Why Is The English Language Stupid?
 

I figured it's because English is basically a mishmash of every other Romantic language on earth and probably has trace amounts of various other languages as well.

English is a hodgepodge of pretty much every language on Earth to some extent. Most other languages only incorporate bits from other languages in their vicinity, so regional French dialects pull from things like Spanish and Italian based on proximity. English, on the other hand, already started out as a mutt. Originally, it was basically half German and half French and used as a pidgin language until it eventually grew. It kinda went downhill from there.

Wish I'd stuck with English longer than I did, then I'd likely know an actual academical answer. As it is I can only make an educated guess that careful planning isn't a very big element of the natural development of communication, and also that anglophone speakers aren't much for phonetic spelling.

The Wikipedia article on English orthography seems to be a good read, though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_orthography

Also, there's an old phonetic parlor trick often attributed to George Bernard Shaw that consist of letting people guess how the word "ghoti" is pronounced.

"Fish." gh as in tough, o as in women, ti as in nation.

While we could discuss the "textbook" answer- which it is the results of mishmashing of language (though American spelling was part of a dedicated effort based on linking english to alchemical truths) the real answer is we want to show how much smarter than foreigners we are.

While that's certainly an interesting take on it (seriously, that's pretty awesome XD), it totally ignores the exclusive placement of phonemes.

On phonemes, this is a pretty interesting read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoneme

Of course, that's the point! :knowledge:

Phonetics is a very interesting subject. Probably the one I still know most about.

The Chaos
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

I like how several of that poem's rhymes come from the mispronunciation of french words. Something the average english speaker pronounces as "ay".

I always thought it was because they enjoyed making English class as horrible as possible. And to make little boys ask questions.

But yeah it's pretty much because the English language is giant train wreck of languages and somewhere along the line people got lazy.

From what I understand, it is a Germanic language with a pretty heavy French influence. That might help explain some of the irregularities in spelling and pronunciation, since your joining different families, and French especially seems to have a pretty convoluted spelling system (though I have heard it is pretty logical once you understand it). British empire probably subjected itself to an above average number of sources for loanwords, too. And you have the old elites' obsession with Greek and especially Latin. My anthro professor also told me that English is more flexible than a lot of other languages (probably related to above?), which will also lead to irregularities.

But the fact is, this sort of stuff happens in every language. I was taking Japanese a while back, which phonetically is a lot more uniform than English, but there are words like "haku" for instance. I think that's the one. I think it means both "bridge" and also "box" or something (different kanji). Might be off. But I remember that the two meanings have slightly different pronunciations that are in no way indicated by their phonetic spellings. Also things like the "ha" particle pronounced "wa" and all that. It's because you have a lot of different people in different communities making up words, borrowing them from other languages, developing their own abbreviations, linguistic styles, et cetera. Even if you start with a perfect language invented by computers, it is going change over time, and as it does, it will inevitably lose some degree of internal consistency.

EDIT: Oh gees that's a lot of preemptions. There were no replies when I started.

Hooked on Phonics, worked for me!

Why do we use silent letters to change the sounjd of a word instead of just spelling a word phonetically? Like changing "Through" to "thru" or something. But that would mess up "threw" and aiojmfiosnmgkl. I give up.

You guys know how freakin hard was for me to learn your language with just pokemon and videogames?...

Here i am, being told that "Th" in english has a somewhat muted F sound (how the hell do you have a Somewhat Muted anything?) like in Theater and Thanks! And here i am going "But "That" "This" "those" and many other words have no Muted F at all....".

All i can say is that English class in School was never good (3 years learning "To Be"?) So thank heavens for Poke Rap and Square Enix. )

Well, at least on the "gh" thing, it's probably all a corruption of a rough aspiration, better known as that sound that kinda sounds like you're hawking up a lugie.

By muted F they mean more something like a lisp. No one ever taught it to me like that. They should though. My teachers always went like "Uh... put your tongue there like that and then uh... blow??? NO NOT LIKE THAT! You're doing it wrong.
I never let anyone in on my secret.

Anyway, the stuff in the opening post is by no means exclusive to English.
I'm sort of interested in linguistics, but it's been way too long since I read anything on that subject. All I know is that english belongs to the tribe of germanic languages. Which is probably where the "gh"s come from. Which are "ch"s in German and they do make sense there.

