|
|
Most complex IE language (Morphologically)
I suppose English is the smiplest IE language, as far as morphology and inflection goes. But which one is most complex and irregular? :
- Lithuanian - Sanskrit - Proto IE itself - Greek - Icelandic - Gaelic - something else?
Surely, Spanish has more inflection than English -- mainly in the verbs.
There is also 2-way or 4-way agreement of adjectives for number and often gender. Ofsetting this somewhat are the greater number of irregular plurals in English, and the 's posessive, along with the -er and -est adjective inflection. But overall, English seems simpler in terms of inflections.
BUT only in inflections, it would actually be pretty cool to put 10 people to learn a different language, to see which one is able to learn it the fastest.
Afrikaans is less morphologically complex than English. I think the Slavic languages must be among the most complex.
I would like to see you writing and speaking in the languages you find so easy.
Sure -- I find English quite easy, although I do have to admit that learning it took decades of total immersion, starting at a very young age.
Anything particular you'd like me to write about?
Then it wasn't that easy, or otherwise it wouldn't take you that long.
On a survey that I posted a loooong time ago, it said that it takes you 7 years to really learn English, compared to Speranto that only takes you 7 months or Spanish that only takes you one year.
If it takes 7 years to really learn English, I wonder how long it takes to learn Gaelic, or Lithuanian (as a 2nd language)?
One reason it took so long for me to learn English is that I started when I was 0 or 1 years old.
But what do ya'll think is most complex? I've tried to teach myself Gaelic in high school (I was 15 at the time, so naturally I failed miserably lol) so I have my own feelings about it being complex...
I'm gonna go with Hindi or Lithuanian or some other language that sounds complex that I have absolutely no knowledge of.... Anyone else?
I suppose we could break the problem up into subproblems:
- most complex Germanic language: German, Icelandic, Faroese, ...? - most complex Romance language: Portuguese, Italian, Romanian, ...? - most complex Slavic language: Russian, Lithuanian, ...? - most Complex miscellaneous language: Sanskrit, Greek, Gaelic, Hindi, ...? (morphologically speaking, of course)
Would you agree that the most complex are the most irregular? Could irregularity be "measured" in this thread to say which is the most complex?
|