Why is Spanish not so difficult IYO? because of the Latin lexicon?
porque se escribe como se habla? easy pronunciation? I don't think it's
intrinsically easier than English or any other language, do you?
Marc
Gerry here: Perhaps Spanish isn't any easier to learn than English, but
it certainly is easier to learn than Russian. Even for Russian natives!
My own view is that Spanish is much more suited to be the 'world
language' in that it is probably the easiest of the major world
languages to learn. This is unlikely to happen, though. Mark.
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Spanish is regular, and of all the world's major languages, I'm told
only Turkish is more regular. This counts for a lot. The spelling system
is consistent and it's pretty much pronounced as its spelled. For the
most part, the phonology is not difficult either (dark-L and tap-R are
difficult for English-speakers). No language's grammar is 'simple', but
compared to, say, Russian or English or German, its grammar requires one
to memorize considerably fewer rules.
Gerry: And I'm told that because of it's regularity, Turkish is a snap
to learn.
Italian, so I'm told, is also just as easy to learn. Spanish, however,
has far more native-speakers world-wide.
Esperanto suffers from the enthusiasm of its true-believers. I once
heard it (rather archly) described as 'an Indo-European language in the
Slavic group'.
If a designed language, a 'conlang' (constructed language) is to be
imposed on the world, then one not quite so Euro-centric and even
IE-centric would be considerably more appropriate. Such a language would
lack not merely grammatical gender, but grammatical number as well.
Agent-verb agreement would probably be positional and not inflectional.
It might even dispense with articles. Much of the world speaks languages
without such niceties, and these features are rather difficult to learn
if you have not grown up with them.
Thus. Spanish is the best candidate available among the world's major
languages to be the 'world-language'. English, however, has established
itself, and I don't thing anything is going to change in this regard.
Mark.
Gerry: I think this issue is still very sensitive and it will be a
while before any definitive answer can be reached. Perhaps it might
take a century or two for languages to consolidate -- I think that in
South America folks are trying to establish some workable taxon for
Hispanic. Could someone else speak to this question?
Gerry
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Gerald Reinhart
Independent Scholar
(650) 321-7378
waluk@...
http://www.alekseevmanuscript.com