NationStates Jolt Archive

Catchy title, yes? I hate when people say that since English sounds like an "old guy on the toilet" (to quote someone).

Anyway, in your opinion, what is the greatest language out there in terms of eloquence, sound, and the level of effort to learn?

I say english, simply because it is the easiest to learn. It's not necessarily as beautiful as other languages, but for practical reasons, it's just as good as any other language.

Unless someone thinks there's any easier language to learn?

Dutch :p

I say english, simply because it is the easiest to learn. It's not necessarily as beautiful as other languages, but for practical reasons, it's just as good as any other language.

Unless someone thinks there's any easier language to learn?

English easy? The spelling certainly isn't.

Take a look at Afrikaans though, it's very simple.

Latin.


....or German. Both are great languages.

English is made of pure win.

Hooray for option 9 meme.

I can't say any of them are easy to learn, but French definitely sounds the best to me. Greek looks beautiful on paper, though.

I can't say any of them are easy to learn, but French definitely sounds the best to me. Greek looks beautiful on paper, though.

It's beautiful and eloquent to speak and listen to, as well.

English is the greatest language. It is the language of business and regularly incorporates new and foreign words into its dictionaries.

That being said, Italian sounds the prettiest, and oriental languages are supposed to be the most difficult to learn.

No Esperanto? Latin I suppose then.

That being said, Italian sounds the prettiest, and oriental languages are supposed to be the most difficult to learn.

It's because of the thousands of characters. Japanese has about 2,000 commonly used Chinese characters (more like words) along with its two main alphabets of Hiragana and Katakana.

But Arabic is pretty difficult to read only because the letters are connected. You have to practice a lot. So I'd say Arabic is more difficult than Japanese, but Chinese is by far the most difficult of all languages.

No Esperanto? Latin I suppose then.

I was going to put that, but I replaced it with Option 9.

ah Hindi...any language with 33 consonants and 14 vowels just deserves to win. I spent two hours last saturday with a nepalese friend trying to learn how to say the alphabet, let alone write it. "no, it's 'ka' not 'ka'!" :headbang: - it was only a little bit gratifying to learn he has a similarly hard time with spanish phonology...

Oriental languages always strike me as the most impressive. I've been told on numerous occasions that English is the most difficult to learn, which is understandable. I speak a fair amount of French, and really love the language (it's both sad and funny at how many people utterly destroy it). For some reason I utterly cannot stand Spanish, despite the fact that it's so similar to French...hmm...

For some reason I utterly cannot stand Spanish, despite the fact that it's so similar to French...hmm...

According to our resident Spanish speakers, that is not the case.

English is the greatest language. It is the language of business and regularly incorporates new and foreign words into its dictionaries.

C'est pas beautiful, ça?

By far I find English the most eloquent and graceful, when spoken right of course. I do like French but I don't speak more then a few words.

I cannot stand German, I particularly take offense in how they methodically destroy great films by translating them. Ever saw Roger Moore speak german? I did..and I died a little inside.

Oriental languages always strike me as the most impressive. I've been told on numerous occasions that English is the most difficult to learn, which is understandable. I speak a fair amount of French, and really love the language (it's both sad and funny at how many people utterly destroy it). For some reason I utterly cannot stand Spanish, despite the fact that it's so similar to French...hmm...Español totally wears the pants in the Ibero-Gallic relationship...Arabic influence ftw!

English is the best language due to its position as the most widely spoken language, its simply sold better than any other language, lol...

Its the best version of a Germanic Language...

And is simply more widespread than the Latin Based Languages...

its like a Mac vs a PC...Sure Macs look cool and have, generally speaking better security, but Windows is simply more widespread than any other Operating System, its the same with Latin and English, even those who have a different native tongue generally learn English as a second language...

its like a Mac vs a PC...Sure Macs look cool and have, generally speaking better security, but Windows is simply more widespread than any other Operating System, its the same with Latin and English, even those who have a different native tongue generally learn English as a second language...

You have just insulted the English language in a far broader scope than I have ever heard in my life. That's... wow.

English is the best language due to its position as the most widely spoken language, its simply sold better than any other language, lol...

That's because the British were so imperialistic and forceful...

English is the best language due to its position as the most widely spoken language, its simply sold better than any other language, lol...

Its the best version of a Germanic Language...

And is simply more widespread than the Latin Based Languages...

its like a Mac vs a PC...Sure Macs look cool and have, generally speaking better security, but Windows is simply more widespread than any other Operating System, its the same with Latin and English, even those who have a different native tongue generally learn English as a second language...

The spread of a language is not an argument for it's quality.

More specificaly, in this thread we were talking about "eloquence, sound, and the level of effort to learn", which has nothing to do with the number of people who speak the actual language. Perhaps it's a consequence of those, but certainly not a source.

The spread of a language is not an argument for it's quality.

More specificaly, in this thread we were talking about "eloquence, sound, and the level of effort to learn", which has nothing to do with the number of people who speak the actual language. Perhaps it's a consequence of those, but certainly not a source.

Yeah, its just....I dont care, i was simply stating a fact, you can talk about which is much more "eloquent" or whatever, but the fact remains, English is on Top...

You can argue those points all you want, but in the broader scope of things, they matter little...

Yeah, its just....I dont care, i was simply stating a fact, you can talk about which is much more "eloquent" or whatever, but the fact remains, English is on Top...

You can argue those points all you want, but in the broader scope of things, they matter little...

If you say so, I see no reason to argue with you.

Yeah, its just....I dont care, i was simply stating a fact, you can talk about which is much more "eloquent" or whatever, but the fact remains, English is on Top...

You can argue those points all you want, but in the broader scope of things, they matter little...

It's not on top. But that's a different argument.


French flows. It's beautiful really. English is ridiculously stupid with rules. I'm trying to learn German, so we'll see how that goes.

Others? I cannot comment on them, seeing as I haven't used them. :p (Although I did have the Greek alphabet worked out while in Greece.)

