge pallet to work with.

>>3347590
and it's my second language.*

How does it feel being corrected by someone almost passing out by sleep deprivation?

>>3347598
almost passing out from sleep deprivation*
How it feel be corrected by East Asian ladyboy prostitute?

>>3347598
Native speaker here, there was nothing wrong with the original sentence.

>>3347582

a good post, in spite of itself

>>3347598
Guys, maybe he's stupid because he's still 16?

>>3347303
...indeed, the biggest knock against English is that, for such an innovative language, the spelling is very conservative and largely divorced from pronunciation.... although given pronunciation is so diverse in English I don't know how you'd make it phonetic except to pick one random person and spell to his usage. You'd also need accents which just makes a language cumbersome to write/type: one of English's great advantages first in printing and then especially in computers is that it's orthography is so simple: are there any other languages that can be written comprehensively with 26 letters and a few punctuation marks?

>>3347605
There is a difference between my second language and a second language. Even though there isn't an error grammatically there is one in the field of coherency.
>>3347604
Dunno. How does it feel*
How does it feel being corrected by someone who worked a whole day, went to a bar until 3 AM, came back home drunk and log on onto 4chan to correct someone who claims to have a superior english?

>>3347365
I teach English in Korea right now, and feel really good about it since I know that the kids who learn English well have the whole world open to them, while the ones who don't have MASSIVELY fewer options in life at every level.

>>3347401
properLY

>>3347409
I learned French being a native English speaker and it was nice that most French words are also English words; the hard part is remembering which ones aren't.

But then I later realized French is useless and have been slowly forgetting since.

>>3347625
>Gets called out beautifully for being a retard
>It's not my fault I write like an idiot, I had a hard day
I'm screening this to show further /lit/ generations how much of an idiot you are.

>>3347625
>How does it feel being corrected by someone who worked a whole day, went to a bar until 3 AM, came back home drunk and logged onto 4chan to correct someone who claims to have superior English?*
Sound much rike day of ladyboy prostitute, yes.

>>3347623
Back when the first American dictionary was being printed ( I think), some guy just went ahead and respelled most words to more closely resemble their pronunciation. Some of them caught on, which is why the American/British differ in some cases.

Unfortunately it's too late for some language authority to alter the language. Honestly we might just be better off adopt "ebonic" spellings since they are far more phonetic.

"Best advice I ever got was from the Romanian poet Nichita Stanescu, who told me in Bucharest, before I emigrated: 'Learn English. French is dead.'"

ANDREI CODRESCU

>>3347639
I don't think I said that, Bob.

Definition of Iliteracy

Il*lit"er*a*cy (?), n.; pl. Illiteracies (#). [From Illiterate.] 1. The state of being illiterate, or uneducated; want of learning, or knowledge; ignorance; specifically, inability to read and write; as, the illiteracy shown by the last census.

2. An instance of ignorance; a literary blunder.

The many blunders and illiteracies of the first publishers of his [Shakespeare's] works.

Pope.

- Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

inability to read

>>3347401
>>3347633
I'm pretty sure that should be "well proper", mate.

>>3347582
>tfw frenchbro defends your native tongue
>tfw does it with perfect english
mynigga

>>3347645
>this silly goose has no idea how language works but thinks acting like a White-ass bourgeoisie will make him sound oh-so cultured and superior to the proles

Read the Unfolding of Language and stop it.

>>3347461
The radical simplicity of English grammar relative to all other indoeuropean languages dates from the norse conquest when norse and anglo saxon 'met in the middle' as a sort of pidgin. Both languages were massively complicated, with a zillion pointless conjugations, endless pronouns, grammatical gender, etc, etc, but complicated in their own way. When they met in the form of a lot of blended families (viking husbands and british wives) the end result was a pidgin stripped of all this superfluous shit.

The Norman invasion gets way too much credit for developing English imo. Yes, it introduced another layer of vocabulary, but the grammatical features of English (which is largely the lack of features of other Germanic languages) goes back to the original norsemen.

Interestingly, Afrikans is the other indo-european language which has ditched grammatical gender, and a lot of other cruft, because it went through the same sort of pidgin-like phase in its development.

>>3347648
You're making other Portuguese look bad with your bad english and shitty tripfagging. It's time to stop...

>>3347664
>The radical simplicity of English grammar relative to all other indoeuropean languages dates from the norse conquest when norse and anglo saxon 'met in the middle' as a sort of pidgin. Both languages were massively complicated, with a zillion pointless conjugations, endless pronouns, grammatical gender, etc, etc, but complicated in their own way. When they met in the form of a lot of blended families (viking husbands and british wives) the end result was a pidgin stripped of all this superfluous shit.
You've no idea what a pidgin is.