But then English is influenced by probably everything else more than any other language.

th is a dental fricative and that is the only proper way to describe it you savages :crossarms:

Seriously though, once you learn basic phonetics and know about points of articulation and all that, learning and teaching pronunciation become about 1000 times easier. In no small part because you don't have to bother with vague instructions like "place your tongue here and blow" and can instead say "dental fricative" and that's as precise as it gets. They really should teach that in school.

this might all be wrong.
 

According to my word origins classes, the guy who standardized the printing press can be thanked for a lot of the crazy spellings.

See, things used to be spelled a lot more phonetically, because there wasn't really a standardized way to spell anything, so everyone just spelled everything however it sounded right to them.

Then the guy who standardized the press decided to spell things based on how he sounded things out, while everyone else was pronouncing it differently or something.

I wasn't really listening in class though, as you can probably tell from my notes.

I did listen in my linguistics class, but that was Japanese linguistics.

Our language is based entirely in guitar chords.

If you think english is bad, then for gods sake stay away from welsh!!

Seriously how the hell do double Ds make an "ef" sound?

I honestly don't even remember, but I do know I never had as much difficulty with learning it as other people my age seemed to have, whether at school or university. So I'm gonna have to say "not very."

I also recall that at some point during school years me and my circle of friends really got into regular movie nights, and a lot of the movies we watched would be in English, and at some point I also started making an active effort to get my movies and books in English, first to see if I could handle it and pretty soon because I realized the originals were just plain better, and I think that has/had a lot to do with it as well.

Because I swear to god the Welsh have no concept of vowels.

My ancestors apparently decided to abuse the "and sometimes Y" clause like a motherfucker. Apologies all around.

Your apologies don't make up for all the time spent having to learn that shit for 11 years of my life!!

I demand recompense!

Until you learn to spell "recompense" with a million F's and Y's so that the Welsh can understand you, you'll get nothing!

That's impossible! The Welsh barely understand themselves!

Yes, but we could make a killing selling them vowels!

They apparently consider 'w' a vowel* according to Wikipedia. There's no going back from that.

Bad metaphor: You can't sell beer to someone who makes moonshine.

The Language of ... something.
 

I hereby* do not certify that every word that follows is the true, complete, and unbiased history of the English language:

First there was this island covered in rain and fog and generally kind of unpleasant and ignored by the more civilized world. After a long time of feuds and fighting amongst themselves, some weird German blokes decided to settle in for a while, bringing their language with them. Pushed a lot of the people who lived there up north and west. In fact, not one set of German guys, but two! Anyway, they mixed it up with some of the left over locals, created a hybrid language (primarily the German, though), and reverted to general barbarism. Good times, really.

Then the Romans had to all get up in their grill*. Impose "civilization" or whatever. Pffff, losers. So the "Romans" did their thing, let the people who submitted and/or were conquered generally stay the same, but with a few who learned Greek (oh, and Roman Latin, too) and killed or drove out those who didn't submit/weren't conquered. So people eventually adopted some of their words. Eventually the Romans got tired of that holeBritainOnrac and left.

So after they left, these French dudes were all like "hey, you know, that place must've been valuable, or the Romans wouldn't'a stayed for so long, so let's conquer it!" So they did, though it took a while. Took their language with them. They proceeded to try their darndest to civilize the cretins, but it just couldn't be done... not really. Seriously, the lousy peasants kept using their own language when outside, only using the French for things like food (served to their new masters) and stuff. Eventually, of course, Barbarism won, as it should. Civilization is for losers, after all. And their kids began to learn all the naughty words from the other, native kids. Then those kids grew up in "the hole"BritainOnrac, and thought of themselves as natives... they knew all the dirty words, after all. So the once-French people stopped considering themselves so French.

So these "English" people spoke a strange mixture of Welshvague old tribal languages as a foundation with German overlays buttressed by Greek (and Roman-Latin) elements, and topped with a heavy layer of French. Several invasions, generations, and wars, and other boring stuff later, a singular language kind of emerged. During that period of time several people tried to clarify, streamline, and regulate the language, some with more success than others (we can thank several these people for such things as no longer saying "k'nig'-it" or "k'nif-ee" instead of "knight" or "knife") however they were universally bad at taking notes and communicating with each other (I know, ironic, right?) and spellings continued in general chaos from five different contradictory languages.

Eventually, the printing presses came along, and people couldn't afford to carve that many variations into little wooden blocks - it was too expensive, and wood-carving took time. So someone said "let's do it this way", and because he had money and time, they did. Some didn't, but who cares about them, because they're losers and thus the villains of the story.

And that's how we got English. Also, Shakespeare. That creep just had to keep creating fake words! What a jerk!

