# Language Question **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 13, 2014, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-question/707124 "2014-12-13T14:51:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-question/707124/21 "2014-12-14T00:56:19Z")
As it says in the first link in my post above: SOV “She him loves.” 45% SVO “She loves him.” 42% VSO “Loves she him.” 9% VOS “Loves him she.” 3% OVS “Him loves she.” 1% OSV “Him she loves.” 0% (which doesn’t mean there are no such languages, but that the proportion of them is less than 0.5% and is rounded to 0%) ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-question/707124/22 "2014-12-14T02:55:02Z")
> [@pianodave](#): > > Sorry for all these questions, but I’m trying to understand how other speakers **justify** their own languages in the face of a language (English) that’s more frequently used and seems more direct. my emphasis. Wow. That’s all. I don’t think we share enough of a world view to have a conversation. > [@doreen](#): > > You realize, of course, that’s it’s far more likely they would be thinking “What’s wrong with English?”. English is normal to you because it’s your native language, but “I give it to you” is not objectively easier to understand than “to you it I give” I’m pretty sure that would never cross his mind. > [@jtur88](#): > > I was told once that at international conferences, the interpreter who is translating speeches from German has a panic button he can press that flashes a red light on the German speaker’s podium, which means “Gimme a verb!” Nope, at least for professional interpreters (translation is written). Japanese has the verb at the end of sentence and there are simultaneous interpreters who do this well. There are ways of saying the sentence in a nonstandard order which works out. It’s not completely natural, but it’s so smooth you rarely notice. What commonly happens is that the speaker gives the speech to the interpreters first, and then they have a chance to read it first. > [@hibernicus](#): > > Example: > (English) Where did you put the mayonnaise? > (Japanese) Mayonnaise, where put? Actually in Japanese it would more likely be “Mayonnaise, where?” with the implied verb _are_ (exists at) rather than _oita_ (put). My wife and I have interesting conversations in Japanese because we both speak it an non-natives. I’m American, she’s from Taiwan and that is our common language. We both make “mistakes” or rather sound unnatural in Japanese because we are mentally substituting different words. ---
**Author:** ![pianodave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e79b87/32.png) [@pianodave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pianodave)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-question/707124/23 "2014-12-14T03:58:51Z")
Hi, everyone. Firstly, sorry to TokyoBayer. I can see what you’re saying. I most certainly did not intend to come off as racist or insensitive. Justify was not what I meant at all. I love languages, I just severely misspoke. I think what Doreen said answered my question; namely, “I give it to you” is not objectively easier to understand than “to you it I give”. Nobody needs to justify their use of language, period. It was a terrible choice of words and not what I meant at all–please forgive me! To others; this is a very interesting thread. I appreciate your input regarding word order (SVO,OVS, etc.) I learned that what’s normal is relative. Someone upthread said that word order is irrelevant if the meaning comes across. That’s what I wanted to know. It’s amazing how we can understand each other with so many definitions of “normal” sentence construction. BTW, I understand perfectly well that English is most likely not as consistent a language (grammatically speaking) as others. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-question/707124/24 "2014-12-14T07:04:19Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > What? In English, the adjective normally comes before the noun, not after. But there is nothing logical about that-- you’re just used to it. There is no logical reason that one needs to know which noun is going to be red. Oops. Boo-boo me it that. Of course, I word adjective noun order meant. Know you what meant I. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-question/707124/25 "2014-12-14T07:39:30Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > The difference lies in the position of the pronouns that replace the direct and indirect objects. In the Spanish sentence, they come before the verb (and, more specifically, the indirect object before the direct object). And it’s an unusual sentence within Spanish: the verb _dar_ pretty much carries its own word structures (you’re even more or less likely to get that pileup of pronouns depending on what is being given). If it was an order, with the same verb, it would be: _dámelo_ (give it to me - givemeit) _dáselo a to padre_ (give it to your father - givehimit to your father) Note that if we didn’t already know what is being given we wouldn’t be able to use the pronoun for the DO: _dale la manzana a tu padre_ (givehim the apple to your father) And actually the pronoun for the IO is emphatic: _da la manzana a tu padre_ (give the apple to your father) is unusual usage but perfectly cromulent grammar, and in fact a favorite of teachers of Spanish grammar. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-question/707124/26 "2014-12-14T07:47:24Z")
_¡a tu padre!_ No TO! Typo, promise! I can spell! It’s correct in the other two… ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-question/707124/27 "2014-12-14T08:25:01Z")
There’s another funny thing about word order in English, which you never think about until someone points it out to you: Not only does the adjective have to be in a particular place in a sentence, but adjectives have to come in a particular order, depending on what kind of attribute they refer to. If you have a big red ball, you have to say “big red ball”. You wouldn’t say “red big ball”. Or, well, you might, but it sounds weird. Or it implies that you have, say, two big balls, one red and one yellow, and you’re pointing to one of them. I don’t know how this works in other languages, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there are some where you have to say “red big” instead of “big red”. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-question/707124/28 "2014-12-14T08:45:30Z")