Definitely not Swedish or Danish because those 2 sounds too ugly, Norwegian isn't pretty either but at least slightly better.

English sounds good but it's not clear from pronunciation how to spell words and vice versa so not English. To mention one thing removing c and replacing all instances of it with s or k would help a lot, for example it would make circle->sirkle.

Not French because it's difficult, I tried to learn it but just couldn't.

Don't have experience with any other languages and too many sounds good to pick a favorite... I'll say Italian just to pick one.

I love the way French sounds but I love Latin more, so I picked it.

its like a Mac vs a PC...Sure Macs look cool and have, generally speaking better security, but Windows is simply more widespread than any other Operating System, its the same with Latin and English, even those who have a different native tongue generally learn English as a second language...

So what language is Linux?

So what language is Linux?

Esperanto?

So what language is Linux?
Esperanto?
Yes. Some geeks say it's superior by design and it's not difficult to use, it just takes a while to get used to a different language. Still it hasn't become mainstream because most people just want to use a language and don't care if it's design is superior. Also most don't want to relearn different ways to say things so they just stick with what they are used to and what everyone else around them are using.

Esperanto?

You win.

Yes. Some geeks say it's superior by design and it's not difficult to use, it just takes a while to get used to a different language. Still it hasn't become mainstream because most people don't want to relearn different ways to say things so they just stick with what they are used to and everyone else are using.

It also only has a few thousand native speakers.

So what language is Linux?

Definitely Japanese, its like the best sounding language but few people outside Japan actually speak it...

Wish i could, lol...

Though im very tempted to call it "Elvish" lol...

C++ :d

I say english, simply because it is the easiest to learn. It's not necessarily as beautiful as other languages, but for practical reasons, it's just as good as any other language.

Unless someone thinks there's any easier language to learn?

I don't know a lot about other languages, so I can't suggest one that is "easier." I do know, however, that english is actually one of the hardest languages to learn. This is because english has so many different rules to follow. And most of them don't follow the same rule for all situations; there are so many variations. Languages such as German or Latin have set rules that are followed 95% or the time. They only have a few exceptions to the rules.

Lingua Latinae ftw! Latins spawns 5 1/2 of some of the most powerful Westerns languages. I say 1/2 because it is technically Germanic, though 66% of it comes from French, which comes from Latin

What is the greatest language?
C#, hands down

English does sound like an old guy on the toilet, though not as much as German.

But really... English is not an easy language to learn; there are far too many irregulars. Spanish is very easy and has many cognates (both from English as well as from other Romance languages), and it also sounds very nice.

French is much harder (in my opinion, and having grown up learning English), but sounds just brilliant.
To quote the Frenchman from the Matrix Revolutions: "I love French wine, like I the French language. I have sampled every language, French is my favorite. Fantastic language. Especially to curse with. Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d'enculé de ta mère. It's like wiping your arse with silk. I love it."

C#, hands down

*United Beleriand is arrested by Java police*

English language's current position is due to the exploits of the English people and not due to some inherently great qualities of the language. One of the advantages of English is said to be its adopt loan words...which doesn't say much about the inherent vocabulary of the English language, does it? ;)

Sanskrit and Tamil are old classical languages which are very rich and beautiful. Arabic is great to listen to...even a recital of prose is like a song. Heck, I like almost all languages...except maybe German..it just was harsh on my eardrums. :p

...But really... English is not an easy language to learn; ...English is easy to learn for beginners. Which probably is a blessing for the US...

English language's current position is due to the exploits of the English people and not due to some inherently great qualities of the language. One of the advantages of English is said to be its adopt loan words...which doesn't say much about the inherent vocabulary of the English language, does it? ;)

Sanskrit and Tamil are old classical languages which are very rich and beautiful. Arabic is great to listen to...even a recital of prose is like a song. Heck, I like almost all languages...except maybe German..it just was harsh on my eardrums. :pAt least, Germans can spell.

hm.... i love my english. i do not care how hard it is (for those strugling foreign speekers, trust me, if you are a native speaker it is a little easier but still can be infuriating)

as to why i like it is its ability to bend with the local languages and still be super influental, and english's complex history.

but german does sound cool

-cgsland

Je ne choisirai ni l'un ni l'autre, mais je prendrai un morceau de gâteau et je serai heureux qu'ils soient de l'Église d'Angleterre.

I voted Japanese because it's my second language, but I love the sheer quirkiness of English. I don't have a superiority complex about English. I think it's a very interesting language that has a strange history behind it that comes from Celtic, Norse, and French being thrown into a blender, yielding a very wonky Germanic hybrid-language. How cool is that?

Note to the Japanophiles:
Due to the nature of the inhabitants of the internets, there are quite an abundance of you on these forums. Please stop voting, as you are skewing the poll results, and allow those of us who are rational continue the poll with results that might be representative of non-internet inhabitants.

Thank you.

I don't know a lot about other languages, so I can't suggest one that is "easier." I do know, however, that english is actually one of the hardest languages to learn. This is because english has so many different rules to follow. And most of them don't follow the same rule for all situations; there are so many variations. Languages such as German or Latin have set rules that are followed 95% or the time. They only have a few exceptions to the rules.

Actually English is the easiest language i can think of. It may seem hard for some people, but it's easy as hell... I learned English by watching cartoons when i was little... Then i also had to learn French for some reason, and i can tell you the rules English has are nothing compared to the rules in Latin, French, Romanian, Hungarian, i mean Latin, what the hell, it has some retarded rules sometimes... Maybe Italian could be an easier language than English...

To me, Japanese sounds beautiful, an almost perfect language, the best, no matter how hard it is to learn.

English easy? The spelling certainly isn't.

Take a look at Afrikaans though, it's very simple.

Wat seg jy? :D

While English is somewhat difficult to learn, and not entirely fluid, it is a highly syncretic language, that absorbs and evolves fluidly over time, it is a hybrid of virtually all of the western European languages, with significant influences from the Indian subcontinent. This nature, combined with its adaptability and flexibility makes it highly useful, extremely functional and startlingly modern.

