/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.5492392]

>The monkey screeched as it was lifted and banged against the bars of its cage.
>He asks Otto to rest while he calms down.
>Those prosecutors have been trying to lock him up for ten years.
>Look at the dog with one eye.
>Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana
>The horse raced past the barn fell.
>The old man the boats.
>The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families.
>The rat the cat the dog bit chased escaped.
>I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it.

English only has two grammatical cases and basically no inflection, and is disgustingly ambivalent a lot of the time as a result.
Additionally, it doesn't have formal/familiar appellations like German, Russian, Japanese, Korean etc. (for example "you" can be translated as "du" or "sie" in German, the second one being polite/formal, the first one being familiar)

tldr: The English language sucks as a vehicle for literature.
Discuss.

[Anonymous No.5492393]

>>5492392
OH SHIT YOU'RE RIGHT

[Anonymous No.5492402]

>>5492393
butthurt monoglot detected

[Anonymous No.5492403]

>>5492392
But it is also the language of most modern media, making it worth speaking.

[Anonymous No.5492405]

as a german, i gotta say that i like the sound of english more than the way german sounds.
furthermore, i kinda like the ambiguity, that's a thing not really possible to achive in german

[Anonymous No.5492406]

English doesn't have a cage of grammar that imprisons thought.

[Anonymous No.5492407]

>>5492392
You think ambiguity is bad for literature?

[kitty !kitty/EnNg No.5492412]

english is probably more laconic and it probably has more speech patterns than many other languages, it has one of the biggest vocabularies too

p.s. mark twain wrote a great article about learning german
http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html

[Anonymous No.5492429]

The more-cases-means-better-language! argument is ridiculous, because the Czech language has seven different cases, including a subjunctive mood, but I don't see you arguing that Czech is the best "vehicle for literature".

The reason why you don't advocate this is because Czech is needlessly complex, even having an entirely different case just for addressing someone (the vocative tense--turning, for example, Marek's name into Marku when speaking directly to him).

Your reasoning is absurd.

[kitty !kitty/EnNg No.5492439]

>>5492429

>>Czech is needlessly complex, even having an entirely different case just for addressing someone (the vocative tense--turning, for example, Marek's name into Marku when speaking directly to him)

>I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!' (Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse: she had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having seen in her brother's Latin Grammar, 'A mouse-of a mouse-to a mouse-a mouse-O mouse!'

:3

[Anonymous No.5492445]

>>5492412
>I heard a Californian student in Heidelberg say, in one of his calmest moods, that he would rather decline two drinks than one German adjective.
That article makes good reading.

[Anonymous No.5492450]

>>5492429
>Your reasoning is absurd.
My entire reasoning was that more-cases together with more-inflections means less ambiguity, and less ambiguity is a good thing.

I don't see how that's absurd.

[Anonymous No.5492545]

>They don't think it be like it is. But it do.

English speakers would never openly admit it, but their language really sucks dick.

[Anonymous No.5492562]

>>5492405
Pleb, plebber, am plebbsten. Or is it a troll's post? one can hardly tell these days.

[Anonymous No.5492598]

I agree. My mother tongue is Finnish and I really like it.

[Anonymous No.5492869]

>>5492562
No, a lot of people I met feel this was.

[Anonymous No.5492911]

>>5492545
Present your argument.

[Anonymous No.5492915]

>>5492545
Shakespeare

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.5492917]

>>5492915
thats scary

[Anonymous No.5492929]

English is the language the world desired, born in the furnace, whose Celtic, Germanic, and Italic ingredient found the harmony for a perfect international European language. No other European language is as adaptable, accommodating, or creative, allowing great levels of subtlety and clarity that doesn't require ridiculous gender and case memorization.

[Anonymous No.5492934]

>>5492929
Or simply known as a clusterfuck language.

[kitty !kitty/EnNg No.5492936]

>>5492929
english requires weird spelling/pronunciation memorization though and its system of tenses is quite complicated too

[Anonymous No.5493112]

⇒yfw many different grammatical cases often coincide

Cool ambiguity reduction, faggot. Just look at the stupid table you posted. It should have 16 different forms but in fact it only has 6.

[Anonymous No.5493322]

>>5492929
English...
This >>5492936
and also
.preposition memorization
.no strict comma rules
.oxford comma --> absolutely disgusting
.hardly useful particles
.words usually written in lower case!
.this >>5492934 fucking pidgin-tier

[Anonymous No.5493359]

>>5493322
Enjoy watching it conquer the world.

[Anonymous No.5493378]

>>5492392
>The horse raced past the barn fell.
what the shit? that sentence is like running against a brick wall.

>The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families.
... WHAT?

[Anonymous No.5493393]

>>5492929
>>5492934
The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

[Anonymous No.5493398]

>>5493378
⇒>The horse raced past the barn fell.
The horse [which raced past the barn] fell.

⇒The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families.
Who or what is doing something? The complex.
What does it do? It houses, i.e. it shelters or accomodates.
Whom does it accomodate? Married and single soldiers and their families.

[Anonymous No.5493400]

>>5493393
You mean it's the language of subjugation, like Latin or Arabic back then.

[Anonymous No.5493409]

As a Lithuanian, I can tell you that English is more favorable for me. It can be because the lack of classics or good authors, or because of that most of those classical works can be easily read even without much you didn't have to think such thing as word memorization(because it is mostly consisted of two words mingled together, so it's easy to recognize a new word). English is more flexible, has a big and creative vocabulary of which a great deal of words have many meanings and many uses attached to it.

[Anonymous No.5493422]

>>5492439

>Czech is needlessly complex, even having an entirely different case just for addressing someone

meh.

From what (little) I know of Czech cases, they're actually quite simple, particularly in Colloquial Czech.

I enjoy the sound of it as well. :3

[Anonymous No.5494116]

>>5492429

There is also a vocative in latin, so you want to say latin is not good for literature?

