English is inferior?

February 23, 2011 11:38 PM

Your reason to hate the English language?

Language as a culture is an interesting phenomenon. I grew up speaking English. Then I encounter other languages as I age, this cultural cringe has seeped into me. But why? I've seen other languages that only have handful of irregular verbs. I've seen other languages with a more rational approach to spelling. And I've seen other languages with simpler verbal conjugations that put English into shame. When people comment others for a bad grammar I think they don't understand an important thing. They don't understand the fact that they understand what they say with the help of pragmatics and situational senses. The English language to me is an inferior one. I wouldn't want to teach English to my future children. We as members of an English-speaking society don't have the best language. We have the best language due to the historical fortunes.

Let's learn from other languages. They are the better ones.

What is your criticism against the English language?

posted by sanskrtam to Writing & Language (4 answers total)

I don't hate it, but it is a language with so many quirks. Most likely due to its long history, and rule by other countries for long times. (As a Scandinavian, we are probably also at fault there with the Danelaw period etc)

I have had friends to complain about Japanese having two words for corner, to which I suggest "like that of roof and ceiling", since in Swedish, it is only one word, and the adjacent words clarify which one, if needed.

Then there are the rules, and then exceptions to rule, then exceptions to exceptions. Sigh, at least they revised the "i before e except after c" rule, and removed it from today's education.

But as lingo-franko, English is the best language to know, in my opinion. My children will know English, and Japanese. Later, Swedish and so on, if there is will. But then, no matter which languages, as long as you are bilingual, things improve. :)
posted by lundman at 11:48 PM on February 23, 2011

I love the English language, but I think prepositional verbs are slowly getting out of hand.
posted by fantasticninety at 11:51 PM on February 23, 2011

I don't think any language is better or worse than any other.

I also don't think this is really a "question", strictly speaking.
posted by Sara C. at 11:56 PM on February 23, 2011

Response by poster: People judge other people. They also judge languages and ways of talking. We don't live in the perfect world and there's always bound for criticisms.
posted by sanskrtam at 12:02 AM on February 24, 2011