Languages - writing of them etc.

[Skidzer]

Are there some languages which are more complex than others?

And if yes, does that stimulate a child's brain when learning them, or is the reverse and is it a reflection of the society that uses it?

If anyone replies I'll explain some of my rather jumbled brain processes which lead to me asking the question.

@Skidzer the interesting thing about tonal language is that learning it as a child native speaker, I do not recognise it as such. I learned Chinese mandarin to a tourist level by listening to native speakers. To me the different tones in mandarin are different sounds, not the same sound with different tones. I can hear and copy them easily while my DCs can’t. She really struggles with them and they drift all over the place. It’s not something easily explained. You need to you tube it. But essentially to DH, he can’t hear the difference between sounds with different tones so he can’t repeat them back. And when he can, he still struggles to change the tones for each word when in a sentence.

@NotGenerationAlpha that is very interesting regarding the sounds of Mandarin Chinese! I still have trouble in German distinguishing the sounds of u and ü. My German friends hear them as completely different sounds. I really don’t, and rely on context to distinguish the meaning.

Smemorata - Hello and Goodbye are two different words. Ciao!

My DS teaches English to Japanese kids and he said it’s really made him think about our language and the hard parts of it. Apparently they teach them the lower case alphabet first, then upper case which he said they find really hard. Then they spend on a lot of time on phonics, whereas in Japan words are pronounced exactly as they’re written. I can see why English would be a hard language for the Japanese to learn whereas Japanese speaking isn’t that hard. It’s really just remembering all the kanji that’s hard.

verbs can have perfective or imperfective aspect

so does English > I did vs I was doing

Smemorata - Hello and Goodbye are two different words. Ciao!
Yes I know. Saying ciao with different intonation doesn't make it two words though.

It is very difficult to learn tones and sounds that you haven't heard as a young child which is a good argument for learning Chinese as a baby - even if you give it up you will have a big advantage if you want to learn it as an adult. The same thing is true for lots of languages. For example, in Italian adult learners can really struggle to hear differences between single and double consonants e.g. capelli/ cappelli, pene / penne. 😄

Well mixing your pene in with your penne could get you into all sorts of bother lol

Irish belongs to a family of languages called Indo European. It belongs to a "sub group" called Celtic which contains Welsh, Cornish, Scots Gaelic, Manx and Breton (as far as I remember). Google the Indo European language tree. Very interesting.

Irish does have similarities to other languages though. Not sure is it from borrowing or because the common ancestors spoke the same language (Proto Indo European) and then the words altered slightly through the generations
Horse: Capall (gae) cheval (fr) Caballo (sp)
Fish: Iasc (gae) piscis (Latin)
Father: Athair (gae) pater (Latin) Padre (sp) vater (ger)
Water : uisce (gae) aqua (Latin)
Boat : bád (gae) barco (sp)
Goat : gabhar (gae) cabra (sp)

So these words are words that would have been quite "basic" ie every prehistoric tribe would have needed a word for father, mother, water, fish, horse etc. Fascinating.

Irish also has links/words in common with Sanskrit though I can't think of any now!

I studied History of Irish for my Leaving Cert.

I'm not sure what you're trying to demonstrate?

Was that to me? I wasn't trying to demonstrate anything! I'm just really interested in languages too and where they come from and how they link/differ. I was just trying to add my little bit of knowledge to the conversation and you had mentioned Irish earlier on.... I think it's really interesting that Irish is a Celtic language but has words similar to Romance languages and possibly others. I really wasn't trying to make a point or anything.
Sorry if I came across wrongly

JuneSpoon I love looking at the language trees. The Proto Indo European one is a beast It’s so interesting how Gaelic and Latin are so far removed yet share some similarities.

Language trees always throw up some interesting geekery. Looking at the tree here, how/why did Lithuanian develop so separately to Polish given how (relatively) close they are? Etc

I love that chart Giraffe !!

Ah yes, mother is the most similar in all languages (I'm guessing!) . Great chart!!
I'd love to know more languages. maybe the -ina ending in Lithuania denotes affection?! So it might have started as "dear mummy" and then stuck?

I'd love to do a thesis on this kind of thing!!

I was pretty good at French at school. I found it easier to learn to spell, I don't know if that's the language or manually learning in my teen years. A rich English vocabularly helped, so a word like "ameliorer" (to improve is familiar to remember because of "amelirorate".

I also did a few years of German which is like badly spelled English Although the word order is more rigid, and I get lost in some seamless, long compound words.

I have dabbled with Spanish and while it isn't something I actively know, a bit of basic grammar and a good knowledge of French makes it easy to decode to read.

All languages have their easier spots and difficulties. English is a lot more flexible than many other related European languages, but is irregular and illogical too.

I have multi-lingual family who are fluent in Japanese. Learning it verbally through mother tounge first was a major advantage compared to Europeans manually studying it, and it gives a gateway making other languages like Mandarin more accessible.

The more languages you know, the more shortcuts you have.

Good point Shiny about manual learning and good vocabulary being helpful. And as you say, every language helps you learn more. I'd love to know Japanese!

I know Romance languages - Spanish, French, and a bit of Italian and Portuguese. I lived in Spain and by the end of my stay I could understand the Portuguese news on the tv - they speak more slowly and clearly, there's photos, and I had an idea of some stories anyway. Plus, it's quite similar to Spanish.

I learned German while in Spain. Without sounding boastful, my German teacher thought I was amazing at German, I picked it up so fast compared to her Spanish students. But sure they're both Germanic so I had a massive advantage! I can't remember it now though