>>3347582

4 star post, would recommend to boss.


English is certainly the best language, although French, to me, is a must know.

>>3347666
>>3347666
666 doesn't lie

>>3347666
Muuuh, trip

>>3347645
I really hate "American" spelling, since what is the point of seeing a problem and then fixing 3% of it. All it does is break the 'standard' to re-spell words nobody was confused about to begin with (if you ever pronounced 'colour' like a frenchmen you are an illiterate moron). If English is going to be and remain a language where spelling is divorced from pronunciation - which is has been for centuries and will forever remain - then it's VITAL to maintain a standard spelling for a word of the same meaning.

If everyone in the world did what Webster or whoever did and spelled words like they pronounce them it'd be impossible to communicate internationally. Luckily only Americans are so arrogant.

>>3347691

the u makes "color" too gray (much like the e makes "gray" too red)

>>3347675
I meant exactly what I said: two languages meeting, and creating a simplified third as a medium of intercommunication.

It's quite natural that, when you bring together speakers of two languages like old anglo saxon and old norse, with vocabularies that are largely similar but grammars that are different, they'd simply drop the unnecessary incompatible grammar.

>>3347661
>No idea how language works
wat
>white-ass bourgeoisie
why is this happen--
> oh-so cultured and superior
I don't even
>proles
the fuck, I had to google this.

Anyway, I may read that because languages interest me, but I have no idea where you got that other crap from. I was just saying that the publisher of a dictionary once had power to encourage/discourage certain spellings in the publication. I just threw ebonics in jokingly, but meant that things along the lines of "thru" could replace "through".

Th..than

>>3347707
The grammars were pretty similar. It's the vocabulary which was different.

>>3347707
>I meant exactly what I said: two languages meeting, and creating a simplified third as a medium of intercommunication.
And that's not how pidgins work. It doesn't mean, for example, that an Old English speaker using a pidgin with a Norse speaker would magically forget or stop using Old English with other Old English speakers.

>>3347219
Monolinguist detected.

>>3347239
>Fluent german reader
>Fluent readership

>>3347292
That's because the language isn't phonetic 100% of the time. However, Chinese has moved toward phonetic transcription recently and as such near meanings developed.

>>3347303
As a native speaker I don't feel the need to do such, except on rare occasion, and can usually infer pronunciation via the source language.

>>3347309
<Silence, plebeian.

>>3347393
>German
>Not Germanic/Anglo-Saxon

>>3347393
>English is unique in how readily it absorbs other languages.
No it's not. It's a creole, and all creoles emphasize word order over declension/conjugation.

>>3347462
>Factually, English is one of thee most easiest languages in the whole world.
I seriously hope this is satire.

Right, so English is so versatile because it did away with declensions and conjugations for the most part and therefore could accept the vocabulary of virtually any other language. It's not really as expressive as other languages precisely for this fact. Anyone who has spoken a language focused on heavy agglutination and inflection will tell you this.

The point of English is to be inclusive, not expressive.

>>3347791
>It's a creole, and all creoles emphasize word order over declension/conjugation.
Wrong on all counts.

In the medium-long term, the most that will be said for any language that isn't English is how many of its words got incorporated into English before it went extinct.

On this score, French isn't doing too badly. It's doomed as a living language, of course, but at least it will live on in the parts of it that were borrowed by English.

>>3347804
If that's the only thing wrong you found with my post I'm pretty content. While your response may be true, you can't possibly hope to argue that English and only English absorbs languages to it's ready capability to absorb other languages. Any language can theoretically become a creole with any other language, and this, instantiated several times, could potentially provide a language that is not English but defeats it in its capabilities of absorption.

>>3347835
>Any language can theoretically become a creole with any other language
What do you think a creole is? Because the way you're using creole there seems like you don't know.

>>3347835
Over the past century almost all languages have absorbed a HUGE amount of English. At least in names for new things that were originally coined in English, or that were translated from the English directly.

Whenever you hear someone seaking a language you don't understand at all, it jumps out at you how much English has invaded their language, as every couple words is obviously a recent English borrowing.

>>3347850
I'm sorry if my terminology is a bit off, I'm clearly very tired as you can see by the fact my other posts haven't exactly made good sense, but a creole is simply a combination of any number of languages to create a new, fully functional language from a pidgin. I originally used the example of two languages forming a pidgin because it clearly follows from the formation of a creole from two languages that a creole from three languages can be formed, and so on. I chose to use an example following from the creolization of two languages because a gradual process seemed more practical to me than trying to form a creole out of every language at once. The result of the latter would evidently be artificial and an extremely special case.

