Stuff missing from English

Factual Questions
21

In line with previous posters:

Missing the difference between informal you (in French: tu) and formal you (vous). It sounds odd to say you in a respectful manner.

A lack of gendered nouns and cases, since this makes it much more difficult to refer to remote words in longer sentences with pronouns (?) like ‘her/him/it’. You can only do it in limited cases, like (silly example): “He took home a wife and an experience to last a lifetime, which stayed with him even after she left him.” The which is grammatically (though not semantically) ambiguous.

Of course you can say that the lack of this motivates English speakers to use short sentences, which arguably increases readability. Still at times I find myself constrained in these little sentences, like a marathon-runner stuck in a crowded street.

22

The word in hebrew is et. Aleph taf. I think the proper term is an object verb marker.

23

Spelling rules.

Regards,
Agback

24

As police sketch artists are doubtless aware, it is notoriously difficult to construct English phrases that will convey an exact description of a person’s physical appearance, exact enough that the hearer will form a roughly accurate mental image of the person described. When pressed, we generally try to find comparisons with well-known faces: “His face was . . . well . . . he looked a lot like Jack Nicholson, but with a bigger nose and curly red hair!”

But I don’t know if this is a deficiency of English alone, or of all or most human languages. It is a very curious failing, considering the importance of physical appearance in practically all human cultures.

The same can be said of smell. I remember from one of Garrison Keillor’s stories, “Smell is the key to memory.” So it is. But have you ever tried to describe a smell to another person, without comparing it to another smell the hearer might recognize?

25

Or, in the case of “ain’t I”, like a member of the English upper class. Or do you consider that to be the same thing?

Regards,
Agback

26

English needs more infixes. We’re up to our probosci in prefixes and suffixes, but what about the middle ground?

In my college liguistics class, the only infix the teacher could think of was: fan-f***ing-tastic.

27

Really, Why A Duck? In my Linguistics 1 class, Tagalog infixes were discussed quite early.

28

Right, but I think he was referring to a lack of English infixes.

29

There are other English infixes, but they’re all variations on the same theme: fan-f*cking-tastic, in-freaking-credible, stu-bloody-pendous, ri-Goddamn-diculous.

30

cor-friggin-rect! (see we only have one, and it’s a big no-no)

31

Arabic uses an infixed -t- in the VIII. derived form of the verb. But you gotta admit, yeah, infixes are fairly rare in the world’s languages. Got any other examples?

Here’s my candidate for something English is sorely lacking:

The distinction between exclusive and inclusive 1st person plural.

We just have this single pronoun, we. Does it mean ‘I and you’ — or does it mean ‘I and that other person (but not you)’??? Can’t tell, can you? Not without some context. This is a loss of information.

When I was just a kid I sensed this lack in English and imagined a language where you could tell the difference.

Then I grew up to be a linguist and found there are lots of language families that do just this.

Algonquian (e.g. Abenaki)
Altaic (Mongolian and Tungus-Manchu)
Australian (Warlpiri)
Austronesian (Malay, Hawaiian)
Dravidian (Tamil, Malayalam)
Iroquoian (Cherokee, Mohawk)

Here are some examples:



Language   inclusive we  exclusive we
--------   ------------  ------------
Abenaki    kiona         niona
Hawaiian   kakou         makou
Malay      kita          kami
Mohawk     akwa-         tewa-
Mongolian  bida          ba
Samoan     tatou         matou
Tamil      nâm           nânkaL

In Mongolian, the inclusive is formed from the 1st person singular bi with a plural suffix. The exclusive is formed differently. But in Tamil, it’s the other way around. It’s the exclusive that’s formed from the singular nân plus a plural suffix, while the inclusive is different. Both of these remind me of the Rastafarian “I and I” (what would you call that, 1st person expansive?)

When I made my first conlang Mömö, based on Ural-Altaic, I made the 1st person inclusive on the Mongolian pattern. 1st person singular me, inclusive mete (with -te as the plural suffix), exclusive bi. Then when I made my second conlang Domi, a blend of Mömö and Dravidian, I used the Tamil pattern: 1st p. sing. nên, inclusive mên, exclusive nênar (the plural suffix being -r).

32

You can’t say “Aren’t I?”, “Amn’t I?” or “Ain’t I?” without sounding like a moron.

I disagree, at least for UK English. “Amn’t I” is Scottish English (though mildly archaic). “Ain’t I” = working-class English (or Mockney). “Aren’t I” is fine as educated colloquial. If you try a search at the Guardian (highbrow UK newspaper) for “aren’t I”, you’ll find a number of examples in print: for instance, an interview with Kristin Scott-Thomas. In practice, in many regional dialects (such as Devon, where I live) it becomes even more elided: “I’m not going to do that” becomes “I an’t gonna do that”. It’s a construction that’s near-as-dammit universal in everday speech, and only prescriptive grammarians object.

