He just said, on 60 Minutes, that it is the "best language in the world." Seriously.

Have at it, debaters.

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

It is certainly one of the hardest to learn and master as the spelling rules are so full of exceptions.

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BOINC WIKI

It is certainly one of the hardest to learn and master as the spelling rules are so full of exceptions.

I think that's one con right there, which I agree with: the spelling exceptions.
Other cons?
Pros?

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

It is certainly one of the hardest to learn and master as the spelling rules are so full of exceptions.

I think that's one con right there, which I agree with: the spelling exceptions.
Other cons?
Pros?

We had some good discussions and arguments on this topic on another thread some time ago--I will try to dig them up. I claimed that English could express an idea the best --I read this somewhere and of course could not prove it or argue why except that we have well over a million words--probably due to an open door policy on foreign words as we used to have on immigration. We also have a rich melange of idioms and foreign phrases and words that we have shamelessly adopted. Quid pro quo, savoir faire , burrito, baksheesh and so on.

If you know French and Latin you can see the Norman and Romance influences --about 50-50 I would say on origins of English words--so we double up here since we have an evolved, non-native language in English.

English is hard to spell and learn simply because it is not phonetically spelled like many other languages. We don't have one unique letter for each sound in our English language There are 23 vowel sounds in English (mostly 2-letter diphtongs) So even though your brain correctly identifies one of the 46 phonemes in English you don't really have a clue on how to spell a given word unless you rely on memory or some mainline rules from experience. Conversely when you see a vowel or oo, oe, ae, etc you have no idea on how to pronounce it.

For instance the word GHOTI could really be "fish"

GH as f in enough
O as I in women
TI as sh in sion (fashion e.g.)

So Farsi and Hebrew have very few vowel sounds. In Farsi only the 3 or 4 long vowel sounds are usually written. In Teheran they do have a slang pronunciation that is used. Shish (six) for shesh and noon for nan (bread).

In Hebrew I believe that none of the vowel sounds are written.

You can get away with this since there is little ambiguity.

You see I almost married a linguist and a Persian--managed to escape though

Andy Rooney is an idiot.

Sorry all Andy Rooney fans. He simply doesn't have a clue!

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Andy Rooney is an idiot.

Sorry all Andy Rooney fans. He simply doesn't have a clue!

Found this story, from just over a year ago, commenting on Rooney's upcoming 1000th commentary on 60 minutes. If we assume that's 1 new episode per week, that's almost a 20 year career. Not an indication of his intelligence, but certainly an indication that lot's of people disagree with you.

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For instance the word GHOTI could really be "fish"

GH as f in enough
O as I in women
TI as sh in sion (fashion e.g.)

That is TI as in motion.

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BOINC WIKI

For instance the word GHOTI could really be "fish"

GH as f in enough
O as I in women
TI as sh in sion (fashion e.g.)

That is TI as in motion.

I got a better one for ya....my hometown.

Natchitoches

pronounced

NAK-a-tish



That's what you get when French settlers try to spell Native American words in English.

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If you know French and Latin you can see the Norman and Romance influences --about 50-50 I would say on origins of English words--so we double up here since we have an evolved, non-native language in English.

French, being one of the Romance languages, comes from Latin. Correct?
And nothing was said about the very strong influence of the Germanic on the English language.

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

If you know French and Latin you can see the Norman and Romance influences --about 50-50 I would say on origins of English words--so we double up here since we have an evolved, non-native language in English.

French, being one of the Romance languages, comes from Latin. Correct?
And nothing was said about the very strong influence of the Germanic on the English language.

Or the norse, I think we get "egg" from them.

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I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that ...

If you know French and Latin you can see the Norman and Romance influences --about 50-50 I would say on origins of English words--so we double up here since we have an evolved, non-native language in English.

French, being one of the Romance languages, comes from Latin. Correct?
And nothing was said about the very strong influence of the Germanic on the English language.

