*was hanging out for ycleption to contribute* According to Bill Bryson's book 'Mother Tongue', English has about 200,000 words in common use, German 180,000 and the Latin languages (Spanish, French and Italian) 100,000-120,000.The simple reason that English has so many words is that it is very much a mongrel language, with influences from Celtic, Latin, Danish, German and French (among others). Maybe, just maybe, despite the long history of the elves, given how aloof and generally isolationist they are, they in fact have the smallest vocabulary? Granted number of words in common usage doesn't exactly correlate to how hard it is to learn but it seems logical there is some relationship?
It seems you have your mind made up on the way something as simple as a language should be, rather than the facts on exactly how easy it is to learn a language.
The simple reason that English has so many words is that it is very much a mongrel language, with influences from Celtic, Latin, Danish, German and French (among others). Maybe, just maybe, despite the long history of the elves, given how aloof and generally isolationist they are, they in fact have the smallest vocabulary? Granted number of words in common usage doesn't exactly correlate to how hard it is to learn but it seems logical there is some relationship?
What makes English so complicated is the meaning for each word as well as the complete lack of any logical use.
Aside from the words that have the same spelling but can mean different things depending on how they're pronounced or the context they're in, English is one of the harder languages because of the extreme use of idiom. Due to the wide usage of the language, the fact that it has absorbed so many cultures, and that modern English grammer has been hacked apart to simplify things (to make it a trade language), the language has become loaded with words and phrases that literally mean one thing, but are commonly used to refer to an entirely different meaning. For example, the phrase, "What's up?" means hello to most English speakers, though the literal translation is obviously different. So when someone starts to learn English, not only do they have to learn the literal translations, they have to learn the common idioms, and then hope that they can maneuver any local idioms they encounter. While idiom exists in every language, English is notorious for containing far more idioms than any other language.
Driz you bring up a very good point about the fast learning capabilities of humans. And that should be kept in mind as it is one of the advantages of being human. But for me that brings up a deeper issue that may be at the heart of this discussion. Every race played on layo has to live with its pros and cons every race that is besides humans. Humans on Layo enjoy a very special place, you see they get all the racal benefits but get to ignore the one major drawback of the race, aging. We have addressed this before and the party line is that we wont force players to age out their PCs. So in effect we have removed the one major drawback/con of playing a human PC without balancing that out by removing any of the pros of being human such as quick to learn (which is a effect of having a short life span). Now you add to that the learning of other languages that are one of the benefits of playing non-humans and now you are giving humans even more pros without any cons.
Yes, your point is true, but that really has more to do with English orthography than the actual language. Although to a certain extent it reflects the various influences of English, remember that standardized spelling is a relatively recent invention. English certainly has a lot of inconsistencies, (don't get me started on preposition use) that undoubtedly affect the difficulty people have learning the language, I'm just not sure that the one you cite is a good example within this discussion.
Despite this, the elven language was always represented to me as something not so much complicated like quantum physics, but rather deep and with multiple shades of meaning that were considered difficult for other races to grasp in a short time. I disagree with the statement that fifty years spent for a human is the equivalent to speaking like an eight year old and think it is overcomplicating it... the statements I made were more akin to the common fact of "there is always more to learn."
I disagree with the statement that fifty years spent for a human is the equivalent to speaking like an eight year old and think it is overcomplicating it...
Moving on, there's a very HUGE difference between learning to speak a language with competence and gaining mastery over said language. The former can be done, with persistent instruction, in a few years (less, depending on the immersion level/intensity), while the latter takes many, many times longer. What is mastery? Perfect inflection, grammar and a very deep knowledge and level of precision with a given language. Even native speakers will struggle at this.I firmly believe the "line" for approving ears should be the former. Characters don't need to show mastery, only competence, to gain an ear. The length of time that takes depends on the language.I could go on, but I won't. Point is, just don't go seeking after a language for the cool factor. Like everything else, it should be an IC and justified pursuit. Likewise, those teaching the language should have a similar motivation to doing so.
I made the mistake of adding my personal disagreement with the mental eight year old thing to illustrate that I stood somewhere between the crowd waving the "it's just like any other language or even simpler" flag, and the one saying "elves learn it in centuries so a human will never be more than a ten year old." To the former I would personally say that elven is not a normal mundane language in the way that someone learns German or Spanish or Japanese and do we have to grind everything down to real life terms all the time when we are talking magical species 'cause even when you point to book languages they're still written by humans and is it really more fun to just make human equivalents only centuries ahead?* **I will also begin flagging*** to show when comments are made in seriousness.*** (WTB flag.)[/SIZE][/CENTER]