*Romans with their Latin language weren't the linguistic geniuses we make them out to be now. They relied on Greek** a great deal.
**The Greeks with their Greek language weren't the linguistic geniuses we make them out to be now. They relied... you know what? Let's simplify: it was the Sumerians. Okay? The Sumerians were linguistic geniuses. Also, jerks.

Maybe we can start slowly by reintroducing K. Then when that catches on again, they'll be looking for more, and we'll have a market to work with. They'll soon be hooked on maybe E just because it's so darn prevalent and we'll work our way through until they're gobbling up punctuation, at which point we can pawn off the interrobang just to squeeze the last drops out of the market.

No it... doesn't.

Perhaps we should start fixing the english language by spelling phonetically, well, phonetically.

It wud luk sumthyng liek "fonetikly"

That's all well and good until you remember that a buttload of words sound the same and are spelled differently. Not that that stops us from having things like wind (moving air) and wind (to turn) which ARE for all intents and purposes spelled phonetically and end up being the same for different reasons.

Then you have to consider that not everyone pronounces the same words the same way, like the entire thing we had recently with Mauve's handle being pronounced either "mawve" or "mohve" and the revelation both are technically correct (and that she prefers "mawve").

My mother in law calls the sink a "zinc" so dialects are going to confuse things. As far as similar words go, we just need to redefine letter sounds.

Technically speaking wind "as in wind up" is a long I and should have a silent E at the end to make it long. We make up rules then break the shit out of them.

That is why English is stupid.

I see languages as clubs to beat the stupid people with. Spanish is mostly uniform and allows for efficient beating without much flair. English is the boulder-with-a-handle that has so many bells and whistles that you can hurt someone without hitting themwithout them having to understand it.

I believe the english language does have a ton of pronunciation crap to it but the bigger issue is how bloated it is. I'm sure you could reword a sentence more ways in english than with any other language combined.

And to Bells comment about learning English through pokemon and video games:

I tried the same idea with learning Japanese by playing Super Robot Taisen: OG Saga, Endless Frontier. All I learned is that the guy who voices the main character voices Shadow the Hedgehog in japanese versions of Sonic, and japanese people are right up there with spanish-speakers in the "holy shit, you're talking to fast" spectrum.

This. Also, most of my english I learned from english speaking (mostly american) movies, tv-series and games. By high-school I was too bored at english class to actually study anything. Still I always got a 9 (out of 4-10) in the final exams.

EDIT: In finland, most start studying english at 3rd grade. Myself included.

English is not my first language, and it was pretty easy to learn to read and write. All those thousand million words people apparently have trouble spelling because they sound like something else come naturally to me. ("Fish"? What the Hell?)

Hilarity would occur when I first tried to speak with native English speakers however.

The swedish accent is so frickin' weird.

As opposed to the German accent, which sounds so hot, it makes guys change their pants and women moan and squirm AND change their pants.

I found English to be rather easy to learn as well. Even though it was taught in school, I didn't really pay attention because my teachers, for some reason, always tried to fake a British accent. Sorry, I just couldn't take those seriously.

They tought us british english at school mostly. But having learnt most of my english from movies etc. my accent became more american. Although with an obvious touch of finnish. I think I could fake it enough to not appear foreign if I travelled to the states, but that would require more careful thinking.

I am rather disappointed that no one has officially noted the distinction between the different dialects of English. 300 years of separation and we're still lumped in together under "English.You now realize that Mexico and Spain are dealing with the same situation

They should go ahead and start calling it British English and American English.

I wish English weren't my first language. I hate it with a passion. The rules are fucking confusing to refer to (oh sure, I know the rules and use them because they've been ingrained in my head, but dammit if I can't really refer to them without needing a textbook), as opposed to other, far simpler to understand things like the other Romance languages.?And a couple of Eastern languages....

Je prefere le francais et l'allemand. Y yo hablo espanol tambien.

EDIT: I guess NPF is not compatible with Vista's Japanese language bar.

Kinda like this?

Here's a better question:
What's a LESS stupid language, explain your reasoning.
Personally I prefer Norwegian, example:
Har du brann?
HAVE YOU FIRE?
Jeg had brann her.
I HAVE FIRE HERE.

Awesome grammar, no do's or a's or clarification, just manliness.

I used to be quite good with French before years of disuse made me start losing it something awful. I always liked the structure of it and because of learning some when I was very little, I can still speak it without an American accent with effort.