[Anonymous No.5494122]

>>5492403
Exactly the point. It's only used because it's what nearly everyone reads, but it's also a bad language, aesthetically speaking.

[Anonymous No.5494166]

>all these people replying to butthurt Euros

Borges said his works were better in English than in Spanish

Nabokov chose to write in English, even despite an attempt to return to Russian, which he found provincial

Masters across Europe have recognised Shakekspeare as a literary titan and genius of the highest order for centuries

Furthermore, Shakespeare is still readable to a native speaker today, as is Chaucer with only some mild adjustment, despite the language being spoken across the entire fucking planet (whereas European governments need to constantly regulate and standardize their languages every generation, and can't agree on shit like ß)

Hate English out of personal taste if you must, but remember that you and your children and your children's children will be speaking it forever, because it is now the official language of humanity. The Anglos won history. Your country and culture are tourist attractions for niche enthusiasts. So sorry.

[Anonymous No.5494194]

>>5492392
Genative would be 'their' idiot

[Anonymous No.5494231]

>>5494194
⇒Genative would be 'their' idiot

Nope. That's an entirely different word.

[Anonymous No.5494321]

>He asks Otto to rest while he calms down.
>Those prosecutors have been trying to lock him up for ten years.
>Look at the dog with one eye.

How does German make these less ambiguous? Specifically with the first and last, aren't the German translations just as bad? Can't get around those pronouns.

[Anonymous No.5494330]

>>5494321
Post your translations and I'll tell you what you did wrong.

[Anonymous No.5494337]

>>5492392
>hurr durr my poorly constructed sentences prove that English sucks

sure thing Klaus

[Anonymous No.5494346]

I don't even understand the OP's complaints about these sentences. Relative pronouns in English, German, Latin, Greek are all ambiguous, and relative or subordinate clauses are often necessary in all four as well.

[Anonymous No.5494360]

>>5494194
'Genitive' is the word you're looking for.

>>5492392
English has an extremely flexible grammar and the largest vocabulary of any language, which is an excellent basis for literature.

Apart from that, however, you've misunderstood the way a language is a 'vehicle for literature'. The polysemy you have described is essential to the structure of literature, as it reflects the structure of consciousness itself. It is the way that words contain in them the entire history of their usage which allows for the aesthetics of language, through *depth* of meaning, not specificity.

[Anonymous No.5494369]

>>5494360
⇒'Genitive' is the word you're looking for.

No, it isn't because "their" is not the genitive of "the".

[Anonymous No.5494378]

>>5494360
How does English have the largest vocabulary?

[Anonymous No.5494387]

>>5494369
...

I was correcting the spelling, not agreeing with him.

[Anonymous No.5494395]

>>5494378
Well, it's vocabulary is larger than any other language. Not sure how else to explain.

[Anonymous No.5494403]

>>5492929
Your post is not only overly emphatetic and pseudo-lyrical in the dullest possible way, it's actually full of hot air. Memorizing pronunciation is as hard (if not harder) than case memorization, and cases can make a language more flexible (see Latin for instance, who was the lingua franca of the West for quite some time).

You're simply rationalizing a state of affairs in hindsight: since the English language is the most widely spoken in the West nowadays, you imagine that it must be the ideal international language, thus foregoing analysis of the conditions that led to English becoming so widespread. You would have been arguing that French is most sophisticated European language a century and a half ago, and that Latin is the best international language a millenia ago. In all cases you would have been blinded by circumstances.

[Anonymous No.5494405]

>>5494166
my children will be speaking ching chong m8

[Anonymous No.5494422]

>>5494166
>The Anglos won history

feels good

[Anonymous No.5494426]

>>5494395
⇒Well, it's vocabulary is larger than any other language

What do you count as "vocabulary"? Most languages have rules by which you can construct new words by combining existing words. So if you count ALL words, most languages have infinitely many.

[Anonymous No.5494454]

>>5494166
>Borges said his works were better in English than in Spanish

His translator and him spent years coordinating translation, and Borges was more than fully fluent in English. You want a list of well-read people who had rather speak Italian, French or Latin than their native language ? Same thing for your Nabokov example.

>Masters across Europe have recognised Shakekspeare as a literary titan and genius of the highest order for centuries

About three centuries , but that is the case for quite a few other literary giants. Shakespeare is even a peculiar case in that he was really exalted only decades after his death (while Virgil and Dante entered the literary canon in their lifetime).

>Furthermore, Shakespeare is still readable to a native speaker today, as is Chaucer with only some mild adjustment

Could be said for most writers post-1600 (and if you think making Chaucer readable to a twnetyfirst century highschooler requires only "mild ajustements", then pretty much everyone in the past seven centuries is still readable to a native speaker.

> (whereas European governments need to constantly regulate and standardize their languages every generation, and can't agree on shit like ß

Vastly overblowing minor stuff. Italy had to standardize orthograph once in seven centuries. Seventeenth century French authors are still very readable to this day (if you adjust for the antiquated orthograph, which is also a problem for Shakespeare).

>Hate English out of personal taste if you must
I actually like English. It's fun and not hard and not really different from most Wetsern European languages.

>remember that you and your children and your children's children will be speaking it forever

Teens in my countries are barely starting to use half-assed memesentences in their casual speech, and that's because of video games and tv series. If that's what you call speaking I don't think native language fanatics should feel threatened.

>because it is now the official language of humanity

Agree on that. It mostly means people will use it for memes and silly conversations over the internet and that it will be butchered or dumbed down on a daily basis, so I'm not sure it's something to be enthusiast about.

>Your country and culture are tourist attractions for niche enthusiasts.

It would be more accurate to say that English has become the international tourist language (or, if you will, the common language of tourist attractions). I should be the one to say sorry.

