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I don't know about the "regularity" - I know about the complexity of Finnish and Hungarian and to me it's rather connected to the mystery of the origin of these two. I mean no one has explained yet why people of the same language group ended up in Hungary, Finland and somewhere at the Volga site.
Besides, these are typical representatives of the "Uralic" group of languages; ( sitting waiting in the local airport on their way to a boarding-school, apparently...)
So what the heck happened in case of Hungary and Finland?
Dunno but google "Nostratic language", it's a stretch but fits. Interestingly, languages outside of Europe that are Uralic tend to be like Turkish, very small phoneme inventories, no gender, very dull morphology, almost no irregularities, no agreement of adjectives (Finnish picked it up from nearby languages but Hungarian doesn't inflect its adjectives still) Hungarian has regular sorta dull inflection but it's derivational techniques are just as irregular and varied as nearby European languages though unlike Finnish where derivation is transparent and inflection complicated (regular though, only like 10 irregular verbs and 10 irregular nouns! but complicated mutations occur)
Sanscrit - I understand even less the whole concept of it, the whole "Indo-Aryan" concept ( except for may be Iran\Persia case - there I can more or less picture what "Indo-Aryans" are, their origin so to speak,)
Previously I already mentioned the cause of Sanskrit's regularity though, it being heavy prescriptivism so we know why for this one, no doubt Sanskrit is very complex with tons of inflection and far more morphology than Russian and Icelandic combined yet 10000x the regularity than either
and when it comes to Arabic - I have some kind of aversion towards "Arabialand" all together ( language including,) as them being birth place and ultimate promoters of "true Islam." So sorry to say I wouldn't even LOOK into their language; I would not give it the time of day.
What is your native country? Did they have interactions with Islamic nations in the past?
In all honesty I could never make any connection between Russia and Turkey; the only thing that they might have in common is that Russia was historically connected to Byzantium ( culturally and spiritually) and Turks took over those lands and basically destroyed their original culture ( that's what Islam usually does.) So when you are talking about the similarities, can you give me an example of it - like video or something, since without it I am not even sure what we are talking about.
So they stole the culture from conquered lands? It's possible
You can definitely find the same line in Russian literature - a warning so to speak to not to think that money and privileges is what ultimately defines intelligence ( or morals.) Russian literature makes it to be known that lower class has its own wisdom and intelligence. Shakespeare is highly regarded in Russia overall ( "Hamlet" in particular) since it's a deeply philosophical literature - the kind Russians are used to in their own culture.
Would you say it was a bit after Shakespear's time that English became an "ascetic" language?
No. To me English makes an impression of a language of an organizer, not farmer, the language of the one who makes the world tick in certain way; a language of the one who writes the laws, who establish certain patterns and connections.
A language of the politician, judge, physicist, and biologist? What about Dutch and the Scandinavian languages with their little inflection too
May be. But I still suspect that there is some main underlying factor that determines the main characteristics of the language. At least in some cases.
Dunno but google "Nostratic language", it's a stretch but fits. Interestingly, languages outside of Europe that are Uralic tend to be like Turkish, very small phoneme inventories, no gender, very dull morphology, almost no irregularities, no agreement of adjectives (Finnish picked it up from nearby languages but Hungarian doesn't inflect its adjectives still) Hungarian has regular sorta dull inflection but it's derivational techniques are just as irregular and varied as nearby European languages though unlike Finnish where derivation is transparent and inflection complicated (regular though, only like 10 irregular verbs and 10 irregular nouns! but complicated mutations occur)
I looked up "Nostratic language" and the question that I've got right away is what "agnostic view" some linguists are taking exactly?
Previously I already mentioned the cause of Sanskrit's regularity though, it being heavy prescriptivism so we know why for this one, no doubt Sanskrit is very complex with tons of inflection and far more morphology than Russian and Icelandic combined yet 10000x the regularity than either
Well they can't be all the same, with the same predicted regularity)))
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What is your native country?
I was born and raised in Moscow, but part of my family is of Islamic background.
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Did they have interactions with Islamic nations in the past?
What, Russia? Yes, a lot.
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So they stole the culture from conquered lands? It's possible
"Stolen" I think is more fitting for Arabic conquest of Persia - there the more superior culture has been obviously stolen and passed for "flourishing era of Islam," but in case of Turkish conquest of Byzantium, it was probably an inability to completely destroy the previous culture of the conquered people I think, so it became absorbed into the new one somehow.
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Would you say it was a bit after Shakespear's time that English became an "ascetic" language?
I see it the other way around - it's not the language that's "ascetic" and therefore leaves its imprint on the nation, but it's the soul of the nation that's ascetic and the language reflects it. And no, I think it's coming from earlier times than Shakespear. There are some earlier layers I sense there, and Victorian England is something of the "guilded surface," so if anything, English language probably became only more flowery and restructured somehow with time. (But I'd probably have to look it all up again - the Old English and Middle English.)
