What do you find the hardest about the English language?

[Walkazo]

The borrowing of "bologna" isn't what's confusing, it's the fact that English kept the Italian spelling but then pronounces it differently from both the spelling and the native pronunciation ("bo-lon'ya"). We butcher lots of words, granted (and other languages return the favour), but even then, you'd think it'd come out as "boh-log-nah", not "bah-low-nee" when looking at the spelling (or "bo-lon-ya" if we tried to mimic the pronunciation but ended up substituting out the non-English "nya"/"ɲ" sound). It's not an unreasonable "huh?" situation.

You know what I love about English? That it is so flexible. It doesn't have a tyrannic organization ruling supreme over everything related to it and dictating what is correct and what is not, it instead relies on the most common usage, which makes the most sense for something as changing as language.

You'd be surprised how many English teachers argue exactly the opposite.

I do get what you're saying though, there are plenty of reoccurring suffixes, prefixes, and morphemes in English. For example, take "ject", which has fallen out of modern usage but was derived from the Latin jacero, which refers to something being thrown or thrown down (can be interpreted as lying down). This morpheme can then have the prefix "in" (inside) placed on it to create "inject", which refers to throwing something inside of something else. In most cases, "ject" doesn't literally refer to throwing something, but merely the displacement of an object or even something more abstract than that. Another example would be "subject", combining "sub" (under or below) with "ject", which clues you in on the meaning (something that lies underneath something or someone else). From there, you can start to notice the patterns: "project", "reject", "objective", "trajectory", "conjecture", "adjective", and the list goes on and on. It's not something you need to study to pick up on: as you see the same few words crop up, you automatically associate them with each other, which helps immensely with comprehension. It's easy to create words just by taking a common word and sticking a prefix or a suffix on it ("serve" has "conserve", "reserve", "deserve", "observe", "servile", "servant", "service", "server", and so much more) Even with words that seem esoteric, like "obnoxious", it's a simple combination of "ob" (against, also in "objection") and "noxious" (harmful or dangerous), or with "mnemonic", which uses the common "-ic" suffix (pertaining to something else) while also being where "meme" comes from. The English language is one heck of a mixing pot, but it certainly has its clever tricks, even if those tricks may be borrowed from other languages. It wouldn't be much of a mixing pot if those languages weren't there, though.

i had an english teacher obsessed with the roots of words and i fear that he rubbed off on me

I took a Latin/Greek course in university that was nothing but taking English words and breaking them down into all their components: it was really interesting. Pretty much every polysyllabic English word can be broken down into a set of affixes bracketing a Latin or Greek root (which often came to English via Old French).

predatory = pred/-at(e)/-tor/-y = prey / to do / agent / quality/condition/state = describing something that preys
immobilization = im-/mobil/-iz(e)/-at(e)/-ion = not / mobile / to do / condition from action = the state of being unable to move
stability = sta/-bili/-ity = stand / ability/capacity / quality/condition/state = describing something that can stand
adaptation = ad-/apt/-at(e)/-ion = towards / fit / to do / condition from action = something that has been made to fit better

It's like mini-sentences inside a word; some languages extend this further and make actual sentences single words, while others go the opposite way and don't even conjugate base words, and just add new words to change the meaning within the context of the sentence. Fundamentally, however, we're all just taking small blocks of info and putting them together to make more complex meanings, but it's really interesting to compare and contrast the different ways to do it, and the different sets of logic behind the various strategies.

I was actually studying Japanese at the same time as the Latin/Greek course, so I was already actively comparing it to English and French conjugation stuff, and then started comparing English word construction to how kanji are formed and put together too. I'm terrible at vocab so my grades sucked for both classes, but it was really fun. Then I took a linguistics course in my last year, and it reignited that fascination all over again - and since it didn't require learning hundreds of new words and roots in three languages simultaneously, I got a good mark that time.

 

[Sabre]

The borrowing of "bologna" isn't what's confusing, it's the fact that English kept the Italian spelling but then pronounces it differently from both the spelling and the native pronunciation ("bo-lon'ya"). We butcher lots of words, granted (and other languages return the favour), but even then, you'd think it'd come out as "boh-log-nah", not "bah-low-nee" when looking at the spelling (or "bo-lon-ya" if we tried to mimic the pronunciation but ended up substituting out the non-English "nya"/"ɲ" sound). It's not an unreasonable "huh?" situation.

I understand the distinction but he's not confused about why we don't pronounce it correctly in Italian, he's confused as to why we don't pronounce it "correctly" as buh-log-nuh.

I was addressing the basic principle of why some words are not pronounced as they would appear to be; the accuracy of the adaptation isn't what was causing his confusion.

 

[santanoice]

Ha! Of course! Kimono is come from the Greek word himona, is mean winter. So, what do you wear in the wintertime to stay warm? A robe. You see: robe, kimono. There you go!

 

[Specific Neptune]

you guys aren't getting the point I'm making

The German word for dog is hund

the French word for wall is mur

The Italian word for window is finestra

I mean they might be, these words are just from google translate, finestra could mean something else entirely, the point I'm making is we changed entire words for our language

so why did we stop at Bologna, rendezvous, champagne

aaaaaaaaaanybody understand me now

 

[Walkazo]

Well, "window" is from Old Norse and thus, predates the French/Latin influence on English; "dog" is Old English and predates the Nordic and Germanic stuff, and the precursor of "wall" seems to date back even further to Proto-Indo-European. In all cases, these are pretty fundamental topics so the native language had a perfectly suitable word and didn't need to adopt new languages' words, whereas bologna and champagne were new things and so, kept the name of the culture that invented them when they were introduced to the English.