Old English

Tie between English and Hebrew.

English is the pirate language. It steals words from other languages on a grand scale.

Hebrew, on the other hand, is the undead language. It was dead for centuries, but in the late 19th century, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda brought it back to life.

MOACHIM!*


*-brains

A tie between Spanish and Japanese. They´re both very versatile languages and I like them very much.

I also like Gaelic, be it Manx, Irish or Scottish.

if you already speak English, I guess Deutsch (german) is easiest to learn... so thats best as a second language. best first language is whatever you were brought up speaking.

most beautiful would go to Arabic

"no, it's 'ka' not 'ka'!" :headbang: - it was only a little bit gratifying to learn he has a similarly hard time with spanish phonology...

Spanish is the most phonetic language ever! There are NO EXCEPTIONS! I could teach the rules to a ten-year-old. I guess its just because you're Nepalese friend must have not been used to Latin characters... ?

Icelandic!

ah Hindi...any language with 33 consonants and 14 vowels just deserves to win. I spent two hours last saturday with a nepalese friend trying to learn how to say the alphabet, let alone write it. "no, it's 'ka' not 'ka'!" :headbang: - it was only a little bit gratifying to learn he has a similarly hard time with spanish phonology...

Heh Punjabi is like that. English as we all know is the most expresive language.

Heh Punjabi is like that. English as we all know is the most expresive language.

That had to be sarcasm.

I remember the Arabic-English translation (which was a pain) for some things. 3 Arabic words would equal 15 English ones.

That had to be sarcasm.

I remember the Arabic-English translation (which was a pain) for some things. 3 Arabic words would equal 15 English ones.

Exactly! More expresivie.

Jeez, I can't believe nobody has said Klingon yet.

What the hell kind of internet geeks are you?!? :mad:

:p

What? No option for newspeak? =P

In seriousness, English because I'm an English major and a biased bastard.
I really like the sound of French and Italian too though.

I say english, simply because it is the easiest to learn. It's not necessarily as beautiful as other languages, but for practical reasons, it's just as good as any other language.

Unless someone thinks there's any easier language to learn?
Any romance language, at least, is 10000x easier to learn than English. Especially Spanish (and likely Portuguese and Italian) - everything follows a pattern and the few things that break the pattern are so similar that you can extrapolate what other things will do it to because guess what, they also follow a pattern.

Old English

There's an English teacher at my Uni who can actually speak that, as well as Middle English.

Bah. L'anglais? Ce n'est que du français mal prononcé! :p

well believe it or not, i love the sound of nihongo, the dominant of the nepali languages, i forget what its actually called, and a number of other asian languages, other then then those with tone levels. i like the sound of a number of african languages. i like the sound of a number of indiginous western hemisphere languages too. and probably would have liked some of those spoken in europe before the roman empire screwed it all up.

i don't know what an easy language to learn would be, if i'm not mistaken, esperanto was intended to be, at least for europeans, who already have a bunch of languages similar in many ways to each other, while each retaining its unique identity.

i know why english, and amerenglish, primarily, have come to dominate the world. it is because they most and best facilitate deception, and the culture of deception does seem to have 'concored' 'the world'

as for greatness, well i have my own ideas on that concept, if largely because none that i've found in popular perception ever made a great deal of sense to me.

i've always seen humility as the measure of nobility. not that i've ever bee THAT humble myself.

i think the most appropriate languages, are those which have been spoken over the longest duration of time, wherever one happens to be. in north america, those are not the current ones, that have only been here a few hundred years at most. but those of cultures that had been here for thousands of years prior to their having been 'discouvered'. most, as much or more then TEN THOUSAND years.

california, where i live, would be like europe linguistically if people still spoke them, i mean everybody did nearly all of the time.

so i'd really rather people didn't die, as many seem to be being killed for little else, for speaking something other then 'english'

=^^=
.../\...

spanish :sniper: is certanly NOT and you forgot many other languages such as my personal favourite: portuguese!!!:p:D:cool:

Dutch :p

No way, Nederlands is a lot better! :p

Any romance language, at least, is 10000x easier to learn than English. Especially Spanish (and likely Portuguese and Italian) - everything follows a pattern and the few things that break the pattern are so similar that you can extrapolate what other things will do it to because guess what, they also follow a pattern.

Verbs and conjugation are the key there. They are pretty simple in english, and a pain in any romance.

Spanish is the most phonetic language ever! There are NO EXCEPTIONS! I could teach the rules to a ten-year-old. I guess its just because you're Nepalese friend must have not been used to Latin characters... ?

No exceptions...? Did I miss something during my entire life?

No way, Nederlands is a lot better! :p
Vloms dedju!

:D

Well English is hard for people who don't already speak a Germanic language to learn, provided it's not your first language, so I'm going with French. Many phrases I know in English are shorter in French, and it gets easier the learn more once you've got the basics down. It's more nasaly than English, and aside from that and a couple accents (namely ` and ´), I've no problems with French.

Italian, the official language of music. Enough said.

Also, were are the options for German (the language of philosophy), Russian (the language of the widest country in the world) and Ancient Greek? Also Arabic wasn't there... too bad.

Italian, the official language of music. Enough said.

Also, were are the options for German (the language of philosophy), Russian (the language of the widest country in the world) and Ancient Greek? Also Arabic wasn't there... too bad.

Yeah, I recognize that is a pretty good point.

For example, english is easy to rhyme with, given the diversity and the relative simplicity, but the strong emphasis in consonants rather reduce its musicality. French, although seems to be pretty musical by the way it sounds in a conversation, totally sucks when introduced in music (my humble opinion), meanwhile spanish is somewhere in the middle, having some musical quality but lacking the exquisite cadence of the italian.

Yeah, I recognize that is a pretty good point. ...

