Recently during a class on Philosophy of Language, I made (a student in the class) a presentation on constructed languages. As I was going through some of the earliest projects in history, I mentioned Descartes's idea of creating a simpler language, lacking typical natural language complexities as irregularities. That prompted a few classmates who contended that that was impossible since every human language is equally complex. I tried to reason that Descartes was not pointing to a capability of a language expressing intricate ideas, but simply to the way some languages work which do appear to be rather straightforward. Grammarwise, for instance, English seems to be simpler than many other languages. Some could defend that the English spelling is more complicated than many other tongues as well, but the fact remains that, for the most part, English does seem simpler than Estonian or Hungarian, for example. What are your thoughts?
I absolutely agree to the fact that English is one of the most logical and ergonomic languages, even despite some illogical rules of spelling it still preserves. My opinion is based on the knowledge of several languages.
السلام عليكم اتمنى توضيح مفردة التعقيد هل هي نحوية ام صوتية شاكرة ردكم
لا بالتكيد الامر يتبع طبيعة اللغة من نواح عدة مثل الصوت والصرف والنحو والمعنى
The discussion is quite argumentative and there may be no end to it. I know that all languages are equal. None is superior to another. Take, for example, some Nigerians argue that Hausa is simpler than Yoruba. To some Nigerians, Yoruba is simpler. Some consider Igbo to be a complex language. For me, as an Igbo lady, I see the Igbo language (my Mother Tongue) as a simple language, easy to learn. Thus opinions differ based on contexts of perception.
To contend that English is simple is a risky venture. Do you really think that English is easy? To my mind, English is not that simple. Consider, for example, Homographs, i.e., words spelt alike but with more than one meaning, for example:
i. The bandage was wound around the wound.
ii. The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
iii. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
iv. Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
Let's face the real sense of it, English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant or ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple... And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one mouse 2 meese?.... If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?....@Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be commited to an asylum for the verbally insane (A bored retired English teacher put this together). It is titled: "Crazy English."