Things like "rendezvous" persist alongside older (for English), plainer words like "meet" (Old English/Germanic) because of the cachet: during the middle ages, the English aristocracy spoke French, while the peasants spoke English. This is also why you get things like "cow" (Old English/Germanic, used by the people who deal with the animals) and "beef" ("boef", French, used by the folks who only eat the meat and had/wanted a disconnect from the animals it came from). fanciness may also be why synonyms in general persist rather than everyone agreeing to only use one word and scrap the extras: that'd be boring, people would say.

Of course, it's not always so elegant: caves are pretty fundamental too, yet we use a Latin-based word, the Norse replaced the existing pronoun system when they came to England, etc. Plus, keep in mind that a lot of stuff started out as faithful pronunciations to whatever language they came from, but after the languages went their separate ways again, they started drifting in different directions; for example, we say "hound" while Germans say "hund", but back in the day, both languages were saying it the same way - then a vowel shift happened in English (across the whole language, not as a concerted attempt to change this particular dog synonym or anything), but not in German, and now they're different. It's just like how in animal evolution, closely related species have gradually changed to look different since something made them stop breeding with each other thousands of years ago.

 

[Specific Neptune]

I guess that makes sense. Thanks for clearing that up, Walky.

 

[Specific Neptune]

To be honest I hate it when languages force poor changes of foreign words into themselves. Why the fuck is Spanish so insistent on changing "hot dog" to "jotdog", "tweet" to "twit", and "google" to "gúgol"? It drives me crazy.

You know what I love about English? That it is so flexible. It doesn't have a tyrannic organization ruling supreme over everything related to it and dictating what is correct and what is not, it instead relies on the most common usage, which makes the most sense for something as changing as language.

wait... did you just praise english spelling??

i've never heard of anyone doing that before

i swear you and i have had arguments on said subject before

 

[Hobbes]

To be honest I hate it when languages force poor changes of foreign words into themselves. Why the fuck is Spanish so insistent on changing "hot dog" to "jotdog", "tweet" to "twit", and "google" to "gúgol"? It drives me crazy.

You know what I love about English? That it is so flexible. It doesn't have a tyrannic organization ruling supreme over everything related to it and dictating what is correct and what is not, it instead relies on the most common usage, which makes the most sense for something as changing as language.

wait... did you just praise english spelling??

i've never heard of anyone doing that before

well, I advocate keeping original spellings that can be perfectly written in the language. Changing "croissant" to "cruasán" is also stupid as fuck.

 

[Specific Neptune]

i swear you and i have had arguments on said subject before

i thought we were arguing about why americans spell things differently, not whether english spelling is a good thing

despite my checkered history with americanism, i don't think i've actually had an argument about american spelling yet

i don't know, i might need to check back on my posts or something

 

[Hobbes]

well, I advocate keeping original spellings that can be perfectly written in the language. Changing "croissant" to "cruasán" is also stupid as fuck.

????? spanish spelling is my favorite

Yeah I mean I really like it too, actually more than those of the other languages I speak, but that's my sole complaint about Spanish spelling, trying to "adapt" foreign words that are of common use. Well, and I find ¡ and ¿ to be useless, but as a whole I do like Spanish spelling.

 

[Hobbes]

Yeah I mean I really like it too, actually more than those of the other languages I speak, but that's my sole complaint about Spanish spelling, trying to "adapt" foreign words that are of common use. Well, and I find ¡ and ¿ to be useless, but as a whole I do like Spanish spelling.

ok, but the reason spanish spelling is so consistent and english spelling is not is that spanish is controlled by the rae and english has no equivalent governing body

Actually that's something I like about English, because the RAE is usually very conservative in its use of the language and it's based in Spain, so it often doesn't account for Latin American differences. But you make a valid point, that helps with consistency a lot.

 

[Specific Neptune]

despite my checkered history with americanism, i don't think i've actually had an argument about american spelling yet

i don't know, i might need to check back on my posts or something

http://www.marioboards.com/index.php?topic=25038.msg1117660#msg1117660

well i wouldn't really call that an argument, more of a passing statement, we both even discredited it being an argument in the next two posts, but point taken, i've at least brought it up before

i guess no matter what topic there is, every human has come across it and had some sort of opinion on it, so it's not unlikely that i haven't had some sort of argument with someone in regards to whether the english language is good or bad

my general consensus on the matter is that it is a wonderful language, but then again i am an optimist...

 

[Specific Neptune]

i ain't complainin'

 

[Time Turner]

Yeah I mean I really like it too, actually more than those of the other languages I speak, but that's my sole complaint about Spanish spelling, trying to "adapt" foreign words that are of common use. Well, and I find ¡ and ¿ to be useless, but as a whole I do like Spanish spelling.

ok, but the reason spanish spelling is so consistent and english spelling is not is that spanish is controlled by the rae and english has no equivalent governing body

Having less rigidity gives the language more room to evolve and develop naturally as it's spoken, written, and generally used.