# On the complexity of Languages, A lignuistics question. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 11, 2004, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-complexity-of-languages-a-lignuistics-question/274124 "2004-11-11T01:30:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-complexity-of-languages-a-lignuistics-question/274124/21 "2004-11-12T01:04:47Z")
> [@hazel-rah](#): > > But it’s not enough for your theory to just _think_ Old English is more complex just because it’s inflected. As a native speaker of Modern English, your objectivity in making complexity comparisons between your own language and other languages is highly suspect. In this case you really want to have the evidence in hand before you proceed. > > . What **Hazel** said. To assert that Old English is more complex, in and of itself, would lead to the conclusion that Anglo Saxon children actually required more time to learn their own language. But there is no known instance of a language so inherently complex, that its native speakers need more time to learn it than an American or English child needs to learn his language. Innuit–with its (reputed) nine words for snow? Children normally learn to speak it between one and two years of age. Lithuanian, with its six cases and umpteen tenses? Children normally learn to speak it between one and two years of age. Mandarin, with its strange tonal features?, Again…wait for it…children normally learn to speak it between one and two years of age. You get my drift. I’ve been using cut and paste here, because the unchanging fact is that barring extraordinary intelligence or dullness, kids everywhere learn to speak their own languages at about the same age. So highly inflected languages seem complex to us as English speakers, but that doesn’t mean that modern English isn’t equally complex in its own way. We may not be able to perceive that complexity, and even linquistic scholars may not be able to characterize it fully, but it is there. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-complexity-of-languages-a-lignuistics-question/274124/22 "2004-11-12T06:53:09Z")
I’ll just chime in to add my support to the “all languages are equally complex” side. There doesn’t appear to be any difference in how long it takes or how difficult it is for a child to master his or her native language. It’s much harder to master a second language after childhood, although here the length of time or amount of effort may vary from language to language. But this seems to be largely dependent on the degree of similarity between the first and second language. Spanish speakers generally have an easier time learning Italian than English speakers do. We can rank the world’s languages based on how complicated or difficult they seem to native English speakers, but this isn’t an objective standard. Mandarin Chinese is very difficult for English speakers to master, but must be comparatively easy for people who speak related languages. Oh, for anyone who things English is simple, easy, and uncomplicated, try teaching it to a classroom of native Japanese speakers! There are wacky constructions, useless distinctions, and pointless redundancies a’plenty in English, you just don’t have to think about them if you’re an ordinary native speaker. Just one example of something the Japanese find especially frustrating about English: questions like “Isn’t it a nice day?” It seems to defy all logic that the proper response, if it is indeed a nice day, is “yes”. Haven’t you then just literally agreed that it ISN’T a nice day? But everyone will understand you to mean exactly the opposite! ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-complexity-of-languages-a-lignuistics-question/274124/23 "2004-11-12T08:48:35Z")
I think the standard theory is that languages haven’t really become less complicated, just that they are complicated in different ways. > [@](#): > > 1. Are all languages equally complex, or are some more primitive than others? > > Obviously, the size of vocabulary and the variety and sophistication of > literary forms will depend on the culture. > > But the _grammar_ of all languages is about equally complex. Even people with > a very “primitive” material culture, such as the Australian Aborigines, speak > complex languages. > > Different languages put their complexity in different places. English has > complex, intricate sentence structure, but simple morphology (each word has > only a few forms). Finnish has freer syntax but much more complex morphology. > > The only really simple languages are _pidgins_ and _creoles_, which result > when speakers of different languages are suddenly forced to live and work > together. They quickly arrive at a very simple language with vocabulary from > both languages, and a simple grammar of a specific kind (e.g., they are > likely to use repetition to express plurals). Such a language is called > a _pidgin_ initially, then becomes a _creole_ when babies are born who > acquire it as a native language. NewNet: sci.lang FAQ. The idea with the free word order is to put in front of the sentence what’s import and you want stressed. E.g. the first word of the first sentence of the Iliad is “rage” since that was what was important in that sentence and what the Iliad was all about - Achilles’ rage. In English it’s translated: _“Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans.”_ Doesn’t the English translation lose something here in translation? Achilles’ anger doesn’t seem to be so important in English. Genders are remnants from a time when PIE differentiated between two kind of words groups: active/animate and inactive/inanimate. Some ideas could be both, thus there were two words to express them. Some examples of this can still be found in modern Indo European languages, though I can’t seem to think of one right now, perhaps “fire”?. ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-complexity-of-languages-a-lignuistics-question/274124/24 "2004-11-12T09:54:38Z")
Yes “fire” and “water” which though inanimate (not alive) does seem to move with a will of their own had two words in PIE. Modern descendents of PIE have gone with either the one or the other. Thus we have: English: fire, French: feu, Green: pyr vers. Danish: ild, Latin: ignis (I suppose this is where you have ignite? Just like you to go with both…) And: English: water, Danish: vand, Greek: hydor, Hittie: water, vers. French: eau, Latin: aqua. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2004, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-complexity-of-languages-a-lignuistics-question/274124/25 "2004-11-12T15:31:41Z")
> [@hazel-rah](#): > > But it’s not enough for your theory to just _think_ Old English is more complex just because it’s inflected. As a native speaker of Modern English, your objectivity in making complexity comparisons between your own language and other languages is highly suspect. In this case you really want to have the evidence in hand before you proceed. > > I also wonder if your analysis of English grammar isn’t a bit superficial. You’ve taken an introductory linguistics class, now take a class in syntax. You may think transformational grammar is pointless, but one thing it is certain to do is give you a real appreciation for how incredibly difficult it is to draw up a systematic set of rules that governs all aspects of your language. You’re suggesting making changes to discrete parts when you don’t even understand how the whole system works together yet. I don’t mean instinctively, either, but explicitly. > > Add to that the fact that we still don’t clearly understand how our brain processes language. You’re taking a very top-down approach to your optimization of the language, but you haven’t yet considered the fact that things like grammatical gender may be a necessary outcome of how we learn and process language at a deeper level. > > While you can pick and choose which aspects of the language trouble you and attempt to reform them, our brain has to handle the whole shebang. As useless as you deem grammatical gender to be, the fact is that it exists in languages all over the world. Instead of deciding it’s useless and trying to stamp it out, you might be better advised to ask yourself why such a seemingly useless construct turns up so frequently, and what clues it might give us about the inner workings of what is still very much a black box: our evolved language ability. Excellent point. Having been raised speaking a largely analytic language, we tend to think of synthetic languages as more complex. But complexity in a language is a product of many factors, not just whether or not you use accessory verbs or endings to make clear what’s going on in the sentence, “He had finished the initial preparation before he tackled the detailed reconstruction expected of them, which she had promised she would have completed by the time he finished the initial preparation.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-the-complexity-of-languages-a-lignuistics-question/274124.md?page=1)