The standard order for adjectives in English is the following: 1.Determiners — articles, adverbs, and other limiters. 2.Observation — postdeterminers and limiter adjectives (e.g., a real hero, a perfect idiot) and adjectives subject to subjective measure (e.g., beautiful, interesting), or objects with a value (e.g., best, cheapest, costly) 3.Size and shape — adjectives subject to objective measure (e.g., wealthy, large, round), and physical properties such as speed. 4.Age — adjectives denoting age (e.g., young, old, new, ancient, six-year-old). 5.Color — adjectives denoting color (e.g., red, black, pale). 6.Origin — denominal adjectives denoting source of noun (e.g., French, American, Canadian). 7.Material — denominal adjectives denoting what something is made of (e.g., woolen, metallic, wooden). 8.Qualifier — final limiter, often regarded as part of the noun (e.g., rocking chair, hunting cabin, passenger car, book cover). This is according to this Wikipedia entry: > **[Adjective](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adjective#Adjective_order)** > > An adjective (abbreviated .mw-parser-output span.smallcaps{font-variant:small-caps}.mw-parser-output span.smallcaps-smaller{font-size:85%}adj.) is a word that describes a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. > Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the main parts of speech of the English language, although historically they were classed together with nouns. Nowadays, certain words that usually had been classified as adjectives, including the,... ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-question/707124/29 "2014-12-14T08:48:22Z")
And even within each category, there are specific orders. In Spanish we speak of TVs _en blanco y negro_, or of wearing _blanco y rojo_ for Sanfermines: in English it’s b&w or red and whites (this second one seems to at least be the general consensus among wearers of red and whites who speak English - it seems real strange to see a translation, and it’s always a translation, which reads “white and red”). ---
**Author:** ![iljitsch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/77aa72/32.png) [@iljitsch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iljitsch)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-question/707124/30 "2014-12-14T09:46:51Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > SOV “She him loves.” 45% > SVO “She loves him.” 42% > VSO “Loves she him.” 9% > VOS “Loves him she.” 3% > OVS “Him loves she.” 1% > OSV “Him she loves.” 0% Dutch normally uses SVO but VSO makes it a question. You can use OVS for emphasis although it sounds a bit unusual and conceivably also OSV. SOV is used in constructs like “because she pushes him” -\> “omdat ze hem duwt”. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-question/707124/31 "2014-12-14T09:53:47Z")
The problem was already solved in the very first post: > [@pianodave](#): > > Do they think the word order they grew up with is “correct?” and that English is “wrong?” Yup (in just the same way you think the English word order is “correct” and others are “wrong”, because it’s the one you grew up with). That’s exactly what happens. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-question/707124/32 "2014-12-14T09:55:48Z")
Actually, no. Except for some very specific items (month then day then year, really?), we think it’s different, or strange. But not wrong. ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-question/707124/33 "2014-12-14T09:58:46Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > \*It’s not just me, right? No, I do exactly the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-question/707124/34 "2014-12-14T12:46:43Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > There’s another funny thing about word order in English, which you never think about until someone points it out to you: Not only does the adjective have to be in a particular place in a sentence, but adjectives have to come in a particular order, depending on what kind of attribute they refer to. If you have a big red ball, you have to say “big red ball”. You wouldn’t say “red big ball”. Or, well, you might, but it sounds weird. Or it implies that you have, say, two big balls, one red and one yellow, and you’re pointing to one of them. > > I don’t know how this works in other languages, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there are some where you have to say “red big” instead of “big red”. In Hebrew, where the adjective comes after the subject, the order just as precise, except the opposite: you’d say “kadur adom gadol” (“ball red big”), but rarely “kadur gadol adom” (“ball big red”). You can, however, say “Kadre gadol ve’adom” (“ball big and red”). ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-question/707124/35 "2014-12-14T16:16:28Z")
iljitsch, in fact that sort of thing is noted in the Wikipedia article that I linked to. It’s somewhat difficult to say what the standard subject-verb-object order is in some languages. There are various contexts in some languages where the order differs just within that language. There are also, as noted previously, languages where the word order matters little because of the words are so highly inflected that it doesn’t much matter what the order is. There are also, as also has been noted previously, languages where the topic-comment order is more significant than the subject-verb-object order. And ordering is not nearly the only way that languages differ. There are differences in the phonemes (i.e., the sounds) that languages use. There are differences in the semantic structures (i.e., what sorts of things the language choose to name) of languages. There are differences in how much inflection there is in languages. There are some languages where the subject-object distinction doesn’t make sense. These are ergative languages. If you’re really interested in this subject, you might get a book on the subject of linguistic typology