>>3347858
...as in "blah blah TeeVee blah blah Week-End blah blah Justin Beiber Sex Tape blah blah blah..."

Even French sounds like this anymore.

>>3347858
>every couple words
That's kind of an exaggeration, don't you think?

>>3347859
Creoles can be formed from a number of languages, but it only refers to the language made by children that have pidgins as their first language. They fill in the gaps with what's available, which tends to be from the various number of disparate languages spoken by the parents. So you'll almost never find a Creole made up of only two languages, but by the same mark you'll rarely find a Creole which evenly mixes up two or more languages, since the language of the pidgin will tend to predominate in common words.

You can have language mixing, but this is known as "language mixing", and is a rather different process.

>>3347205
1. easy grammar -- stripped down german grammar essentially. people laern it quickly.
2. really really rich vocabulary
there's simple basic shit
there's really forma posh stuff -- victorian age
(you see texts in mandarin of characters ordinary 4 year olds would use)
3. tons of latin cognates
4. any decent media is going to be in english. everything else is corny
5. i can't explain why spanish literature sucks donkey dick
6. french and russians really do talk about books as everyday conversation
7. germans have precision so they do philosophy or something or they'll combine a bunch of words and attach on some obscure meaning
8. confirmation bias
9. everyone on here only knows how to speak English
10. vocabulary
english basically has the vocabulary of two langauges. other cultures were isolate
11. Kannada is supposed to be another great language. my friend speaks it. It's super inflected though.

>>3347872
Listen to tagalog. The language in the phillipines. Every second word is english.

Languages aren't superior to one another. Say English is best and you'll sound like an imperialist. Say any European language is best and you'll sound like a hipster.
How would you even measure that? You could measure superiority of cultures based on what they've accomplished, sure - it would be a subjective call, but go ahead.
I can't think of a single objective criterion to measure a language's superiority.

English is the universal language because it's simple. It's superior in certain domains, such as cinema, because of its simplicty, which allows it to be more direct / epic.

In literature, the superior language would be French. Thus explaining French cinema.

>>3347961
>Thus explaining French cinema
>implying anglos make better movies

not enough lel in the world

>>3347956
>>3347956
Um, if the point of language is communication, the more people who speak the language, and the more widely spoken it is, the better. English is miles ahead in this respect. The amount and quality of materials published in English also vastly exceeds that in any other language.

From a utilitarian POV, it'd be best if everyone learned English / there's no value in anything else going forward.

>>3347965

I'm not saying Hollywood is the best cinema in the world, but James Bond wouldn't be James Bond if he was from France. Neither would Rocky. On the opposite, even action movies from France are literature.

>>3347966

Literature would fall even deeper than it already is. Of every civilized country, England and the U.S have by far the weaker canon.

>>3347961
English rules the world because of the British Empire and its legacy. English just had the good luck to be the language if the predominate powers in the era of global empires and later in the era of economic globalization.

I think we're lucky that English is a pretty manageable language. If the people of Great Britain had spoken Zulu that would be the global language today.

>>3347897
Interesting, I've always heard that a creole is simply a mixture of two languages by natural processes, not necessarily in children(1). I suppose this was what I meant because I wouldn't expect any human to learn every language on earth well enough to perform language mixing. In a certain sense I don't think mixing would fulfill my purposes either because, in the minds of the speakers, the concepts of the two languages would be kept very separate, only intentionally blended as a slang or whatnot.

(1)http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/courses/6361ryan.htm
>When the structure of the language becomes stable enough to be passed on to the next generation, it has become a creole language.

>>3347961
Wrong. English is not simple. Do you know how many arbitrary rules and spellings we have in the English language? That's mostly because during the Renaissance, we suddenly felt like doing everything the Latin-way, because Latin was supposedly superior as a language because it was the closest existent remnant of the "ideal" "initial" language (what we now think is Proto-Indo-European).
Take debt. There's no "b" in there. We only have it because we borrowed it from the Latin "debitare," and they pronounce the "b". Or split infinitives. We only do that because Latin infinitives are one word, and can't be divided.
English is not the most complex language in the world - the most arbitrary and the most frequent borrower of other languages, sure. To even imply that it's the simplest language is absurd.

>>3347966
Is English the most widely spoken? I thought Chinese outweighed it?
I suppose you could go the utilitarian route. That's probably about the only way to approach any objective determination on the matter.

>>3347969
do you really believe the anglosphere's hegemony on cultural products have anything to do with language?

like, sincerely?