[Anonymous No.5494455]

>>5492405
I've heard german is really strict with structure, sort of how latin forces you to have the verb always at the end. But you have all that word building shit that the latin derivatives envy a lot.
Spanish is cool, after reading many translations of american books I grabbed one from my country and I couldn't believe the variety of words and plays on structures. It makes me sort of sad because I know I'll never enjoy the full effect of a lot of books.

[Anonymous No.5494468]

>>5492915
I saw the slow evolution of that pic and I can say I'm proud of you, anon.

[Anonymous No.5494472]

>>5494426
Guy from a country in which one combines words here (i.e. instead of "senior leader of those who pack the bullion cubes" we say "overbuljongterningpakkmester"). The combined words aren't actually "real words", you fucking idiot. You won't find them in any dictionary, except for maybe the most common ones (you might possibly find "gresstrå", "blade of grass", for instance).

[Anonymous No.5494477]

>>5492929
>my language is superior because of socio-economic historical factors.
You sound like those guys who think evolution means getting better.

[Anonymous No.5494478]

>>5494426
Only including words that actually exist, obviously, not theoretical words that have never been used. That would be silly.

[Anonymous No.5494479]

>>5494472
My question remains: Which words do you count and how many are there?

[Anonymous No.5494482]

>>5493398
Not that anon, but thanks for clarifying that sentence. It's like a game.

[Anonymous No.5494488]

>>5494454
>>Borges said his works were better in English than in Spanish
My sides! This confirms my suspicions

[Anonymous No.5494491]

>>5494166
>Borges said his works were better in English than in Spanish
DOHOHOHOHO
He said he enjoyed translating some of his works during american interviews, and he was including the process of re writing his text for another type of structures. Why do you think he kept writing in spanish? Self hate?

[Anonymous No.5494495]

>>5494454
>Could be said for most writers post-1600 (and if you think making Chaucer readable to a twnetyfirst century highschooler requires only "mild ajustements", then pretty much everyone in the past seven centuries is still readable to a native speaker.

are you legitimately retarded?

firstly Chaucer can be read by any modern native English speaker who doesn't have learning difficulties using a few footnotes or on page vocabs

secondly not all middle English is as close to modern as Chaucer

Gawain and Green Knight is farther from modern English than Canterbury Tales

[Anonymous No.5494502]

>>5494479
One counts the words which are not combinations of other words, generally speaking. Norwegian has somewhere between 220 000 and 300 000, depending on how many latinisms and such one includes.

[Anonymous No.5494509]

>>5494479
See: >>5494478

It's entirely dependent on their usage.

[Anonymous No.5494510]

>>5494321
>>He asks Otto to rest while he calms down.
Le pide a Otto que descanse mientras él se calma // Le pide a Otto que descanse (se siente) mientras se calma
>>Those prosecutors have been trying to lock him up for ten years.
Esos fiscales han estado intentando encerrarlo por diez años (I don't see the double meaning here)
>>Look at the dog with one eye.
Mira al perro de un solo ojo / Mira al perro con un solo ojo

German isn't the only language that isn't as shit as english.

[Anonymous No.5494516]

>>5494337
>I don't know latin
Most of those replace other particles
Terra = Earth
Terrae = Earths
Terras = You earths
Terris = from/by/to/etc earth

[Anonymous No.5494529]

>>5492929
>foregoing analysis of the conditions that led to English becoming so widespread
speaking if which: Originally the english language had cases, too. But thorughout colonisation and imperialism, I heard, the language has been overly simplified to make it possible that stupid bush nigger slaves could learn it easier. Correct me if I'm wrong.
My experience, however, is that english is a good language to learn and to quickly communicate on a primitive and later half-decent level, but is deficient when it comes to literature.
I also hate that there is no subjunctiv(coniunctiv) like in latin or german.
Basically the only comma rule I learned is that there is never one after "that" as a conjunction. Else I place commata where I deem them neccesary.

Pic partly related. Esperanto, another easy to learn language (constructed), which doesn't advantage anglo-fags.

[Anonymous No.5494573]

>>5494529
I would be more than happy with a future in which everyone uses english to day to day conversation and something like a mixture of german and french for literature. They would look back a thousand years to our present and be impressed that we could be so illiterate and believe we had achieved some sort of global consciousness.

[Anonymous No.5494587]

>>5494516
I don't really know what you are implying

also it is lazy and incorrect to state that:

Terra = Earth
Terrae = Earths
Terras = You earths
Terris = from/by/to/etc earth

it would be more accurate to say:

Terra = a single Earth as the subject
Terrae = more than one Earth as the subject
Terras = more than one Earth as the object
Terris = from/by/to/etc more than one Earth

[Anonymous No.5494591]

>>5494330
>Er fragt Otto zu ruhen, während er sich beruhigen.
>Betrachte der Hund, mit eine Auge.

[Anonymous No.5494592]

>>5494516
>You earths

[Anonymous No.5494606]

>>5494510
Look at the one-eyed dog / look with one eye at the dog

>Oh look, I can do that too!

[Anonymous No.5494607]

>>5494510
They've been trying for ten years.
He'll be in jail for ten years.
Spic.

[Anonymous No.5494623]

>>5494529
You're wrong. This happened during the transition from Old to Middle English.

You clearly know nothing about literature, faggot.

[Anonymous No.5494648]

>>5494455
Not at all. In german, you only have the predicate at second in main clauses and at the end in sub clauses. Rather does the existence of differing articles allow you to change objects among another.
Example:
>Ich sehe den Hund.
"I see the dog." In that order.
>Den Hund sehe ich.
The dog see I. - Not possible. "The dog I see" would be thinkable, but that would make "I see" an attribute and the sentence's actualp redicate would have to follow.

[Anonymous No.5494674]

>>5494623
Thank you. Knowing that I'm faggot makes my life so much better from now on.

