Newsgroups: sci.lang
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From: donh@netcom.com (Don HARLOW)
Subject: Re: sci.lang FAQ
Message-ID: <donhD054GC.CHE@netcom.com>
Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc.
References: <3bjmtc$ci3@medici.trl.oz.au>
Date: Thu, 1 Dec 1994 16:28:59 GMT
Lines: 61

jbm@newsserver.trl.oz.au (Jacques Guy) skribis en lastatempa afisxo <3bjmtc$ci3@medici.trl.oz.au>:
>
>However, there's this business about languages being
>equally complex. Now really, folks, this is completely,
>but completely, wrong. So I took my keyboard, turned it
>seven times in my inkwell, and came up with this:
>
>
>It is far from true that all languages are equally complex. I suppose
>that this strange notion is a throwback, or an offspring, whichever you
>prefer, of "politically correct" whereby all languages are equal,
>complexity is good, so all languages are equally complex. Now, if you
>have tried to learn French, and then Spanish, you might have noticed just
>a tad of a difference. Spanish has nowhere as many impossibly difficult
>vowels as French, nowhere as many abominably irregular verbs, nowhere as
>crazy a spelling... But let's not get personal, so allow me to take as
>an example two languages which will not make anyone raise an eyebrow, I
>am sure. One is called Tolomako, the other Sakao. Both are spoken in the
>same village, called Port-Olry, a place on the island of Espiritu Santo
>in Vanuatu. Both languages are closely related, by which I mean that
>they might have been one and the same perhaps 1000 years ago, probably
>much less.

>[Details of Tolomako and Sakao deleted to make space available]
>
>Which of the two languages spoken in Port-Olry do you think the
>Catholic missionaries learnt and used?
>
>Could that possibly be because it was easier than the other?
>
>Are all languages, then, equally easy, or difficult?
>
Jacques, with all due respect you are confusing three separate 
concepts here.

It is fairly obvious that all languages are not equally 
_complicated_; this does not mean that they are not equally 
_complex_. The former is shown by the amount of space needed 
to describe the language, the latter by the results of using 
the language (ability to communicate whatever is necessary). 

A good non-linguistic example of the difference is a ball of 
yarn. You can let a cat play with it, or you can knit it into 
a sweater. The results are going to be more-or-less equally 
complex, but the sweater is nowhere nearly as complicated (note 
that it will be much easier to restore the original ball from 
the sweater than from the cat's cradle...)

In addition, you then bring in the terms "easy" and "difficult", 
which may or may not have any relation whatsoever to "complex" 
or "complicated". I am told that Chinese is considerably less 
complicated than French. Will it be easier for me to learn? 
Somehow, I doubt it. As far as easy and difficult are concerned, 
the fault, dear Brutus, lies not in the languages themselves...
or at least not completely.

-- 
Don HARLOW			donh@netcom.com
Esperanto League for N.A.       elna@netcom.com (800) 828-5944
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/el/elna/elna.html         Esperanto
ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/do/donh/donh.html 