You know, maybe italian sounds "musical" because its vowels are very simple and sharply distinct sounds (just seven: a, "open" e, "closed" e, i, "open" o, "closed" o, u), while french and english vowels are a nightmare of little differences.

You know, maybe italian sounds "musical" because its vowels are very simple and sharply distinct sounds (just seven: a, "open" e, "closed" e, i, "open" o, "closed" o, u), while french and english vowels are a nightmare of little differences.

Well, the same can be told about spanish vowels. However, italian have even less emphasis in consonants, or at least in strong consonant sounds, making syllabes more fluid and more adequate for music.

Awesome language, you have.

I chose French... mostly because I've devoted a large chunk of my life (5 years) to mastering it. It is also a very beautiful language though, especially if you look at French literature.

Demain, dès l'aube, à l'heure où blanchit la campagne,
Je partirai. Vois-tu, je sais que tu m'attends.
J'irai par la forêt, j'irai par la montagne.
Je ne puis demeurer loin de toi plus longtemps.

Je marcherai les yeux fixés sur mes pensées,
Sans rien voir au dehors, sans entendre aucun bruit,
Seul, inconnu, le dos courbé, les mains croisées,
Triste, et le jour pour moi sera comme la nuit.

Je ne regarderai ni l'or du soir qui tombe,
Ni les voiles au loin descendant vers Harfleur,
Et quand j'arriverai, je mettrai sur ta tombe
Un bouquet de houx vert et de bruyère en fleur.

-Victor Hugo

Killer album.


Oh, wait, this isnt about the Storm Troopers of Death album?

Mongolian. You'll have wished you learned it when the Mongols get tired of Yak hearding and conquer the world again.

I could listen to Mandarin Chinese all friggin' day.

I also love their alphabet; it's sort of like heiroglyphics, where each character is a little picture.

YEAH!!!! English!!!

Where's Spanglish or Engrish in the poll?

I'm disappointed. Neither Klingon nor Quenya made the cut?

English is the language of international commerce. While it isn't the most melodious of tongues, it is extremely practical due to the diversity of influences on its development over the centuries. Furthermore, since the majority of modern innovations were created by English speaking inventors, English has become the primary language of science, technology, business, and (obviously) the world wide web.

That said, I vote Latin. What better language is there for international relations? It is not an official language of any world power, it has a history (along with Greek) as the language of the arts and sciences, literature and government, religion and the occult. It covers all the bases and it sounds good.

*edit*
I'm disappointed. Neither Klingon nor Quenya made the cut?
Klingon FTW!

Killer album.


Oh, wait, this isnt about the Storm Troopers of Death album?

I thought an SoD reference would hit sooner than 70+ posts. But well done anyway.

Catchy title, yes? I hate when people say that since English sounds like an "old guy on the toilet" (to quote someone).

Hmm.. well the main anti-English people who don't speak our language are the French. Was it a frenchman? If so, it's quite ironic, since French language sounds like drunken slurring.

Then again, English can sound quite bad when spoken without care.

I could listen to Mandarin Chinese all friggin' day.

I also love their alphabet; it's sort of like heiroglyphics, where each character is a little picture.

I think Cantonese is the prettier sounding chinese.

As an aspiring poet I am forced to say English. I can speak English, German and French. Whoever once said that "German is the language of thinkers and poets," is an absolutely barefaced liar. I do like French, although there are too many misplaced single letter's and nonsensical spelling for my liking.

When English is spoken properly, by an eloquent and passionate speaker, there is nothing quite like it. I refer anyone that disagrees to the Sonnets of W. Shakespeare.

Other than that, Russian sounds ok.

I'm disappointed. Neither Klingon nor Quenya made the cut?

I knew I liked you.

Italian is a beautiful language however it is supposed to be hard to write songs in, so it doesnt lend itself to music etc.

I like English too obviously as it is one of the languages is that I use everyday.

My favourite language is Sign Language, specifically British Sign Language. And I know you all are now probably groaning to yourself but if you'll permit me to explain myself.

It is an extraordinarily useful language - great for communicating if you have to be silent. It has evolved over time (like spoken languages) and it is currently a minority language, which means that not a lot of people will understand you when you use it so feel free to slag off that fat lady on the bus without fear of retribution! ;)

However the real beauty of sign language for me lies in seeing it done in its natural form by a fluent speaker. The movements of the body are very graceful and flowing and its easy to get hypnotised by them, more so when its Sign Language poetry, one of your work colleagues telling you about a bunion she found on her foot yesterday is not so beautiful I'll admit.

Sign Language is a versatile language - not only can the actual signs themselves be changed depending on context but there are so many variations of the same language (Pidgin Sign Language, Signed English, Sign-Supported English, BSL, Makaton, Contact Sign etc) Sign Language is the only language I know where you can make up on the spot different ways of saying something and noone can say you're wrong (well sometimes they can but you know what I mean! lol)

Not only that but it gives hope and life to a community that otherwise would have very little to be happy about. Sign Language has been described as "turning a black-and-white world into glorious technicolour....it makes me feel so free" What other language do you know that does that?

I thought an SoD reference would hit sooner than 70+ posts. But well done anyway.

Ive been away all weekend, or it woulda been on page one ;)

Where's Spanglish or Engrish in the poll?

Spanglish´s an abomination.

I think Arabic is the most beautiful language, both written and spoken.

I think Arabic is the most beautiful language, both written and spoken.

Written, I like it. Spoken, to me, sounds too harsh.

Italian is a beautiful language however it is supposed to be hard to write songs in, so it doesnt lend itself to music etc.

I like English too obviously as it is one of the languages is that I use everyday.

My favourite language is Sign Language, specifically British Sign Language. And I know you all are now probably groaning to yourself but if you'll permit me to explain myself.