[Anonymous No.5494678]

>>5494587
That it doesn't serve the same purpose than modern cases.

[Anonymous No.5494701]

>>5494592
Do you prefer
>Yo, Earths!

>>5494606
I don't know why OP chose those sentences, don't blame me.

>>5494607
Oh, right
Then I don't know how to change it without moving the words around for each.

>>5494648
That sounds needlessly complicated, all of those would be okay in spanish even though they'd look at you funny if you tried to use them. Do you win something from that kind of structuring?

[Anonymous No.5494703]

>>5494678
>That it doesn't serve the same purpose than modern cases.

what? that English didn't made sense

[Anonymous No.5494704]

>>5494674
Well it will if you learn from your mistakes and acquire even a basic understanding of English literature.

[Anonymous No.5494709]

>>5492392
Why is this so bad? A sentence like this:
>The rat the cat the dog bit chased escaped.
While hard to parse has a lot of aesthetic merit. We shouldn't be forced to write more simply if writing more complexly yields more interesting medium/message relationships.

[Anonymous No.5494710]

>>5494701
>Yo, Earths!

that isn't how latin accusative works you monumental retard

[Anonymous No.5494721]

>>5494701
>That sounds needlessly complicated, all of those would be okay in spanish even though they'd look at you funny if you tried to use them. Do you win something from that kind of structuring?

You can emphasise an object by putting it on the beginning of your sentence.
I don't know much about spanish structure. Is it related to latin structure?

[Anonymous No.5494723]

>>5494703
as modern grammatical cases
it was a horrible sentence but you could understand it.

[Anonymous No.5494737]

>>5494710
I was doing a vocative for fun, calm down.

>>5494721
No, latin structure is horrible. I think because of that all the languages that came from it are pretty free in form.
You could say
Veo el perro (I see the dog)
El perro yo veo (the dog I see)
El perro veo yo (the dog see I)
The last two would turn into "El perro veo" since we don't add the subject (it's subject? I don't remember the word in english for it so I'm doing a free translation).
Do you do that in german like in english?

[Anonymous No.5494748]

>>5494704
I'm sorry that I'm not a native speaker. But still now, after learning english since almost 10 years now, it is sometimes difficult to decide which words belong to each other, the particular order of words could also have different meanings. This is irritating when I read and I almost never have these problems with my native language.

[Anonymous No.5494775]

>>5494455
>Classical Latin was an inflected language and had a very flexible word order and sentence structure, but the most usual word order was SOV.
- wikipedia

[Anonymous No.5494780]

>>5494737
If you read Latin poetry, it's actually much, much freer in form than any modern European language.

[Anonymous No.5494790]

>>5494495
Does that invalidate my point in any way (remember we were talking about wether the canonical writers of English aged well compared to writers in other languages) ?

>>5494529
>speaking if which: Originally the english language had cases, too.

Don't know if that's true, but if it is, it's indeed pretty interesting. Late Old French had two cases,until they merged into one and modern French was born. Given how close Old English and Old French are, it's not too unlikely any way.

>>5494721
It's more like French and Italian (and, in this respect, English): no declensions, functions of words is given by prepositions and word order, hence a rather rigid syntax (compared to Latin), but perhaps still a bit less rigid than English. The way the conjugation works is still very close to Latin, though.

[Anonymous No.5494816]

>>5492392
No its not you cock juggler.
It just forces you to employ other means to show the amount of formality meing conveyed.
English is a beautiful language, and so is german. You however, are a faggot.

[Anonymous No.5494830]

>>5494737
It's subject. You're right.
The subject is required in german. It is only sometimes left out in spoken lnguage when you're informal. But the german language generally has a lot irregularities when it comes to verb endings. Maybe that's why its position in the sentence was manifested, to work againt the irregularies. In general in german the subject is more seperated from the predicate than in more latin-based languages like spanish.

[Anonymous No.5494881]

>>5494780
Indeed. Latin's rigid declination really made this possible. Hyperbata everywhere you look.

>>5494790
OK. So am I right to assume that the verb incorporates subject and predicate and is rather free to be placed in the sentence? (in spanish)

[Anonymous No.5494900]

>>5494830
That's some interesting shit.

[Anonymous No.5494951]

>>5494790
>Don't know if that's true, but if it is, it's indeed pretty interesting. Late Old French had two cases,until they merged into one and modern French was born. Given how close Old English and Old French are, it's not too unlikely any way.

English Cases were lost in the transition from Old to Middle English

to quote Burchfield's The English Language

"the linguistic changes of the period 900-1200 result from an increasing social acceptance of informal and unrecorded types of English, which, for conveniences sake I shall call Vulgar Old English. These informal types of English emerged because of the instability of the Old English declension system itself - It seems to have had too few clearly distinguished case endings to bring out the necessary relationships between words. moreover, lying ready at hand was a set of powerful but insufficiently exploited prepositions"

[Anonymous No.5494988]

>>5494951
shows that modern english is actually a degenerate form of the already flawed Old English.

[Anonymous No.5495004]

>>5494988

Flawed, and yet the world's language.

The lose of declension/conjugation endings happens in every language. It happened in Latin -> French, and Germanic -> English.

Shit, even happened PIE -> proto-whatever.

Also, languages never 'degenerate', more generation happens than degeration, they only evolve.

[Anonymous No.5495015]

>>5494988
All languages are flawed, and all are degenerate forms of other languages. German and English are ultimately both degenerate forms of Proto-Indo-European.

[Anonymous No.5495337]

>>5494403
this anon speaks the truth. Whatever the lingua franca at a given time and place in history, native speakers of it would usually marvell how it's obviously the best language for clear thought, poetry, etc.

In fact, most people will simply swoon about their mother tounges. The bias is so obvious it defies imagination.