>>3347973
This is ridiculous, considering there's VASTLY more books published in English than in any other language, or all other languages combined! Not to mention speakers of English have historically been much freer than those of other languages, including freer to write and publish what they want.

The thing about the English language and Anglo-American culture is that they're SO incredibly influential and omnipresent in every facet of existence in every civilised corner of the world, that they disappear into the background.

>>3347664

This guy is onto it. The Norman invasion wasn't for the masses anyway - most ordinary English-folk still called a cow a cow and a sheep a woman.

>>3347995
A billion chinese peasants all living in close proximity doesn't really constitute a 'widely' spoken language.

Yes, there may be more native chinese speakers than native english speakers (that goes for Spanish and some others perhaps too), but they are overwhelmingly poor and uneducated and in one place and quickly learning English anyway.

The notion that Chinese is the 'language of the future' is rediculious. Not even the Chinese actually think this.

>>3348002

I tried explaining this to my Indian boyfriend. That you wear Western clothes, listen to American bands, adhere to Western politics and law, use an internet invented by America and Britain, that you perform Shakespeare.

So many more. We really do live in a Western world.

>>3348009

I read something the other day. Something like 400 million Chinese people are learning English? I can't remember where I found it, but I would be surprised if it wasn't accurate.

It's already the universal language of India anyway; not everyone speaks Hindi, but you'll always find someone that speaks English.

>>3348007
Some linguists describe English as "pre-adapted" to learning as a second language, because it was periodically stripped and simplified each time Britain was conquered and a whole new group of people learned it as a second language.

In contrast, languages that are never learned as second languages have no break on how complex they become. Supposedly the most isolated languages in the world - e.g. in mountain valleys in the Caucasus or wherever - are the most complex, and some of them basically can never be learned at all competently beyond early childhood.

Apparently Mandarin went through something like English did, Northern Chinese being constantly conquered and then assimilating the conquerors as had Britain, such that Mandrine's tonal system became much simpler over time, vs. e.g. Cantonese which is much more complex.

>>3348009
I didn't say that Chinese was the "language of the future". Nowhere did I imply anything hen-fucking near that.
Why does anybody think there's a language of the future? It's not like every language other than the best is going to fade from the Earth. You'd have too many factors weighing into this matter to make any clear conclusion. And that's assuming one language is going to dominate, which is a rather radical conclusion to begin with.

>>3348016

Those Manchus. All those lost feels.

>>3348018

English is going to be the universal second language. The reason Asian societies are becoming richer is that they've adapted to Western ideas. Their embrace of Western ideas and culture has made them richer, and they want more wealth.

How easy it is to make wealth if you learn a Western language. English just happens to be that language for most.

>>3348018
I'm really uncertain about whether native languages will continue to exist alongside English long term. If you look at e.g. some European countries, or parts of India or French Canada, where many people speak English well as a second language, the native language continues to be spoken at home and in public. But perhaps this is just a transitory phase, and eventually using English at work, consuming so much English media, etc. will cause them to abandon the first language entirely.

>>3348018
When I say Chinese, I mean specifically Mandarin. That was an idiotic omission on my part.
Now that I pull up the numbers though, it seems Spanish is more widely-spoken than English anyway.
I'll admit that English has the highest sphere of influence, and is currently dominating. Right now, it's most advantageous to learn English. I'll even concede that we're living in a Western World. History is not predictable based on singular chains of causality though, so let's just drop this notion that there's any "language of the future".

>>3348022
Yes, but once you speak competent English you are very tempted to start doing all your reading, movie watching, tv watching, etc. in English just because there's so much more avalable. Then you start talking about these things in English with your also English-as-a-second-language speaking friends. Then you kids grow up bring completely bilingial. And before you know it their kids barely speak the native language / are essentially anglophones.

>>3348024

You already see this in India. People will use English to impress others, sound more formal or just randomly. You'll rarely hear an Indian say 'I love you' in Hindi, for example.

I think some native languages really struggle against English, and that they'll fail. France mandated French names for Pokemon because children were speaking English too much when they were playing.

I read somewhere that supposedly the language that will grow the most in terms of native speakers this century is French, because Francophone west Africa is one of the last parts of the world that will continue to add people (because it's the least developed)

English may be easy grammatically or to learn the basics, but its writing system is very difficult to master, I find. You have to learn a massive quantity of word readings by hand because they completely go against the standard pronunciation of the characters due to some root unbeknownst to you. It also has a lot of complicated conjugation rules (not as complex as other European languages sure), with plenty of exceptions.