Or the norse, I think we get "egg" from them.

Indeed:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/egg

Main Entry:
1egg Listen to the pronunciation of 1egg
Pronunciation:
\\ˈeg, ˈāg\\
Function:
transitive verb
Etymology:
Middle English, from Old Norse eggja; akin to Old English ecg edge — more at edge
Date:
13th century

: to incite to action —usually used with on<egged the mob on to riot>

However:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Norse

Old Norse is the North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300.

It evolved from the older Proto-Norse, in the 8th century and evolved into the modern North Germanic languages after the Viking Age.

Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Old_Norse_origin. I wonder if that is supposed to be a complete list.

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

If you know French and Latin you can see the Norman and Romance influences --about 50-50 I would say on origins of English words--so we double up here since we have an evolved, non-native language in English.

French, being one of the Romance languages, comes from Latin. Correct?
And nothing was said about the very strong influence of the Germanic on the English language.

Or the norse, I think we get "egg" from them.

Indeed:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/egg

Main Entry:
1egg Listen to the pronunciation of 1egg
Pronunciation:
\\ˈeg, ˈāg\\
Function:
transitive verb
Etymology:
Middle English, from Old Norse eggja; akin to Old English ecg edge — more at edge
Date:
13th century

: to incite to action —usually used with on<egged the mob on to riot>

However:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Norse

Old Norse is the North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300.

It evolved from the older Proto-Norse, in the 8th century and evolved into the modern North Germanic languages after the Viking Age.

Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Old_Norse_origin. I wonder if that is supposed to be a complete list.

My bad, by Germanic I assumed you meant the Anglo-Saxon roots, of which there are plenty, I've heard that Churchill's "We will fight them ..." would be, to a lage degree, comprehensible to the original 1500 anglo-saxon settlers.

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I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that ...

My bad, by Germanic I assumed you meant the Anglo-Saxon roots, of which there are plenty, I've heard that Churchill's "We will fight them ..." would be, to a large degree, comprehensible to the original 1500 anglo-saxon settlers.

I meant any way in which Germanic languages have influenced the English language.
And, more generally, the evolution of languages, including English itself.

But, speaking of the Anglo-Saxons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxons

Old English, sometimes called Anglo-Saxon, was the language spoken under Alfred the Great and continued to be the common language of England (non-Danelaw) until after the Norman Conquest of 1066 when, under the influence of the Anglo-Norman language spoken by the Norman ruling class, it changed into Middle English roughly between 1150–1500.

Old English is far closer to early Germanic than Middle English. It is less Latinized and retains many morphological features (nominal and verbal inflection) that were lost during the 12th to 14th centuries. The languages today which are closest to Old English are the Frisian languages, which are spoken by a few hundred thousand people in the northern part of the Netherlands and Germany.

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

Andy Rooney is an idiot.

Sorry all Andy Rooney fans. He simply doesn't have a clue!

Just to clarify what made me start this thread: there was nothing good on the History Channel at the time and I just happened to leave the TV on CBS and caught parts of 60 Minutes.

(The History Channel is one of the few channels I can watch anymore.)

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

He just said, on 60 Minutes, that it is the "best language in the world." Seriously.

And he is right.

Since I know several languages - some I do understand (more or less), some I forgot, and some of which I only got a glimpse into - I must say that English, and especially the American variant of it, is the easiest of all languages I know.
1) Grammar. Compared to Russian which was the first "second language" I learned in school, or to Roman languages like French or Spanish - even to German, my first language, the English grammar is quite easy to catch, imo.
2) Compatibility. Since the English language is using the Latin alphabet, people from many countries don't have to learn another alphabet when learning English
3) It is the most widespread language in the world, as far as I know it. You can travel to each and every country, and you will meet people understanding English. Being understood and spoken by people from all over the world, English is more or less the language which made Esperanto (which was developed to become a universal language) as unnecessary to learn as Sindarin for example.

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