or take a class in it. You might have to first read a book or take a course on introductory linguistics: > **[Linguistic typology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_typology)** > > Linguistic typology (or language typology) is a field of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features to allow their comparison. Its aim is to describe and explain the structural diversity and the common properties of the world's languages. Its subdisciplines include, but are not limited to phonological typology, which deals with sound features; syntactic typology, which deals with word order and form; lexical typology, which deals with language voca... > **[Ergative–absolutive alignment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergative%E2%80%93absolutive_language)** > > In linguistic typology, ergative–absolutive alignment is a type of morphosyntactic alignment in which the single argument ("subject") of an intransitive verb behaves like the object of a transitive verb, and differently from the agent of a transitive verb. Examples include Basque, Georgian, Mayan, Tibetan, and certain Indo-European languages (such as the Kurdish languages and many Indo-Aryan languages like Hindi–Urdu). It has controversially also been attributed to the Semitic modern Aramaic l Th... ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-question/707124/36 "2014-12-14T16:55:48Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > There’s another funny thing about word order in English, which you never think about until someone points it out to you: Not only does the adjective have to be in a particular place in a sentence, but adjectives have to come in a particular order, depending on what kind of attribute they refer to. After joining some school, the first English course started like that : the teacher wrote a long sentence about a pretty little blue…etc, etc, etc…flower and pointed at this fact. Not only I had never realized it for English, but I had never before realized it for French, either (where the order of the adjectives is equally specific, and some come before the noun and others after it). Regarding the OP : obviously the “proper” order of words in a sentence is whatever you’re accustomed to, and in fact, it’s not bothering either, when you learn a different labguage with a different order. At least, it never bothered me, with some rare exceptions : for instance the aforementioned “I miss you” in English always felt wrong to me, because it seems to put the emphasis on “I”, so it always sounds self-centered to me. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-question/707124/37 "2014-12-14T17:08:32Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > \*It’s not just me, right? It’s not me, at least. I pay zero attention to the actual descrption, my brain just creates some image based on god only knows what. So, in the rare instances when I pay attention, I notice that the main character was intended as a young, dark-skinned, muscular, beardless guy but that I’m picturing him as middle aged, white, thin and bearded (who in fact looks exactly like my 10th grade Latin teacher for some reason). Same goes for everything else the author cares to describe. So, no moving around of the chimney in the big hall for me because in my mind, it’s instead a tiny room with a tapestry, and it’s not going to change. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-question/707124/38 "2014-12-14T17:08:58Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > As it says in the first link in my post above: > > SOV “She him loves.” 45% > SVO “She loves him.” 42% > VSO “Loves she him.” 9% > VOS “Loves him she.” 3% > OVS “Him loves she.” 1% > OSV “Him she loves.” 0% (which doesn’t mean there are no such languages, but that the proportion of them is less than 0.5% and is rounded to 0%) This, in its baldest reading, out of context, is obviously wrong. If OSV is 0%, millions (at one time) of Jews, and their English imitators, would never have been able to make the point “a doctor he’s not.” ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-question/707124/39 "2014-12-14T17:45:31Z")
Leo Bloom, what’s your problem with that? I quoted directly from the Wikipedia entry the table of subject-verb-object orderings that they give. They chose to round every number to the nearest percent. I mentioned that this kind of rounding was deceptive, since there are some OSV languages. The number of them is less than 0.5%, so rounding it to 0% might fool someone into thinking that there are no OSV languages. If you don’t like that way of doing it, why don’t you spend the rest of your life surveying all 7,106 languages in the world and give us the precise number of languages for each of the six possible orderings so we don’t have to rely on statistics rounded to the nearest percent? ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-question/707124/40 "2014-12-14T18:05:23Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Leo Bloom, what’s your problem with that? I quoted directly from the Wikipedia entry the table of subject-verb-object orderings that they give. They chose to round every number to the nearest percent. I mentioned that this kind of rounding was deceptive, since there are some OSV languages. The number of them is less than 0.5%, so rounding it to 0% might fool someone into thinking that there are no OSV languages. If you don’t like that way of doing it, why don’t you spend the rest of your life surveying all 7,106 languages in the world and give us the precise number of languages for each of the six possible orderings so we don’t have to rely on statistics rounded to the nearest percent? Wow, chillax bro. (And thanks for giving me an opportunity to write/say that, which I’ve never done before.) I guess I’m a fool. And how dare you tell me, ever, that there are 7,106 languages in the world. Is that within error-bounds? Anyway, the more interesting point of the “a doctor he’s not” is that it’s acceptable and normal on the gibberish–Yoda–Bill Buckley spectrum. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-question/707124.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-question/707124.md?page=3)