It is an extraordinarily useful language - great for communicating if you have to be silent. It has evolved over time (like spoken languages) and it is currently a minority language, which means that not a lot of people will understand you when you use it so feel free to slag off that fat lady on the bus without fear of retribution! ;)

However the real beauty of sign language for me lies in seeing it done in its natural form by a fluent speaker. The movements of the body are very graceful and flowing and its easy to get hypnotised by them, more so when its Sign Language poetry, one of your work colleagues telling you about a bunion she found on her foot yesterday is not so beautiful I'll admit.

Sign Language is a versatile language - not only can the actual signs themselves be changed depending on context but there are so many variations of the same language (Pidgin Sign Language, Signed English, Sign-Supported English, BSL, Makaton, Contact Sign etc) Sign Language is the only language I know where you can make up on the spot different ways of saying something and noone can say you're wrong (well sometimes they can but you know what I mean! lol)

Not only that but it gives hope and life to a community that otherwise would have very little to be happy about. Sign Language has been described as "turning a black-and-white world into glorious technicolour....it makes me feel so free" What other language do you know that does that?

Excellent post.

Except for the bolded part.

Italian doesn't lend itself to music? Is that why when opera was invented, it was inventied in Florence? It's leading inventor, Claudio Monteverdi, was Italian. Mozart wrote his operas in Italian. Other great Italian composers of choral, opera or art song:

Leoncavallo
Respighi
Donizetti
Durante
Puccini
Verdi

Italian was MADE to be set to music. I don't hold much to absolutes when it comes to music, but that bolded statement was so incorrect I had to post. I mean no offense.

Catchy title, yes? I hate when people say that since English sounds like an "old guy on the toilet" (to quote someone).

Anyway, in your opinion, what is the greatest language out there in terms of eloquence, sound, and the level of effort to learn?
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y223/GermanNightmare/AngryGerman.gif German.
Highest level of eloquence; you can say exactly what you mean, and creating new specialized words is fairly easy.
Sounds nice, too. Either when whispering in someone's ear or shouting across the yard: Works both ways.
Effort to learn - well, I guess German is a real bitch to master but it's well worth the effort.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y223/GermanNightmare/Imperial_eagle.jpg Low/High Gothic. (If you have to ask why, be aware that the Inquisition is monitoring your transmissions...)

Excellent post.

Except for the bolded part.

Italian doesn't lend itself to music? Is that why when opera was invented, it was inventied in Florence? It's leading inventor, Claudio Monteverdi, was Italian. Mozart wrote his operas in Italian. Other great Italian composers of choral, opera or art song:

Leoncavallo
Respighi
Donizetti
Durante
Puccini
Verdi

Italian was MADE to be set to music. I don't hold much to absolutes when it comes to music, but that bolded statement was so incorrect I had to post. I mean no offense.



Thanks *blushes*

And *blushes again for entirely different reason* sorry you're completely right, I was thinking of Cristina Scabbia saying the reason she didnt write songs in Italian was because Italian was a hard languaeg to write lyrics in. Cheerfully retracted!

"English doesn't borrow from other languages. It knocks them out on dark alleys and checks pockets for loose grammar"

'nuff said :P

It's because of the thousands of characters. Japanese has about 2,000 commonly used Chinese characters (more like words) along with its two main alphabets of Hiragana and Katakana.

But Arabic is pretty difficult to read only because the letters are connected. You have to practice a lot. So I'd say Arabic is more difficult than Japanese, but Chinese is by far the most difficult of all languages.
But, Japanese follows a rigid structure, unlike English. I think Japanese is quite an easy language to learn.

I'm disappointed. Neither Klingon nor Quenya made the cut?

All the pro-Klingon crowd is reading the bible (http://www.kli.org/wiki/index.php?Klingon%20Bible%20Translation%20Project).

I say english, simply because it is the easiest to learn. It's not necessarily as beautiful as other languages, but for practical reasons, it's just as good as any other language.

Unless someone thinks there's any easier language to learn?

ENGLISH EASY!!!???
Not a chance. Try to learn engish as your second language. English is the hardest language in the world to learn. The slang and spelling and grammer and pro nouns.. Its too much to learn

ENGLISH EASY!!!???
Not a chance. Try to learn engish as your second language. English is the hardest language in the world to learn. The slang and spelling and grammer and pro nouns.. Its too much to learn

I disagree. I learned English as a third language and, despite the common errors one commits when learning it and some little confusion, it´s not too difficult to master. Try learning French or Japanese, or Portuguese and then you can say which is more difficult to master. English is not one of those.

English is easy to learn for beginners. Which probably is a blessing for the US...

I agree. It wouldn't be half as simple to spread the language across the globe if it weren't easy for beginners to learn.

ENGLISH EASY!!!???
Not a chance. Try to learn engish as your second language. English is the hardest language in the world to learn. The slang and spelling and grammer and pro nouns.. Its too much to learn

Tried, and more or less succedeed. I can't say the same about french or japanese, for example

But Arabic is pretty difficult to read only because the letters are connected. You have to practice a lot. So I'd say Arabic is more difficult than Japanese, but Chinese is by far the most difficult of all languages.
It was not just the writing that defeated me when I tried to pick up some Arabic: I don't have good eyesight, so I can't readily see the distinctions among the letters; but worse: I can't hear the distinctions between some of the consonants either.

I disagree. I learned English as a third language and, despite the common errors one commits when learning it and some little confusion, it´s not too difficult to master. Try learning French or Japanese, or Portuguese and then you can say which is more difficult to master. English is not one of those.
French is a very consistent language, and the vocabulary is quite small. I think it's quite an easy language (the regulated languages tend to me).

The only difficulty I had was distinguishing the different sounds through that awful accent.

I personally speak english, but I've always loved the sound of Japanese.

My favorites, in terms of euphony:

Greek (not every accent, but on average)
Polish (nicest-sounding of the Slavic languages)
Hungarian (no clue why, but it's catchy)
Lithuanian (same reason - don't know a word, but I like it)

Edit: Honorable mention to Portuguese, before I forget.

French is a very consistent language, and the vocabulary is quite small. I think it's quite an easy language (the regulated languages tend to me).