[Anonymous No.5496154]

>>5492936
Every language has some particular challenge to it and they all require some kind of memorization (obviously). That being said, spelling in English isn't weird at all, excepting perhaps the few their/there grammar words. In fact, English is highly logical once you understand spelling reflects word origins.
>>5493322
>implying this comment isn't absolutely revolting
>>5493393
Who's claiming English is "pure"? There's no such thing in language, definitely not in a language with as much put into it (by force and by osmosis) as English. It's the synthesis that matters.
>>5494477
>>5494529
>>5494403
>Memorizing pronunciation is as hard (if not harder) than case memorization
No, not in the slightest. Even the earliest learners with poor pronunciation are easily understood. If anything, English celebrates its broad, pleasing sound palette.
>cases can make a language more flexible (see Latin for instance, who was the lingua franca of the West for quite some time).
Classical Latin was a pleasure for the upper-class Roman citizens of the Empire, whose real speech was colloquial Greek and vulgar Latin, the speakers of which would disagree on the greatness of too many cases despite flexibility. Post-Roman Europe did have its Medieval and Church Latin, but those are even more obscure: the pen-language of scholars and the liturgical language of a church that never wanted to teach it to its subjects. Not much of a lingua-franca if we consider its comparison (French) was not so limited in speakers when it attained the status named for it.
>You're simply rationalizing a state of affairs in hindsight: since the English language is the most widely spoken in the West nowadays, you imagine that it must be the ideal international language, thus foregoing analysis of the conditions that led to English becoming so widespread.
You've inferred all of this. Where is it said that "English is most widely spoken because it is 'ideal'"? Nowhere. All that was said was that English is so uniquely mongrel that it is, amongst all the European languages, perfectly international (perhaps you would prefer "transnational"?) already. There is no denial or romanticism of Anglo(-American) imperialism, colonialism, genocide (of lives or of cultures), and other dubious methods in which the language has become dominant today.
>Your post is not only overly emphatetic and pseudo-lyrical in the dullest possible way
(•_•) ( •_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■)
>speaking if which: Originally the english language had cases, too
Old English had cases similar to its sisters. What we call Britain was the exact opposite of political or ethnic isolate; the influence and presence of the Normans, French, Saxons, and others produced a language that was simpler and more accommodating.

>>5494166
>all these people replying to butthurt Euros
More like people that think they seem more sophisticated for putting down English when it's really quite nice.

[Anonymous No.5496177]

>>5494881
It's not nearly as free as in Latin, but you have some freedom. Most natural and common construction is subject+ verb + complement, although it's not uncommon to have something like verb + subject + complement.

I'm not exactly sure of what you mean by
>the verb incorporates subject and predicate and is rather free to be placed in the sentence

but indeed the verb is generally the center of the proposition (once you have positioned the verb, there is little freedom as where to put subject and predicate). You could perhaps just as well say that the subject is the center: the idea is that spanish sentences work a lot with compounds of verb and subject and in most cases predicate. It's very much like French and Italian, again, and unlike German as >>5494830
describes.
You have a bit more freedom with what to fo of the various predicates (most notably adverbs) but I'm not too sure about it.

I also have a feeling Spanish is more lenient on this than French (couldn't say for Italian).

[Anonymous No.5496215]

>>5496154
>Even the earliest learners with poor pronunciation are easily understood.

This doesn't really go against what I was saying. People making themselves understood, more or less, doesn't make pronunciation less difficult.

>Classical Latin was a pleasure for the upper-class Roman citizens of the Empire, whose real speech was colloquial Greek and vulgar Latin, the speakers of which would disagree on the greatness of too many cases despite flexibility. Post-Roman Europe did have its Medieval and Church Latin, but those are even more obscure: the pen-language of scholars and the liturgical language of a church that never wanted to teach it to its subjects. Not much of a lingua-franca if we consider its comparison (French) was not so limited in speakers when it attained the status named for it.

We seem to be disagreeing over the definition of lingua franca. The case of contemporary English is pretty unique, as it is spread among people of various backgrounds and little learning. Even French was mostly an elite or snob thing. Contemporary English rode on the back of american consumer culture, film, tv and video games industry, before that it wasn't really different, as an international language, from German or French. And those two aren't much harder to speak at the level at which most non-native speak English (particularly French). It's overwhelmingly a matter of exposure, and nowadays that means a matter of broadcasting much more than of any linguistic specificity.

>Where is it said that "English is most widely spoken because it is 'ideal'"?

There is a whole post pretty much to that effect itt. For instance

> All that was said was that English is so uniquely mongrel that it is, amongst all the European languages, perfectly international

pretty much amounts to say that English is ideal (or the closest to ideal) as an international language.

>There is no denial or romanticism of Anglo(-American) imperialism, colonialism, genocide (of lives or of cultures), and other dubious methods in which the language has become dominant today.

Well, I'm glad you're conscious about that (though I was less thinking about genocide than about film industry, as noted above). My point was that economic and technological factors dwarf linguistic ones in determining how English became so widespread. English doesn't have much of an edge over other Western Europeans languages (though it's a damn fine language, I never denied that) in that respect, it has been spread thanks to the power of image mostly.

>(•_•) ( •_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■)

A post beginning by "English is the language the world desired, born in the furnace..." is like a novel starting with "It was a dark and stormy night..". Can only induce cringe or laughter, despite the good intentions.

[Anonymous No.5496219]

>>5496154
>All that was said was that English is so uniquely mongrel that it is, amongst all the European languages, perfectly international (perhaps you would prefer "transnational"?) already.
Arguing for English being an international language from inherent properties (as opposed to exterior socio-political historical causes) is a tough dick to swallow.

I pretty much agree with this guy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb1txDSvmZ8
>English teaching is a terrible waste.
>It's simply that English is not adapted to the demands of intercultural communication.

