Re: way-OT: regularity of german v. english [was: Re: OT - Programming Languages w/o English Syntax]
On Mon, Oct 20, 2003 at 12:56:37AM -0700, Erik Steffl wrote:
> csj wrote:
>
> >[...]
> >
> >Because everybody from the poor war orphan "Hey, Joe, eat!" to
> >the UN Secretary General speaks it, English has become a rather
> >tolerant language. But if the same standard for proper German is
> >applied to what one considers proper English, then yes, German is
> >easier to learn. It's a purer, therefore more consistent
> >language, than the French-infected English.
>
> purity has nothing to do with it (not sure what you mean by pure).
> not sure what your agenda is. english is a a lot simpler than german,
> the usage of words is simple, the grammar is simple.
>
Depends what you mean by purity. By European language standards
it's fairly pure in the sense of not being cluttered up with
things like redundant inflections, but this is probably because
it is impure in the sense of having been knocked around by
neighbouring languages and dialects until there's not much left
of it apart from what's really necessary to communicate.
David
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