The only difficulty I had was distinguishing the different sounds through that awful accent.

I disagree with you when it comes to the learning of French but then again, I find English very easy whereas many people think it´s complicated. I think it all depends on how you take to languages. I tried learning German and I had a horrible time. As for Latin rooted languages like French and Italian, I don´t have a lot of problems with because I speak Spanish already. Of course, by no means is the learning of these languages easy.

Catchy title, yes? I hate when people say that since English sounds like an "old guy on the toilet" (to quote someone).

Anyway, in your opinion, what is the greatest language out there in terms of eloquence, sound, and the level of effort to learn?

I think French, Spanish and Italian are beautiful sounding languages.
I don't particularly enjoy the sound of German or Afrikaans.
I don't think any language is superior to another, though, really. Everyone's different.

I say english, simply because it is the easiest to learn. It's not necessarily as beautiful as other languages, but for practical reasons, it's just as good as any other language.

Unless someone thinks there's any easier language to learn?

Umm, I'm assuming English is your first language?

Most people who's second (or third, or fourth...) language is English say it's very hard to learn. There's so many rules, and most of them change from word to word. Nothing's spelt as it sounds. It's a very complicated language.

I think some Asian languages are very hard as well, just because of the complexity of the written symbols.

I disagree. I learned English as a third language and, despite the common errors one commits when learning it and some little confusion, it´s not too difficult to master. Try learning French or Japanese, or Portuguese and then you can say which is more difficult to master. English is not one of those.

I learned English as... uhh...

1.italian ;)
1bis.milanese :D
2.german (at school from age 11 to age 19)
3.latin (at school from age 14 to age 19)
4.ancient greek (at school from age 14 to age 19)
5.russian (course from age 15 to age 19)
6.english (never had a formal teaching)
...

English is EASY, trust me. The only real tough part of it is pronunciation; grammar is almost unexistant (look at the verbs! never seen anything simpler) and syntaxis is elementary; also, the vocabulary is small, when confronted with italian, german or greek.

Hard to say, probably Japanese or Italian for their sound, though.

Dutch :p

Zeker weten!

I learned English as... uhh...

1.italian ;)
1bis.milanese :D
2.german (at school from age 11 to age 19)
3.latin (at school from age 14 to age 19)
4.ancient greek (at school from age 14 to age 19)
5.russian (course from age 15 to age 19)
6.english (never had a formal teaching)
...

English is EASY, trust me. The only real tough part of it is pronunciation; grammar is almost unexistant (look at the verbs! never seen anything simpler) and syntaxis is elementary; also, the vocabulary is small, when confronted with italian, german or greek.

You had me until here. Sorry, but as a polyglot drawing from just about every major language family in the world to some extent, the roughly 400,000 words of recorded English (yes, not all 400k are in common usage, but that's how it is with every language). But this is an amazingly thorny question. Witness:

What we mean by word sounds obvious, but it’s not. Take a verb like climb. The rules of English allow you to generate the forms climbs, climbed, climbable, and climbing, the nouns climb and climber (and their plurals climbs and climbers), compounds such as climb-down and climbing frame, and phrasal verbs like climb on, climb over, and climb down. Now, here’s the question you’ve got to answer: are all these distinct words, or do you lump them all together under climb?

That this is not a trivial question can be proved by looking at half a dozen current dictionaries. You won’t find two that agree on what to list. Almost every word in the language has this fuzzy penumbra of inflected forms, separate senses and compounds, some to a much greater extent than climb. To take a famous case, the entry for set in the Oxford English Dictionary runs to 60,000 words. The noun alone has 47 separate senses listed. Are all these distinct words?

And in a wider sense, what do you include in your list of words? Do you count all the regional variations of English? Or slang? Dialect? Family or private language? Proper names and the names of places? And what about abbreviations? The biggest dictionary of them has more than 400,000 entries — do you count them all as words? And what about informal and formal names for living things? The wood louse is known in Britain by many local names — tiggy-hog, cheeselog, pill bug, chiggy pig, and rolypoly among others. Are these all to be counted as separate words? And, to take a more specialist example, is Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the formal name for bread yeast, to be counted as a word (or perhaps two)? If you say yes, you’ve got to add another couple of million such names to the English-language word count. And what about medical terms, such as syncytiotrophoblastic or holoprosencephaly, that few of us ever encounter?

The other difficult term is vocabulary. What counts as a word that somebody knows? Is it one that a person uses regularly and accurately? Or perhaps one that will be correctly recognised — say in written text — but not used? Or perhaps one that will be understood in context but which the person may not easily be able to define? This distinction between what linguists call active and passive vocabularies is hard to measure, and it skews estimates.

The problem doesn’t stop there. English speakers not only know words, they know word-forming elements, such as the ending -phobia for some irrational fear. A journalist rushing to meet a deadline might take a word he knows, like Serb, and tack on the ending to make Serbophobia. He’s just added a word to the language (probably only temporarily), but can he really be said to have that word in his vocabulary? If nobody ever uses it again, can we legitimately count it? By reversing the coining process, a reader of the newspaper can easily work out the word’s origin and meaning. Has the reader also added a word to his vocabulary?

Link (http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/howmany.htm).

None of the languages you mentioned comes close to this kind of complexity. The ease of syntax and verb-formation is more than compensated for by the bewildering contextual and connotational versatility of English.

I say Irish or Scottish very similar. And nice on the ear! If you want to hear some watch Highlander Endgame. The language that Connor and Duncan speak when they meet in the present is one of Scottish or Irish.

Thanks *blushes*

And *blushes again for entirely different reason* sorry you're completely right, I was thinking of Cristina Scabbia saying the reason she didnt write songs in Italian was because Italian was a hard languaeg to write lyrics in. Cheerfully retracted!

No problem.

One of the other ways to think of this is listening to English translations of Italian songs or arias. Even something as trite as O Sole Mio, is gorgeous compared to the Elvis English version "It's Now Or Never".