And this, btw, isn't the topic of the thread. The thread isn't about what is easiest to learn, it's about what is the best language for literature.

Of course that question is highly subjective, but I would argue that clarity and unambiguity are positive traits of a language when evaluated in that regard.

[kitty !kitty/EnNg No.5496231]

>>5496215
i would personally say french is harder to learn
verb declining is a bitch

[Anonymous No.5496237]

>>5496154
>English is so uniquely mongrel
It is certainly not! No more mongrel than French, for example.

[Anonymous No.5496242]

>>5496231
It's probably a bit harder, yes. But not that much harder. The human brain is good for languages, and English and French are really close (I don't think any language that's not derived from English or Old English is closer to English than French).

It's just that speakers in the Anglosphere are living in induced linguistic apathy: since everyone can mumble their way into their native language, they feel little urge to learn foreign idioms. It's the same with French people, btw, they manage to suck at English despite being fluent in a slightly harder sister tongue.

[Anonymous No.5496252]

>>5496237
French has a pretty overwhelming Latin component, while English is balanced between German, Celtic, and Latin roots. It's not easy to assess. They're pretty high on the mongrel scale, anyway. For purity, one should look towards shut-in languages like Estonian or Basque.

[Anonymous No.5496266]

>>5496252
French is Latin base + Frankish (== Germanic) superstrate, with a slight Celtic influence.

English is a Saxon (== Germanic) base + Latin superstrate, with a slight Norse influence.

Arguing that French is somehow 'more pure' than English is retarded; you don't realize just how much Germanic influence French received.

[Anonymous No.5496283]

>>5496266
As I said, mongrelness is hard to assess, I was assuming English had more German and Celtic influence and less Latin influence, while French had much less German influence.

At the end of day, our accounts aren't much different. We agree that both language are the product of linguistic gangbang. I'm willing to take your opinion as fact as I have no reliable data on this, and as it doesn't matter much ultimately.

[Anonymous No.5496386]

>>5496283
>Celtic influence
Really? I was under the impression that the celtic influence is more or less negligible, especially considering you don't even mention Norse.

[Anonymous No.5496463]

>>5492429
>Jedli na hoře bez holí, meaning either "they ate elderberries on a mountain using a stick" or "they ate elderberry on a mountain without any sticks" or "they ate elderberry on a mountain to eat their sorrow away"; depending on the phrasing or a correct placement or punctuation, at least 7 meanings can be obtained. Replacing "na hoře" by "nahoře", one obtains 5 more meanings. If also separating words using spaces is permitted, the total number of known possible meanings rises up to an astonishing 58.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_linguistic_example_sentences#Czech

The existence of such a beast in a language as highly-inflected and with as many cases as Czech is a serious blow to OP's argument.

[Anonymous No.5497417]

Agglutinative languages are best for literature as they allow the user to play with words freely. It's elasticity is especially usefull for poetry.

[Anonymous No.5497681]

>>5496386
It mostly is negligible. The only lasting Celtic influence in French that I can remember from the top of my head is the vigesimal number system.

[Anonymous No.5498280]

>>5492392
you could argue that English is good for writing(particularly poetry) because of its large number of synonyms

for example: happy from Old Norse

content, ecstatic and delighted from Old French

merry, mirthfull, carefree and feelgood from Old English

festive and jovial from Latin

another example:

steal and thieve from OE

pinch, pilfer and pillage from OF

ransack from ON

burgle from french

plunder from German

loot from Hindi

[Anonymous No.5499277]

>>5494737
you mixed accusative and vocative. and usually you use O ... to indicate vocative.

[Anonymous No.5499340]

Didn't Nabokov say that English was the best language?

[Anonymous No.5499387]

>>5499340
It was basically his first language, he was probably biased.

[Anonymous No.5500733]

>>5494454
>common language of tourist attractions

You mean ALSO of air traffic control, the UN, international business, etc.

[Anonymous No.5500746]

>>5500733
Yes. Those are pretty much interdependant.

As far as the UN is concerned, there is also French, and as far as international business is concerned, who knows what new language is in the rise, but that's nitpicking.

[Anonymous No.5500753]

Why has German gone to shit the past 150 years?

[Anonymous No.5500776]

What is it about European language that has allowed native speakers to conqueror the world again and again and create the greatest cultural movements in history?

Why can't non-European peoples ever get their shit together?

[Anonymous No.5500793]

>>5500776
I kinda agree with Jared Diamond's general point in Guns, Germs, and Steel, where Europe had "centers of civilizations" (spots where farming, trading, and building are so easy that humans and major cities WILL be found there) which were separate enough from each other by distance and natural obstacles that hegemony cannot be easily established in one or two generations, but close enough to each other that they compete against each other for resources, competition driving innovation and invention.

[Anonymous No.5500815]

>>5500793

But something that a historian like JD is not fit to comment on is the innate sophistication of European language and how it allowed for more complex and elaborated thought in general.

I mean, do you think something like Essay Concerning Human Understanding could possibly have been written in Swahili?

[Anonymous No.5500837]

>>5500815
I'm including linguistic innovation and invention, as well as the more generic kind. I'm sure you can map out linguistic complexity and find that civs which interact with with the highest variety of others the most have the most diverse languages.

[Anonymous No.5500850]

>>5500776
You could say the same about Chinese if it wasn't ridiculously complicated.

[Die Meme Groupie No.5500851]

>>5500753
The third reich was the epitome of german strength, whilst it lasted.

[Anonymous No.5500863]

>>5500851
German strength was lost the day the Holy German Empire was abolished. Everything that came after was carefully channeled manic behaviour.

[Anonymous No.5500887]

>>5500850

The Chinese have really only ever been able to conquer other Asian tribes. Chinese hegemony over European peoples has been virtually non-existent throughout history, especially in the far West.

And their cultural contributions the past 2000 years have likewise amounted to almost nothing.