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A language of the politician, judge, physicist, and biologist?
Not exactly; the language of "biologists and physicist" can be any European language, English including.
But language of a "judge," "administrator," - that's more like it.
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What about Dutch and the Scandinavian languages with their little inflection too
The minute you find out, contact the University of Helsinki immediately. That has puzzled scholars for years. The best guess is "some immigrants" and the already existing peoples shift languages. And eventually that evolved into Finnish.
Hungarians shifted possibly later, before they migrated to Hungary.
Yeah, sure - they'll be first in line.
Or better else - I'll contact you, Ariete, directly.
I have 2 semesters of Spanish class way back in college. It's pretty easy to learn for me as I am Filipino and Filipino words are mainly rooted from Spanish words.
I speak Spanish, Portuguese, English , and Hungarian. From a distance of about 20 feet, if you hear someone speaking Finish, you would almost bet the farm that it might be Hungarian. However, as you approach the person talking, you realize you cannot understand anything they are saying. To the best of my knowledge they have nothing in common. As someone who speaks several languages, it is hard to appreciate just how incredibly difficult it is to have command of the Hungarian language. Spanish is by far the easiest language in the world. More countries speak it than any other language.
-I looked up "Nostratic language" and the question that I've got right away is what "agnostic view" some linguists are taking exactly? It's not proven, it could be wrong
I was born and raised in Moscow, but part of my family is of Islamic background. So do you disagree with their religous views?
"Stolen" I think is more fitting for Arabic conquest of Persia - there the more superior culture has been obviously stolen and passed for "flourishing era of Islam," but in case of Turkish conquest of Byzantium, it was probably an inability to completely destroy the previous culture of the conquered people I think, so it became absorbed into the new one somehow.
I see it the other way around - it's not the language that's "ascetic" and therefore leaves its imprint on the nation, but it's the soul of the nation that's ascetic and the language reflects it. And no, I think it's coming from earlier times than Shakespear. There are some earlier layers I sense there, and Victorian England is something of the "guilded surface," so if anything, English language probably became only more flowery and restructured somehow with time. (But I'd probably have to look it all up again - the Old English and Middle English.)
So English is slowly getting back on some feet it used to have? The cause might be hard to pinpoint as you said, I suppose the passing from the UK to the USA as the center of English might stop it, likewise Japanese was probably a pidgin hit even harder than English ever had in the far past, but it's become complex over the years, there are languages that used to be pidgin or creolized but re-complexified into being indistinguishable from regular languages. People seem to think it can only go in one direction, simplification, and that there is never any chance for recovery. But there is, English has gotten a few things like phrasal verbs and the going-to future for example but not enough to be a full language it should be.
Not exactly; the language of "biologists and physicist" can be any European language, English including.
But language of a "judge," "administrator," - that's more like it. I can imagine the british parliament right now!
What about them?
I'm just wondering your theory for why their languages lost numerous inflections too like English.
I also forgot to ask, why do you think European languages are regularizing now? You know Russian verbs are moving away from irregular classes into predictable ones, gender has become prectictable, noun plurals are regularizing, comparative forms of adjectives are simplifying, etc. etc. Same with Icelandic, numerous nouns are merging, same with German and German dialect plurals, mergers are occurring, the simple past is almost gone, case endings are starting to appear only on the articles and adjectives, not the nouns, strong verbs are disappearing, same with other Germanic languages. Lithuanian dialects have removed some declensions and adjective classes, a verb conjugation has been removed as well. These languages were simpler in the far past, peaked, and now seem to be slowly descending into a comfortable flight level. We have Bulgarian and Macedonian as examples of what Slavic languages might head to, loss of case and some inflections, many tenses formed by auxiliaries and particles instead of suffixes. So what do you beleive about this?
hardest: bulgarian (unless your background is russian or macedonian), french is quite hard too.
easiest: english.
No, Bulgarian is the easiest of the Slavic languages, because the nouns don't decline. There's no case system. French is a piece of cake, too, compared to Romanian, which is the only Romance language with a case system, the closest one to Latin. Though French spelling isn't as straightforward as in the other Romance languages.
I speak Spanish, Portuguese, English , and Hungarian. From a distance of about 20 feet, if you hear someone speaking Finish, you would almost bet the farm that it might be Hungarian. However, as you approach the person talking, you realize you cannot understand anything they are saying. To the best of my knowledge they have nothing in common. As someone who speaks several languages, it is hard to appreciate just how incredibly difficult it is to have command of the Hungarian language. Spanish is by far the easiest language in the world. More countries speak it than any other language.
The fact that more people speak it doesn't mean it's the easiest in the world. What's easy to some people is difficult to others. The Scandinavian languages are the easiest for English speakers. Spanish would be the easiest for native speakers of French or Portuguese. See how that works?
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