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/lit/ - Literature

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20144923 No.20144923 [Reply] [Original]

From a literary standpoint, how does the English language rate?
Is it versatile or restrictive?
Expressive or stilted?
I'm a monoglot, but polyglot friends often defend English as quite elegant.

>> No.20144930

>>20144923
It's alright. Not as bad as the haters say but not the best shit ever like monolingualfags say either.

>> No.20144939

>>20144923
it has rhyming, which is kino

>> No.20144953

>>20144939
Don't other languages have rhymes?
Surely they all do. if words just sound the same?

>> No.20144972

>>20144923
pretty sure its unrivalled range of vocabulary and myriad dialect forms make it more versatile than any other language ever in human history.
>>20144930
it's the most versatile language in ever in human history

>> No.20144976

>>20144939
Yeah but end-rhyme is inferior to alliteration, which is now mostly relegated to humorous settings in English.
t. Beowulf-chad

>> No.20144981

>>20144923
English is arguably the language best suited to poetry because it is a lot more monosyllabic than most languages. This means we can be very efficient and condense a great deal of meaning into very short words and phrases, and poetry is all about compression in that sense. We also have very relaxed grammatical rules, meaning we can break them any which way and it will still technically work. It allows to get creative with our phrasing in a way that a lot of other languages might not.

I’m sure other languages have their advantages. German for example is the most analytical, since they can reduce multi-faceted concepts into singular words, but they end proving fairly cumbersome when applied to poetry.

>> No.20144983
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20144983

>>20144923

>> No.20144992

>>20144976
I love alliteration.

>> No.20144998

>>20144981
how many languages do you know?

>> No.20145002

>>20144953
have hear heard the abomination of chinese?
>>20144976
completly false. Alliteration is pretty common in things with a little bit of a literary bent.

>> No.20145044

>>20144981
very interesting take

>>20144998
not him but what he said mostly rings true, what is wring here?

>>20145002
yeah i heard chinese, but the words till technically rhyme, so you can have rhyming poetry, no? it might not sound good but nothing does in that language

>> No.20145045

>>20144981
I feel like you're talking out your ass, but I could be wrong. I have the following beefs with your post: English doesn't have all that many monosyllabic words; it has plenty of grammatical rules on phrasing that neither bend nor break well (word order in English is surprisingly important); I have no idea what you mean by "German is the most analytical" because it's further toward the synthetic end of the spectrum than English is. If you want a monosyllabic analytic major world language, try Mandarin. Furthermore, "relaxed grammatical rules" is not a feature of analytic languages anyway, which tend to need word order to give their sentences meaning. More synthetic languages, like German, have certain flexibilities in that area.

>> No.20145054

>>20144953
>Don't other languages have rhymes?
Yea, this is not exclusive to English. Rhyiming is better in Romance languages.

>> No.20145061

>>20145054
i dont speak any romance languages, how exactly is it better there?

>> No.20145068

>>20145054
>>20145061
Rhyming is *easier* in Romance languages, because they have only a few different vowels (except French) and their verbs tend to have suffixes that can rhyme with themselves (like the Spanish words cantamos, amamos, bailamos, hablamos, etc). However, I would dispute that rhyming is "better" in those languages; personally, I enjoy the huge number of distinct syllables that are possible in English.

>> No.20145081

>>20145068
i see. yeah we are a little more unstrucures for hings like verbs except for -ing i supppose

>> No.20145082

>>20145061
Words that seem to rhyme, actually rhyme, unlike in English (e.g. dice and prejudice, indict and verdict).

>> No.20145085

>>20144981
>relaxed grammatical rules
Lmfao syntax is very rigid in English, it's important because it isn't an inflected language. Try learning pretty much anything else before you talk out your ass again.

>> No.20145089

>not a person with brown skin! im going insane!

>> No.20145093

>>20145082
This only seems like a problem for esl retards.

>> No.20145103

>>20145089
>Nike ad featuring disgusting fat sportswear woman draped over classical architecture
>"wOw /LiT/ yOu OnLy HaTe iT cUz U rAyCiSs"
Retard

>> No.20145109

>>20145093
Not an argument since can pronunciation vary a lot according to dialect (e.g. Shakespeare's rhymes don't make much sense unless read in OP). Romance languages are still better in this regard.

