LL-L "Grammar" 2011.03.18 (02) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 18 March - Volume 02
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From: Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc. <roger.thijs at euro-support.be>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2011.03.18 (01) [EN]

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com

>
> Subject: Grammar


> Languages with simplified grammars (such as English and Afrikaans) are
more suitable as liguae francae because they do not require the foreign
learner to deal with complex morphological rules prior to acquiring a
beginner’s working knowledge.



I see Walloons have quite some difficulty with learning Dutch and German,
though both are national languages in Belgium. So most of them prefer
English as second language in school.

Other factors though may play a role as the international status of English
and some anti-feelings.

And those who learnt Dutch or German during several years are reluctant to
expose themself with using it, while the ones who studied English have no
refrain, even while talking with a strong French accent.

Regards,

Roger



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From: Sandy Fleming <fleemin at live.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2011.03.18 (01) [EN]

> From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>

> Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2011.03.16 (03) [EN]

>The idea of expressing "rock-being-thrown-ness" and
"rock-sitting-on-the-ground-ness" by simply re-arranging the same few
simpler words is a development of logic.



> It is difficult to imagine the reverse process occurring, so that may
explain why grammar doesn't get more complex.



> Also, the world of more ancient people, with simpler technologies, simply
didn't have the same amount of things in them to name. As bronze and iron,
ploughs and microchips turn up, you are probably less inclined give each of
them half a dozen different names according to their circumstances.



This really isn't what determines language complexity. Up until recently
indigenous Australians did have a relatively simple lifestyle, but their
languages are some of the most complex in the world. In fact to fit a
technologically-driven language change theory to the facts, you'd probably
have to concern yourself more with explaining why peoples with simpler
lifestyles tend to have more complex languages!



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

> Thanks for all the interesting responses!

> Let me bounce another tentative assertion off you:

> Languages with simplified grammars (such as English and Afrikaans) are
more suitable as liguae francae because they do not require the foreign
learner to deal with complex morphological rules prior to acquiring a
beginner’s working knowledge.

> Correct or false, and why?

Allow to me eschew the law of the excluded middle on this one  :)



There might be some truth in it but I don't see why German (say) isn't just
as good as a lingua franca: beginners make a dog's breakfast of both
languages, but as a bazaar language this is acceptable. And when you get
past the beginner stage, you can just as easily get as good at a complex
language as you could at a "simple" one, since what we're referring to here
as "simple" languages are only superficially simple, really.



I'd say the choice of a lingua franca will be due to political and economic,
rather than linguistic, factors.



The dearth of inflection structures in English and its laissez faire
approach to orthography does seem to me to make choice of English as a
lingua franca fortunate (in some ways) as other-cultural concepts such as
pizza, llamas and feng shui can just be taken up in English in their
original spellings or any suitable transliteration. But fortunate as this
might be (in some ways), it's not the _reason_ English has become a lingua
franca.



Sandy Fleming

http://scotstext.org/



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