LL-L "Language varieties" 2009.10.11 (03) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 11 October 2009 - Volume 03
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From: Holger Otto ANDRE <hjoab at yahoo.com>
Subject: English vs Romance languages

Hello there.

Is it correct to consider a language which has a 90% or so of Latin words,
as Germanic?

This is the case with modern English. My concern is that Latin languages
like Spanish are too much more perfect than English because just by the
Roman Empire times the Latin was a much better developed language than the
others contemporary languages (including Germanic languages). Those who do
not speak any Romance language are hard to understand this. In USA the
Spanish is becoming more and more important and is very likely that Spanish
will super-pass the English as the most spoken language in USA some day.
Even then the English speakers in USA (and other places as well) reject
Spanish as an inferior language, what makes me laugh a lot about their
ignorance. I guess this has an element of racism because the most of the
people that speak Spanish in USA are “Espaladas Mojadas” from Mexico and
other poor countries form Latin America.
Holger Otto ANDRÉ
(Computer Science)

Mobile / Cellphone : +(506) 888-39-645
Office Phone & Fax : +(506) 222-40-398
San José, Costa Rica,Central America.

Website: www.habco.soft.tripod.com

Die Welt ist ein Wunder, ein sehr interessante Ding!
Wir muessen sie schuetzen. Haben Sie viel Spass.
CARPE DIEM.

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 From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language varieties

Hi, Holger!

It's great to hear from you again down there in beautiful Costa Rica.

Now ... please don't take this personally ...

"90% or so of Latin words" in English?! Where did you get *that *estimate?

How do you define "perfect" and "better developed" in the context of
language?

Do you mean by "perfect" and "better developed" large vocabulary? *All
*languages
develop as many words and expressions as are needed in the cultures and
environments of their speakers. In other words, *all *languages have the
same lexical potential.

Do you mean by "perfect" and "better developed" a complex system of
morphology (i.e. lots of affixes and forms for lots of cases, moods, gender
and number)? If that is the measure by which you judge the level of Latin,
then I suppose that Latin (or Romance languages in general according to you)
must be on a similar level with the Uralic and Altaic languages (especially
the Tungusic languages of Eastern Siberia), with the languages of the
Caucasus, and with most indigenous languages of Australia and the Americas,
including the Eskimo-Aleut languages with their incredibly complex
morphologies. Furthermore, if this is why you consider Latin "better
developed" then you seem to contradict your own generalization "Romance
languages." In fact, if today's Romance languages, including Spanish, are
considered derived from Classical Latin, then they must be described as
"deteriorated" because their morphologies are much, much simpler.

Have you ever looked at Old Norse, Modern Icelandic, Faroese, Old English,
Old Saxon and Old German, for example? They are morphologically much more
complex than their respective Germanic descendants of today. The
relationship is similar to that of Classical Latin versus modern Romance
languages. Is morphological simplification really a sign of deterioration?
Not necessarily. Perhaps it is a sign of sophistication to get rid of the
"clutter" if you can say the same thing in a simpler way. Think of computer
programming as an analogy. Which do you prefer: an immensely long script
full of turns and loops or a much shorter script that invokes the same
function?

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron Hahn, A.D.H.C.
(*advocatus diaboli honoris causa*)
Seattle, USA

•

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