>>5500837

I don't think it's about diversity so much as the individual perfection of each language. Ancient Greek, Koine Greek and Latin are arguably the finest languages in human history.

[Anonymous No.5500905]

>>5492392
>for example "you" can be translated as "du" or "sie" in German

You forgot to capitalize Sie, you fucking mongrel.

[Anonymous No.5500929]

>>5500887
>I don't think it's about diversity so much as the individual perfection of each language. Ancient Greek, Koine Greek and Latin are arguably the finest languages in human history.
Could you elaborate?

[Anonymous No.5500978]

>>5500887
>I don't think it's about diversity so much as the individual perfection of each language. Ancient Greek, Koine Greek and Latin are arguably the finest languages in human history.

I don't know any Ancient Greek but I am learning Latin

Latin is a nice language, I find the Grammar interesting and it has a massive and diverse body of works written in it but "one of the finest languages ever"?

I don't really see what makes it any better than modern languages like English, German, French ect.

[Anonymous No.5500988]

>>5492412
>average person speaking Engrish has 80,000 word vocab

>>5492439
>that's neat, anonkun

>>5493409
Based Lithuania

[Anonymous No.5501155]

>>5500753
>implying simplification is bad

And what the hell is up with that "Für means pro and can be used only where pro can be used in Latin"?

The worst thing about old school grammarians is their awful tendency to see Latin (and to a lesser degree Greek and Sanskrit) as the gold standard for grammar. E.g. the split infinitive non-issue.

Fossilized forms are great study material, but living languages just constantly evolve.

[Anonymous No.5501193]

>>5500929
He can't, he's running on the fumes of American education

[Anonymous No.5501612]

>>5500978

You forgot the part where all those languages are descended from Latin and borrow their grammatical structure heavily from it.

>>5501193

>implying this is at all a controversial statement

Apart from Sanskrit and maybe ancient Persian, non-European languages simply cannot compare. The volume and quality of works that were produced in Greek and Latin constitute the greatest depository of human learning in history. And most of the modern works that have any kind of merit have been prepared in a Romantic language.

[Anonymous No.5501702]

>>5501612
German and English aren't descended from Latin and none of those languages have grammar similar to Latin

also a language being the progenitor of another does make the older language better

also legitimately kill yourself, you fucking retard

[Anonymous No.5501720]

>>5501702

>German and English aren't descended from Latin and none of those languages have grammar similar to Latin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_influence_in_English

Also it is a generally rule the languages become less perfect the more people there are speaking them

Ancient Greek > Koine Greek > Modern Greek

Classical Latin > Vulgar Latin > Medieval Latin

etc

[Anonymous No.5501767]

>>5501720
just because English has romantic influence doesn't make it a romance language

>Also it is a generally rule the languages become less perfect the more people there are speaking them

*fips tedora*

>Classical Latin > Vulgar Latin > Medieval Latin

you clearly don't know what people mean by Vulgar Latin

and Medieval Latin isn't any different from Classical Latin other than slightly difference spelling for some words and some words swapping declension/conjugation

[Anonymous No.5501798]

>>5501767

lel please give me an example of a modern language that is superior to its progenitor, that sounds better in the ear and reads more clearly

Modern languages are dissonant as hell. Like invitations to a migraine. I personally cannot stand 21st century English.

[Anonymous No.5501841]

>>5501798
you're just a fucking retard so why would anyone actually argue with you

[Anonymous No.5501846]

>>5501798
>that sounds better in the ear
Subjective

>reads more clearly
what do you mean?

>Modern languages are dissonant as hell.
Subjective opinion

>I personally cannot stand 21st century English.
what do you mean 21st century English? English has barely changed since the 18th century

[Anonymous No.5501848]

>>5501846

> English has barely changed since the 18th century

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYBpYeZR_Bo

[Anonymous No.5501850]

>>5501798
I haven't followed the discussion closely, but it seems that you are the one trying to argue things like
>language A is better than language B
without giving any aesthetical criteria on which to base that judgement on.

So even without looking closely at your arguments, I can tell you must be a colossal fucktard just from that sample of your reasoning in isolation.

[Anonymous No.5501860]

>>5501848
there has always been slang and differing dialects

English is isn't the shitter because Ebonics exists

[Anonymous No.5501866]

>>5501860
>English is isn't the shitter because Ebonics exists

oh god, my proof reading is kill

what I meant was: English isn't in the shitter because Ebonics exists

also English 700 years ago had dialects too

[Anonymous No.5501867]

>>5501850

read this image for some idea of what I mean

>>5500753

General loss of grammatical rigor and the finer shade of diction is the main problem.

Phonetics is a whole different issue. That lies on the physically and abstractly acoustic side of language though, so I have a hard time describing what it is I don't like about modern English. It just sounds worse, choppier.

[Anonymous No.5501877]

>>5501867

I think it might be because see that sucks, "BE BEcause", but even professional speakers would hear nothing wrong in it oratory has fallen so far out of use that no one today has any ears for it. Most of the reading we do is silent and in private. We tend to use language differently when speaking and writing. Formal language just lacks the punch and fluid quality it had say in the time of Shakespeare, or even 200 years ago in France. It's ugly. But that might not necessarily be a strictly recent phenomenon. For one thing, I believe the founding fathers were pretty bad writers. Go read the Madison Papers to get an idea of what I mean.

[Anonymous No.5501886]

>>5501877

Politicians are pretty much the only people today who speak for effect, and they tend to be lousy writers and muddleheads to begin with. That might be a big part of the problem too. Obama and Bush for instance really chafe the ears, so to speak.

[Anonymous No.5501898]

>>5501867
>grammatical rigor
what does that mean? You seem to be under the false impression that grammar has some sort of connection with logic.

Whether or not something is grammatical or not is entirely decided by convention, there's no logic involved whatsoever.

