English is illogical ?
I heard an interesting discussion on the radio the other day. A linguist was talking about the English language and the difficulties people, not only English speaking children but especially foreign language students, have with learning English.
An issue is that it is illogical. The comparison was given with German which uses a simple technique of adding words together to create new words of more complex meaning. In contrast, English has many words with fine distinctions of meaning and all sorts of spelling and phonic “same but different” issues. Classics like through and thou and though … and so it goes. The linguist noted this is due to a couple of key factors …
– the mix of invasions and languages etc. over time
– the point that most English was spoken and there were no dictionaries until (relatively) recently.
Briefly on that that last point, she noted that the idea that a word must have fixed spelling is a very recent phenomemon. I grew up with the 3 R’s and find comfort in “correct” spelling and grammar but I (and by extension many of you) are not representative of the English speaking peoples over time.
Back to my earlier point about German simply assembling complex words from smaller words. She gave me to understand that if you wanted to create a concept for a “small house with a large black door” the German language simply assembles the new word in that manner. Certainly I’ve seen many long-winded German words that appear to follow that dictum.
She then extended this point to note that; English is unique in requiring and testing learners on spelling and grammar, other languages are so much simpler to work with that these actions are redundant for their students.
Interesting debate.
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