>> No.20145113

>>20145089
black skin*

>> No.20145124

>>20145082
absurd, they need not be spelled the same, that is reading autism

>>20145089
retard should read this >>20145103

>>20145103
also yes tho

>> No.20145126

>>20145082
words will rhyme if you pronounce them to... poetry is a spoken language first, and not a written language

>> No.20145128

>>20145089
yes

>> No.20145133

>>20145126
for example you can say earl(i) and not earl(y). just as much as you can say thee and not the, or like a and ay.

>> No.20145143

>>20145124
>absurd, they need not be spelled the same, that is reading autism
No, that's phonemic coherence

>> No.20145149

>>20145133
No one says earli (except in that one drunken sailor song).

>>20145143
Phonemic spelling would be nice for multiple reasons, but rhyming in poetry isn't one of them. It's totally irrelevant.

>> No.20145158

>>20145149
>but rhyming in poetry isn't one of them
Why not?

>> No.20145159

>>20144981
Regarding the low syllable count, it is true as a general technical aspect of English, but what happens is that to compensate English has to use more "assisting" words to say the thing that a more synthetic language would say in a single word. E.g. Russian "(я) cъeм" (the pronoun can be omitted if the context allows it) is English "I will finish eating". So in the end the difference isn't drastic.
Besides, if compression is the point of poetry, isn't being forced to use fewer words precisely a poetic characteristic? English can use more words per the same line of verse, but that would allow excessive wordiness, assuming we accept this approach where poetry is subservient to grammar. (It isn't.)
>We also have very relaxed grammatical rules, meaning we can break them any which way and it will still technically work.
You doesn't. (See?) What is especially relevant for poetry: the syntax is very rigid, which makes many older English poets influenced by Latin extremely difficult to read. You can break rules in all languages, the question is whether the thing is still comprehensible, and English is nothing out of the ordinary in that regard. With minor modifications you get the silly yoda-speak, and soon gibberish.
>German for example is the most analytical
LOL, at least check Wikipedia before trying to act like you know what you're talking about.

>>20145082
What you wrote there are just orthographic similarities. Irrelevant for poetry that is written by ear.

>>20145109
Good thing most English poets strive to write rhymes with the common pronunciation in mind rather than dialectal, then.
You think Romance languages did not have any changes in pronunciation over the centuries?

>>20145133
>you can say earl(i) and not earl(y)
>or like a and ay.
wtf

>>20145143
No, that't not phonology but orthography, you dumb fuck.

>> No.20145163

>>20145133
>earl(i)
ear-lie?

>> No.20145165

>>20145158
cus they just rhyme even if hey have different spellings so what is the issue?

>> No.20145176

>>20145158
Because the point of rhyming is to sound good when read aloud, not to look good on a page. No one should care that, when Shakespeare rhymes "red" and "head" in Sonnet 130, they're written with different vowels.

>> No.20145181

>>20145159
Orthography is just how it's written, not how it's pronounced.

>> No.20145198

>>20145165
Because many times they don't rhyme even if they have the same spelling which doesn't make any sense.
>>20145176
Sounds change in English all the time. You need to learn OP if you want to properly read Shakespeare or even some 20th c. poems. English is an uneven language so words don't sound they way they're written.

>> No.20145212

>>20145198
>Sounds change in English all the time.
Yes, I'm aware, and that does mess up many of Shakespeare's rhymes; Sonnet 116 is a particularly annoying example. However, fixing English orthography to be phonemic wouldn't make those words retroactively rhyme (and, remember, we care about how the words are pronounced).

>> No.20145213

Words that don't rhyme https://people.sc.fsu.edu/~jburkardt/fun/wordplay/unrhymes.html

>> No.20145230

>>20144923
Is terrible and why scholars went with french instead

>> No.20145253

>>20144923
Honestly low tier. It's versatile, but you have to take significant freedoms with it for it to be expressive. Frequently this means breaking the rules of grammar. What most betrays the weakness of the language is the fact that most monolinguals either fail to, or choose not to, obey its rules and conventions in order to be more expressive. Even they have such disdain for their own language that they choose to distort and bend it to forms ever more tormented to suit their needs.

>> No.20145256

>>20145213
what a silly fucking list

>> No.20145263

>>20145181
That's what I'm talking about, yes.
I doubt you even know what you're trying to say with your mumbling about "phonemic coherence".

