Or most divine. Or most logical. Or something.
I recently read the Dutch linguist Gaston Dorren's books Lingo and Babel. Both are overviews, the former of the languages of Europe and the latter of the largest world languages. He has the same format in both books, using the language as a jumping off point to explain something about linguistics in general, such as alphabets, or word order, or forced change. He writes engagingly, I liked both.
So here is a fun Aeon article by Dorren about the history of linguistics crackpots.
This claim was perhaps most famously defended by the 18th-century writer Antoine de Rivarol on grounds that were both illogical and plain wrong. He argued that the French word order (subject first, followed by verb and then object) is both unique and more logical than any other. But not only is it extremely common among the world’s languages, it’s also an order that French itself very often does not respect – and these are only some of the more obvious objections.
As silly as it is, the notion of ‘French as the pinnacle of logic’ became an idée reçue. The cover of my first French dictionary, published in the 1950s (and not even in France!) claimed that the language was ‘an unsurpassed creation as a vehicle for the mind’. The Arabs, Chinese and Greeks would beg to differ.
My language is easy and seems logical. Yours isn't easy--it must not be logical.
ReplyDeleteIf only the French could learn to spell. French has the biggest disconnect between pronunciation and spelling of any alphabetic language. Full half the letters are never pronounced, especially at the end of words.
ReplyDeleteThe British elites are notorious for slurring their words and eliding syllables, but at least the orthography approximates the their spoken words quite well. Of course, that's for British English. American English has diverged quite a bit from word spelling.
Dorren would agree that French is one of the few worse than English. It is a function of a population becoming literate before anyone had noticed what the problems might be and spelling emerged got interfered with by pompous people who wanted to makes sure people saw what the Latin root was, and so forced the b back into debt and doubt, even though they had not been pronounced for over a century. Or people wanting to show off the knew how to spell things "the real way," meaning the old way, when people still made slight sounds for the silent letters we have now. Knife, gnaw, sight, could. It never ends. It seems we are naturally inclined to be pompous bastards.
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