Basically, though, trying to read large chunks of it now gives me a headache and all I really use it for is singing "Yes, We Have No Bananas" for shiggles. If I had someone to speak it with, it might still be able to come back, but I don't.

Lojban is a very clever language. It might even be too clever for people to speak. But that's just cause it's made to make sense, unlike those languages people are saddled with from birth.

I doubt you could make very good poetry with it. . .

Not really. More like if you were speaking with a hot potato in your mouth and couldn't spit it out.

Maybe English isn't stupid.

Maybe it's you.

Dammit. I had been meaning to say just that ever since I saw this thread, but was consumed by a paralyzing fear of what retribution I would receive.

You're a braver person than I, Magic.

Live in Paralyzing Fear of THIS RETRIBUTION!!!
 

Hey! I'm not stupid, MY FACE IS STUPID! Oooooooohhhh! Buuurrrrnnn... wait.

English isn't my native tongue either, but I've never had much trouble learning it myself.

I was WAY ahead in elementary school, and always in the top of the class during high school. My grades didn't really reflect that, because I had trouble doing direct word translations, but anything else was usually graded 8's or 9's. During the end-exams, I was the first out of the examination hall, by a good 15 minutes before the next. =3 [/bragging]
EDIT: I got an 8 on that exam, by the way.

Apologies if it's been linked already, but this is relevant.

After reading that article, I looked at the word "buffalo" and didn't recognize it.

LOL at the article.

Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?Good lord. I can't believe the word buffalo repeated six or seven times IS A GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT SENTENCE. Or that John thing in the links section underneath.

And for that matter... English is really starting to bug me. It needs to be simplified. We'd lose some of the eloquence, but dammit, it's so ridiculous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIyixC9NsLI

That is insane. I just broke my brain. Then I broke my mom's brain after I figured out the intonation required to say it right.

Also, for some reason, it led me to flies, and after over 20 years of having known of Rescue Rangers, I only just now figured out why they called him "Zipper." :sweatdrop

Buffalo means to bully? Since when? I've never heard it used that way before. But that sentence only exists because somebody happened to name a town Buffalo, which is a stupid name for a town really. Did it used to be called "Buffalo Town" or something, because that's just where they had a lot of Buffalo come from, but was then just shortened to "Buffalo" because nobody could come up with anything better to call the place?

A better stupid sentance is that Hallows one which is basically the same as the Buffalo one but makes more sense. Can't find the link to it now though.

Since probably before you were born.

Every town name is dumb. All of them. Forever.

Hell, there's a town near where I live called Georgetown. Buffalo ain't got shit on that level of stupid.

1891 according to my dictionary.

There are a few similar phrases in finnish too. In this one, it's not the same word, just a few very similar words, but just try saying it fast. Or at all.

"Kokoa kokko kokoon. Koko kokkoko? Koko kokko."

EDIT:
I prefer those little american towns supposedly called 'Paris' or 'Rome' etc.

I can only assume this phrase is extolling the Finns love of cocoa puffs.

There is actually a Rome, Wisconsin. There is also a town called Maine, like the state.

My favorite, though, is Hell, Michigan.

I like "New York, New York," myself.

Opinions sure have changed. I have an old teaching book from before the turn of the 20th century I picked up at an antiques store, and in that book it made arguments about why English is a superior language.

Of course, that same book had phrases like "Of all the regions of Africa, only South Africa is suitable for white man".

I could start naming towns around where I live, but I can't pronounce half of them let alone spell them.

It's the mark of a Wisconsinite to be able to pronounce "Waukesha" correctly.

Wak- es-shaw

Try Allamakee, Morfordsville, Maquoketa, Musquaka, and Tuscorora.

Bonus Points: Wapsipinicon

Actually, it's more "WAW kish aw'." Close, though. A lot of outsiders say it as "Wau' KEE sha."


And all of those names sound really familiar for some reason (as in I know how they sound). What state are you in?

East Iowa. Hour or so from Wisconson.

I see. I spent a year in St. Louis, so that's probably why I heard of them.


Edit: Hmmm. Maybe not? At first I was thinking of Milwaukee, but that's on the other side of the state. And I wouldn't have driven-


OH! I know! My aunt lived there a bit before I was born. I think she had to travel to some of those as an itinerant teacher. The truckers around there might know of her. They called her Nova One at first before they found out she was a teacher, after which they just called her The Teacher. :P

St. Louis is probably 5-6(?) hours from here. I used to live in Cuba City, so that's why I could come close to Waukesha.