Spainfag living in England here. Also learnt Japanese which is far too simple and limits expression in my opinion. Their music especially is embarrassingly simple in what sentiments they express and how many options they have to go about it.

>>3348181
The comparison with Japanese made me realize another standout feature of English: the huge number of phonemes - sounds - in the language. On the one hand this makes English hard to pronounce, but OTOH it allows it to borrow words very freely, and to coin endless words without a lot of homonyms.

It also gives native English speakers a heads-up when learning another language, since they are already good at making and distinguishing so many sounds, but implying an Anglo would ever want to bother to learn another language...

>>3348188
Certain glottal sounds in German are not used in English though. So we're crippled in that sense. But yes, it's far harder for a Japanese to speak English than for us to speak any other language really.

>>3348190
Basically, if a sound isn't used natively in English it's something really weird and nasty sounding from the throat or high in the nose or clicks or some weird shit. English has a pretty huge sound palate as far as languages go.

>>3348191
What about Chinese tones? I'm not saying English doesn't have a wide range of sounds, but to write all others off as "weird" or "shit" just because you're not capable of using them seems a bit narrow-minded.

>>3348192
When only a few languages use a certain sound system - tones, click consonants, etc. - I think the label 'weird' rightly applies.

There's much to suggest that the first languages, of our common ancestors in Africa, had both these features. But the fact that they've been in long-term decline since suggests they are a competitive hinderance.

>>3348190
>Certain glottal sounds in German are not used in English though.
If anything it's the other way around. But it's not that massive a difference.

>>3348217
I gather all Germanic languages have a lot of sounds. Romance languages much less, and East Asian languages less still, tones notwithstanding.

>>3348219
No. English has an unusually high number of vowel sounds, and this is rather different to other Germanic languages, although for some reason English speakers are often very forgiving of a number of different phonemes in the same position. German, French and Standard Chinese all have somewhere around 25-30 phonemes, whereas English has about 45 phonemes, and that's more or less 50/50 between vowel and consonant sounds.

>>3348238
>and that's more or less 50/50 between vowel and consonant sounds.
For English I mean. German, French and Chinese all have something like 5 to nearly 10 vowel sounds.

>>3348241
24 consonants, 20 vowels in British English, about.
16 vowels in American English.

>>3348248
French is 22/16, so nearly the same as American English.

German is 27/17.

Chinese is 26/16.

>>3348248
>16 vowels in American English.
The US fails again...

I would think it depends on what the Americans use for their metric, since some of their accents/dialects are pretty varied vowel wise (like a Brooklynite asking for "Cwoffee"), although maybe I just don't realise how many vowels I use being a British.

>>3348261
A lot of them are dipthongs, and three of the extra dipthong vowels exist because you can't put an "r" sound at the end of your words.

>>3348266
I don't think any dipthongs only occur at the end of words, at least not off the top of my head.

>>3348272
>mfw hentai
But really, the BBC pronunciation of the word 'hair' ends in a dipthong.

It's not. Portuguese is.

>>3347211
Italian here.
I agree with you.

English is rather dull compared to other languages, especially with romance languages.
It's easy to learn though, and people will understand what you're saying even if you "no talk good english". So this is the main reason it's the most common language in the world, I guess.

>>3348286
>So this is the main reason it's the most common language in the world
No

>>3348286
>this is the main reason it's the most common language in the world

it's because of the american imperialism over the world, just that.

(and that doesn't mean that english is superior)

>>3348292
Also ye olde british imperialism

Why do people always shit on English? It seems to me that all the complaints about English could also be said about other languages. Its extremely versatile, can obviously be very beautiful (I mean discussion about great English prose is half of what this board is), and it arguably has the most culture considering how many different sources it draws from, how many foreign words have been incorporated into it, and how many different cultures have begun to use it. Although I am definitely emphasizing the arguably in that last point.

>>3348260
>German is 27/17.
>Chinese is 26/16.
Look up allophones and free variation. You can reduce all the vowel numbers there by at least half. The German consonant number is too high too. Both have (arguably) just over 30 phonemes at the highest count.

>>3348308
i'm not saying english sucks, it just isn't the superior language

>>3348316
>he said in English

>>3348286
Poor English is easily understood because people are used to hearing poor English in many accents, because it's so widely spoken as a second language. This is one of the reasons it sucks to learn another language: natives can be very demanding where Anglos have long given up on 'correct' English.

>>3348275
Hemingway pls go

>>3347205
>Why is English the superior language?

For you personally -- because you're incapable of learning any other language, Mr. Clap.

>>3348386
i thought hemmmmmmingway's fave was spanish?

>>3347693
>synethesia detected

I hate how everyone pretends to have this.