>>20145198
>which doesn't make any sense
And that's again a purely orthographic matter, secondary to the relevant phonetic possibilities of a language when it comes to writing poetry.
There is no writing system that can secure full correspondence of sound and writing unless you want to write in IPA all the time and double the number of keys on your keyboard. Rhymes also need correspondence of accent, e.g. lovely-truly don't rhyme (-ly), so to keep things clear for your autistic mind we should also note the accents to show that they don't rhyme. Any language with non-fixed accent (French, Polish) would require this.
>Sounds change in English all the time.
As in every other language.
>English is an uneven language
No language is "even".
> words don't sound they way they're written
As I said above. Also amplified by the historically-oriented English orthography, but again that's a surface-level problem. It does not affect poets.

>> No.20145267

>>20145230
elaborate please?

>>20145253
but many of these are voluntary and not because it is difficult to speak. I am English so I know about how odd each regional dialect can be. a few miles away and worlds apart.

>> No.20145269

>>20145253
>but you have to take significant freedoms with it for it to be expressive. Frequently this means breaking the rules of grammar
Can you give an example of this expressive breaking of grammar?

>> No.20145270

>>20145253
Not to say I think you're wrong through and through, but as an American I think most English monolinguals don't know or understand the rules and conventions of their own language. I think it's really that simple.

>> No.20145274

>>20145263
>There is no writing system that can secure full correspondence of sound and writing
Finnish, Italian and Spanish come pretty close.

>> No.20145281

>>20145263
>I doubt you even know what you're trying to say with your mumbling about "phonemic coherence".
I was talking about phonemicity.

>> No.20145300

>>20145274
I literally said "full correspondence", knowing full well that there are much more precise ones than English, but not fully. If you actually study the phonetics of one or two languages, you'll soon notice just how much of an abstraction writing is.

>>20145281
And, pray tell, how does that relate to any of your previous points?

>> No.20145317

>>20145300
>And, pray tell, how does that relate to any of your previous points?
I was talking about how English was not phonemically regular.

>> No.20145321

>>20144923
parlo italiano come una bestia y hablo poco espanol.
vowels in romance languages (like italian) just roll off the tongue for me and english in passing isn't the most pleasing to the ear. but, when english is made pleasing, it's phonetically stimulating and very persuasive. it sounds the way it *means*

>> No.20145331

>>20145321
>it sounds the way it *means*
this. eloquent friends of make make strong words sound strong, and lightweight words sound fluttery.

>> No.20145334

>>20145321
what's your native tongue?

>> No.20145351

>>20145321
>>20145331
any public figure who makes English "sound the way it means"?

>> No.20145379

>>20145351
I dunno, maybe Enoch Powell? Any powerful speaker, of which we have few. Oswald Mosley perhaps?

>> No.20145445

>>20145334
we spoke italian in the house but everywhere else was english.
>>20145351
https://youtu.be/yMaiKjsAhIM
https://youtu.be/ZLqY6NtWpqY
https://youtu.be/th5A6ZQ28pE
https://youtu.be/R1tnzo9jkvI
https://youtu.be/1HA_b3Ns35Q
https://youtu.be/V0aDEvmf5u0?t=110
https://youtu.be/k9QXY80OxS0?t=9
mlk's speeches have so much vibrato. churchill sounds like a sober sermon.

>> No.20146166

>>20144923
Pros: simple grammar and rich vocabulary make it expressive.
Cons: inflexible word order and lack of cases make it formulaic and repetitive.
Constant use of pronouns is especially tedious to most native Slavic speakers. I'm still undecided on articles, they can be useful but everything is much simpler without them. The rules on stacking negatives are just dumb, double negative is barely tolerable, any more is unnecessarily complicated.

>> No.20146447

>>20145331
Of course it had this quality because it is a language comprised of peasant tongue germanic based (literally) simplicity with auxiliary french sophistication and symmetry. You can express an idea simply or with an elegant flourish at your discretion. It is this freedom to interplay with the tone of delivery through completely different dialects that distinguishes English. It wears its mutt origins with pride.

>> No.20147223

>>20144923
It's shit. Hard to pronunciate. Only thing good in english is the easy grammar, and spelling.
English only is famous, because anglo world trade domination.
As an easy to learn, easy to talk, universal language, it sucks.
I mean it's like Windows OS. Everybody use it (no me), but everybody knows it sucks.