[Anonymous No.5501908]

>>5501898

>Whether or not something is grammatical or not is entirely decided by convention.

I can assure you the connexion between grammar and logic runs very deep


>16. There are still harmless self-observers who believe that there are "immediate certainties"; for instance, "I think," or as the superstition of Schopenhauer puts it, "I will"; as though cognition here got hold of its object purely and simply as "the thing in itself," without any falsification taking place either on the part of the subject or the object. I would repeat it, however, a hundred times, that "immediate certainty," as well as "absolute knowledge" and the "thing in itself," involve a CONTRADICTIO IN ADJECTO; we really ought to free ourselves from the misleading significance of words! The people on their part may think that cognition is knowing all about things, but the philosopher must say to himself: "When I analyze the process that is expressed in the sentence, 'I think,' I find a whole series of daring assertions, the argumentative proof of which would be difficult, perhaps impossible: for instance, that it is I who think, that there must necessarily be something that thinks, that thinking is an activity and operation on the part of a being who is thought of as a cause, that there is an 'ego,' and finally, that it is already determined what is to be designated by thinking—that I KNOW what thinking is. For if I had not already decided within myself what it is, by what standard could I determine whether that which is just happening is not perhaps 'willing' or 'feeling'? In short, the assertion 'I think,' assumes that I COMPARE my state at the present moment with other states of myself which I know, in order to determine what it is; on account of this retrospective connection with further 'knowledge,' it has, at any rate, no immediate certainty for me."—In place of the "immediate certainty" in which the people may believe in the special case, the philosopher thus finds a series of metaphysical questions presented to him, veritable conscience questions of the intellect, to wit: "Whence did I get the notion of 'thinking'? Why do I believe in cause and effect? What gives me the right to speak of an 'ego,' and even of an 'ego' as cause, and finally of an 'ego' as cause of thought?" He who ventures to answer these metaphysical questions at once by an appeal to a sort of INTUITIVE perception, like the person who says, "I think, and know that this, at least, is true, actual, and certain"—will encounter a smile and two notes of interrogation in a philosopher nowadays. "Sir," the philosopher will perhaps give him to understand, "it is improbable that you are not mistaken, but why should it be the truth?"

[Anonymous No.5501910]

>>5501908

and more to the point:

>17. With regard to the superstitions of logicians, I shall never tire of emphasizing a small, terse fact, which is unwillingly recognized by these credulous minds—namely, that a thought comes when "it" wishes, and not when "I" wish; so that it is a PERVERSION of the facts of the case to say that the subject "I" is the condition of the predicate "think." ONE thinks; but that this "one" is precisely the famous old "ego," is, to put it mildly, only a supposition, an assertion, and assuredly not an "immediate certainty." After all, one has even gone too far with this "one thinks"—even the "one" contains an INTERPRETATION of the process, and does not belong to the process itself. One infers here according to the usual grammatical formula—"To think is an activity; every activity requires an agency that is active; consequently"... It was pretty much on the same lines that the older atomism sought, besides the operating "power," the material particle wherein it resides and out of which it operates—the atom. More rigorous minds, however, learnt at last to get along without this "earth-residuum," and perhaps some day we shall accustom ourselves, even from the logician's point of view, to get along without the little "one" (to which the worthy old "ego" has refined itself).

[Anonymous No.5501911]

>>5501867
>General loss of grammatical rigor

changes in grammar in grammar =/= less rigorous grammar

for example: Middle English verbs are not more rigorous than Modern English

>finer shade of diction

hardly, if anything English diction is ever improving because the language is constantly gaining new words

>It just sounds worse, choppier.

again Mod. English doesn't really sound any more or less choppy the ME

[Anonymous No.5501942]

>>5501908
>>5501910
tl;dr

"ich bin deutsch" - grammatical
"ich deutsch bin" - not grammatical

There's no logic here, just convention. And it's no different for any other issue in any other language.

"my shit smells nice"
"my shit nice smells"

"I am well educated"
"I be good educated"

please explain to me why one of these alternatives is grammatical and the other one is not, using only logic.

>inb4 you can't

[Anonymous No.5501945]

>>5501942
correction: not using only logic, but actually using logic.

Protip: you know how linguists find out whether or not a sentence is grammatical?
They ask native speakers, because there's no other way to determine grammaticality other than by convention.

[Anonymous No.5501946]

>>5492392
>for example "you" can be translated as "du" or "sie" in German, the second one being polite/formal, the first one being familiar)

Thou hadst forgotten that "thou" was once the English familiar or used while speaking to ones inferiors. Or perhaps thou hadst neglected thy Shakespeare study and didst not understand the pivotal scene in Romeo and Juliet where Tybalt refers to Mercutio with "thou" and Mercutio correctly interprets the usage as an insult and they sword fight.

fucking pleb get out of here

[Anonymous No.5501947]

>>5501942

I'm not talking about the trifles of linguistic grammar. I'm talking about the basic structure of language and thought, subject-predicate necessity and things like that. If you had read what I posted you might have been able to formulate a pertinent response.

[Anonymous No.5501959]

>>5501946
that's like saying
>hurr a few thousand years ago English was ancient Greek, therefore Plato was an English scholar
fucking idiot

Modern day English does not have formal/familiar appellations. This has nothing to do with me, but everything to do with the language itself.

[Anonymous No.5502342]

Mathematics is the language of the universe. — Michio Kaku

[kitty !kitty/EnNg No.5502373]

>>5502342
michio kaku, you are drunk
you speak with the universe again

[Anonymous No.5504380]

>>5492392
>The English language sucks as a vehicle for literature

Yes, the language with the largest vocabulary sucks as a vehicle for literature.

(finnish doesn't count)

[Anonymous No.5504433]

>>5501612
Persian is an Indo-European language you know.