33

Contradictory yes - like “si” in French or “doch” in German. It clarifies things immensely.

Compare:

English:

-You haven’t seen the doctor today?
-Yes

Does this mean, yes I have, or yes in answer to your negative, i.e. no I haven’t?

French:

-Tu n’as pas vu le medecin aujourd’hui"
-Si.

Unambiguous - “yes, I have”.

34

Arabic and Persian also have contradictory yes.

Arabic
affirmative yes: na‘am
contradictory yes: balá

—mâ ra’ayti al-tabîb al-yawm ‘You haven’t seen the doctor today’
—balá ‘Yes I have’’

Persian
affirmative yes: baleh
contradictory yes: cherâ

—emrûz pezeshk râ na-dîdî ‘You haven’t seen the doctor today’
—cherâ, dîdam ‘Yes I have’

As for Hungarian pronouns—si, doch, balá, cherâ!—Hungarian does have the same full set of pronouns as in English: én, te, ö"; mi, ti, ök. Hungarian even has the respectful 2nd person pronouns that English lacks: maga, maguk.

The possessive pronouns, however, take the form of enclitics. Not “verb endings,” UnuMondo, but pronominal enclitics. It’s true that the definite verb endings and pronominal enclitics resemble each other for the singular pronouns (-am, -ad, -a), but are different in the plural (-unk, -otok, -uk for the possessive pronouns versus -uk, átok, -ák for the definite verbs. Indefinite verbs are, of course, another story. This is where Hungarian grammar gets a bit complex).

35

As Agback wrote, probably the biggest flaw in the English language is spelling. Words with similar spellings often have non-similar pronunciations and vice versa.

On a seperate issue, I could see the possibility of having different classes of possessives:
1 - personal possessive - something that is a part of you: my arm, my opinion, my favorite flavor of ice cream
2 - ownership possessive - something you own: my car, my house, my trip to Hawaii
3 - relationship possessive - something you are a part of or something you have a relationship with: my family, my country, my wife, my neighbor, my company

36

Of course one major reason that English spelling rules – such as they are – are inconsistent is that so many English words are taken from other languages.

37

Spoken English lacks a formal modifier to indicate that the preceeding words form a question. We use a question mark in written English, but rely on inflection, context and word arrangement when speaking.

Desu ka?

38

Well, let me whip out my Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon* (Seventh Edition) and check.

agape: love, esp. brotherly love, charity.

eros: love. (with perhaps characteristic Victorian restraint, that’s pretty much as far as L&S go. But we know we’re talking about passionate sexual love.)

storge: love, affection, of parents and children. Good call Sinungaling. This was a new one on me, and I studied Ancient Greek for two years. (Ask me if I remember any of it.) BTW, it would be pronounced store-geh, and wouldn’t rhyme with forge.

philia: friendly love, affection, friendship.

  • Does the name Liddell remind you of anyone else from the Victorian era? Yes, Dr. H.G. Liddell was the father of Alice Liddell, well-known young friend of fellow Christ Church Oxford don C. L. Dodgson.
39

If you’re interested in artificial or constructed languages – “conlangs” – check out http://www.sys.uea.ac.uk/~jrk/conlang.html, which provides information on 310 of them. Most of these were never intended to be used as “universal languages,” but were invented as creative exercises, or as elements of a fictional universe (e.g., Klingon). Also see http://www.quetzal.com/conlang.html.

The English word “why” has two logically distinguishable meanings: “from what cause” and “for what purpose.” It would be better if there were two separate words. Combining the two meanings into one word gives it an unwarranted air of mystery, a sense that there could be more meanings still. Remember that episode of The Prisoner, where Number Six asked a computer “Why?” and it melted down?

40

Arabic and Latin have two ways to say “or.” English has only one word for this.

Am in Arabic and aut in Latin give you a choice of only one out of only two contrary possibilities. It’s got to be either yes or no, up or down. In Arabic, am is used in the sense of ‘whether’ when there are only two choices: If Joe Strummer of the Clash had sung “Should I Stay or Should I Go” in Arabic, it would go “hal aqif am amshi?”

Aw in Arabic and vel in Latin leave open an indefinite number of alternatives. You see this in Latin book titles where an alternative title follows the main title: Liber AL vel Legis.

English speakers have logically felt the lack of a distinction between the two meanings of or, so they came up with the bastard conjunction “and/or” to express the sense of vel, meaning any number of possibilities. This reserves the plain or for the choice of only one out of two.

English usage experts will point out that or works for both meanings, but the speakers feel a lack and supply a remedy anyway. Same as they feel the lack of a distinction between singular and plural 2nd person, thus y’all or youse for the plural (vosotros).