Failing that, watch the film Breaking Away. Why? It's a great movie, but it also features a lead character besotted with Italian cycling and all things Italian. Even his strident, youthful voice sounds better when he sings in Italian.

One more thing and I swear I'll leave this alone (I don't get to talk about my profession too much in this forum, forgive my exuberance): a language which ends the vast majority of its words in the five basic vowels (/a/, /ε/, /i/, /o/, /u/ as written in the International Phonetic Alphabet), is going to find poetic idioms like rhyming, assonance and alliteration a breeze compared to consonantophilic languages like English.

Russian Is Superior over All!

English is NOTthe easiest language to learn. Spoken English isn't that hard, but written English is one of the most illogical languages to learn out there. All the rules break themselves as far as grammar and spelling, it is more difficult to sound out than many other languages and there are just more words than in many other languages. Don't even get me started on silent letters.

Just to be clear, English is my native language, but after learning Spanish and teaching English to ELL students, I can tell you that it is not the easiest, by far.

It also highly depends on what language your first is and whether or not it’s in the same language tree (ie Germanic, Asiatic etc.). It may be easier for a speaker of German to learn English but it would be easier for a speaker of Portuguese or Italian to learn Spanish, etc.

I voted Japanese. I like the way it sounds, and, well, it was the only agglutinating language in the list. I may be prejudised, my L1 being Finnish, but I like agglutinating languages far more than any others.

By the way, as far as I know (and I should), there's a concensus among linguists that no language is any harder or easier than the other (except if one wants to think that having to learn many rules by heart makes a language more difficult - I personally don't think so), and how difficult it is to learn a language depends solely on how similar it is to the languages one already knows.

By the way, as far as I know (and I should), there's a concensus among linguists that no language is any harder or easier than the other (except if one want's to think that having to learn many rules by heart makes a language more difficult - I personally don't think so), and how difficult it is to learn a language depends solely on how similar it is to the languages one already knows.
This is why English speakers and German speakers learn each other's languages so easily. They're very similar. Also, if you have trouble with English or German, you'll likely have trouble with the other, as well.

Supposedly from Charles V, who had territories all over Europe and had to know a lot of languages:

Spanish is for speaking to God

Italian is for speaking to your lover

French is for speaking to your best friend

English is for speaking to a business acquaintance

German is for speaking to a servant

Russian is for speaking to a dog or a horse

Supposedly from Charles V, who had territories all over Europe and had to know a lot of languages:

Spanish is for speaking to God

Italian is for speaking to your lover

French is for speaking to your best friend

English is for speaking to a business acquaintance

German is for speaking to a servant

Russian is for speaking to a dog or a horse

That could mean anything. He could have had a Spanish priest, Italian mistress, French friends, English business partners, German servants and Russian stable hands. :p

I voted Japanese. I like the way it sounds, and, well, it was the only agglutinating language in the list. I may be prejudised, my L1 being Finnish, but I like agglutinating languages far more than any others.

Tamil (my native tongue) and most Dravidian languages are agglutinative.

Hola, como te llamas?

JK


English is the best except I have an asian accent on it sadly

English is NOTthe easiest language to learn. Spoken English isn't that hard, but written English is one of the most illogical languages to learn out there. All the rules break themselves as far as grammar and spelling, it is more difficult to sound out than many other languages and there are just more words than in many other languages. Don't even get me started on silent letters.

Just to be clear, English is my native language, but after learning Spanish and teaching English to ELL students, I can tell you that it is not the easiest, by far.

It also highly depends on what language your first is and whether or not it’s in the same language tree (ie Germanic, Asiatic etc.). It may be easier for a speaker of German to learn English but it would be easier for a speaker of Portuguese or Italian to learn Spanish, etc.

Amen, The Door. Amen.

Here is a little poem which demonstrates the... idiosyncrasies... of the English language :p

http://pauillac.inria.fr/~xleroy/stuff/english-pronunciation.html

I like how the person who created the poll put in Latin plus three more Romantic languages. Where are the other options like Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, German? Personally, I think Swahili is one of the most beautiful languages, though that's just me. But for ease of use, I would say Esperanto or Ido would have to rank high.

Supposedly from Charles V, who had territories all over Europe and had to know a lot of languages:

Spanish is for speaking to God

Italian is for speaking to your lover

French is for speaking to your best friend

English is for speaking to a business acquaintance

German is for speaking to a servant

Russian is for speaking to a dog or a horse

Several mistakes regarding the actual quote...

Italian for singing.

French for speaking to your lover.

Spanish for praying to God.

English for making business.

German for speaking to your horse and your dog.

I like how the person who created the poll put in Latin plus three more Romantic languages. Where are the other options like Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, German? Personally, I think Swahili is one of the most beautiful languages, though that's just me. But for ease of use, I would say Esperanto or Ido would have to rank high.
Spanish and Italian are very nearly mutually intelligible. Including both was silly.

Spanish and Italian are very nearly mutually intelligible. Including both was silly.

You forget that, whereas Spanish and Italian sound alike, in grammatical composition and phonetics they couldn´t be any more different. The only factor they have in common is they´re both Romance languages. So, I don´t think it was silly placing them on the poll. What might´ve been a bit old was to put Latin in there. Latin is considered a ¨dead language¨. Even if it´s used in the Vatican City.

Lingua Latina.

And English, for which I seem to have an affection similar to that of the most devoted Francophile does to French.

You forget that, whereas Spanish and Italian sound alike, in grammatical composition and phonetics they couldn´t be any more different.
Sure they could. They could be French.

Sure they could. They could be French.

French also falls into the same group. My point is, Romance languages aren´t easy.

Catchy title, yes? I hate when people say that since English sounds like an "old guy on the toilet" (to quote someone).

Anyway, in your opinion, what is the greatest language out there in terms of eloquence, sound, and the level of effort to learn?

Threadfail. The only possible option isn't even on there, nor is the only reasonable runner-up.

German, is of course the best language (and the reason for the threadfail, I'm not sure how on Earth you could post an 'option 9' and leave out the language of the third economic power of the world....)

The runner up is of course thlIngan Hol.

Several mistakes regarding the actual quote...

Italian for singing.

French for speaking to your lover.

Spanish for praying to God.

English for making business.

German for speaking to your horse and your dog.

Ive always heard it as I speak "Spanish to God, Italian to Women, French to men, and German to my horse."

Ive always heard it as I speak "Spanish to God, Italian to Women, French to men, and German to my horse."

The original saying was probably lost in translation :p

French also falls into the same group. My point is, Romance languages aren´t easy.
And my point was the Spanish and Italian are far more similar than either is to French.

Here is a little poem which demonstrates the... idiosyncrasies... of the English language :p

http://pauillac.inria.fr/~xleroy/stuff/english-pronunciation.html
This poem deals only with English not using phonetic spelling, but many languages don't. Pictographic languages like Chinese, for example, can't be phonetic.

And my point was the Spanish and Italian are far more similar than either is to French.

True, still, it´s equally complicated.

Traditional written Chinese for reading old stuff. Simplified for new stuff. Pronounced for non speakers as if the phonetic were phonetic as reconstructed by Karlgren. Marvelous for poetry, riddles, allusions and some of the most complex wordplay in the world. Vocabulary includes all the modern technical words. Then there's the modern social vocabulary. Easily five times larger than English. The social vocabulary of English is about 200,000. The social vocabulary of written Chinese is about 1,000,000. Spoken Chinese is even larger. Single characters are mostly not words. They are the building blocks of words. About 5,000 characters in common use. Easy to learn once you get the hang of it. Two character combinations are the most common but eight character words tend to be the most expressive. I have a two character word on a sign by my workstation that supposedly says "diligent at work at ones desk". It also means "screwing off big time". Depends on context. I also have a sign with the words in the sign in the Japanese bar in Kill Bill. It is a poem in one word that means both "Living in a drunken stupor" and "Living in an exhilarating dream". An internal rhyme and assonance in one word.

Italian is a beautiful language however it is supposed to be hard to write songs in, so it doesnt lend itself to music etc.

I like English too obviously as it is one of the languages is that I use everyday.

My favourite language is Sign Language, specifically British Sign Language. And I know you all are now probably groaning to yourself but if you'll permit me to explain myself.

It is an extraordinarily useful language - great for communicating if you have to be silent. It has evolved over time (like spoken languages) and it is currently a minority language, which means that not a lot of people will understand you when you use it so feel free to slag off that fat lady on the bus without fear of retribution! ;)

However the real beauty of sign language for me lies in seeing it done in its natural form by a fluent speaker. The movements of the body are very graceful and flowing and its easy to get hypnotised by them, more so when its Sign Language poetry, one of your work colleagues telling you about a bunion she found on her foot yesterday is not so beautiful I'll admit.

Sign Language is a versatile language - not only can the actual signs themselves be changed depending on context but there are so many variations of the same language (Pidgin Sign Language, Signed English, Sign-Supported English, BSL, Makaton, Contact Sign etc) Sign Language is the only language I know where you can make up on the spot different ways of saying something and noone can say you're wrong (well sometimes they can but you know what I mean! lol)

Not only that but it gives hope and life to a community that otherwise would have very little to be happy about. Sign Language has been described as "turning a black-and-white world into glorious technicolour....it makes me feel so free" What other language do you know that does that?


^my mum is grade 3 BSL, something mystical about watching a silent conversation full of emotion... i trided to lean but have the attention span of a retarded goldfish.

i'm an english speaker, but i know people for whom english is a second language, and they speak it *properly*, as in correctly, better than i do.

to speak english is easy, part of me thinks we should switch to a phonetical dictionary but there are too many unclear(broad) dialects spoken inside the UK for that to be helpful, it'd just be chasing tales...(people "oop noorth" speak funny...)

i learnt german from ages 12-16 and found the words easy to pronounce, but their grammar hard as nails, i cant cope with male, female and neutral, just confuses the hell out of me, why isnt everything "das"??!?!?

afrikaans always sounds reet cool to me, love the passionate romance languages, but find them spoken too fast for me, i'd like to crack russian or polish...

I would have to say Latin because of the sheer staying power of the Latin language in so many areas of study, both arts and sciences. Sure, it's only official in the world's smallest state today (Vatican City), but knowledge of Latin or even a few Latin terms is vital to many professions and academic pursuits, and these terms were invented thousands of years ago. Now that's a sign of greatness!

Not to mention, Gregorian chant sounds absolutely beautiful.

Traditional written Chinese for reading old stuff. Simplified for new stuff. Pronounced for non speakers as if the phonetic were phonetic as reconstructed by Karlgren. Marvelous for poetry, riddles, allusions and some of the most complex wordplay in the world. Vocabulary includes all the modern technical words. Then there's the modern social vocabulary. Easily five times larger than English. The social vocabulary of English is about 200,000. The social vocabulary of written Chinese is about 1,000,000. Spoken Chinese is even larger. Single characters are mostly not words. They are the building blocks of words. About 5,000 characters in common use. Easy to learn once you get the hang of it. Two character combinations are the most common but eight character words tend to be the most expressive. I have a two character word on a sign by my workstation that supposedly says "diligent at work at ones desk". It also means "screwing off big time". Depends on context. I also have a sign with the words in the sign in the Japanese bar in Kill Bill. It is a poem in one word that means both "Living in a drunken stupor" and "Living in an exhilarating dream". An internal rhyme and assonance in one word.

Right on! Understated if anything

All the people that voted English are kind of silly, because, yeah, it does sound like an old guy in a toilet. It's a lame language, and I can say that since it's my first. From what I've heard it's the hardest to learn, but I don't really know, since I just grew up speaking it.

I would say French is the best, from what I've experienced so far it's really easy to learn, and I think it sounds very eloquent and romantic =D