which is the world's most difficult language?

trustt · #1 2008-12-15, 06:15

Is it Icelandic??
also please tell what exactly do they mean by Indo-Aryan Languages? and how did these languages come into being.

static_void · #2 2008-12-16, 21:52

It's pretty hard to say what the world's most difficult language is. For an English speaker, it wouldn't be Icelandic -- that's a Germanic language (as is English), and while it is apparently quite hard to learn, the basic grammar is likely somewhat similar. For an English speaker, the most difficult languages to learn would be ones that aren't Indo-European languages; Mandarin or Japanese or some other east Asian language would probably be the most confusing for an English speaker.

Indo-Aryan is a language sub-family that's present in the Indian subcontinent. Indo-Aryan is part of a much larger group of languages called Indo-European. That family includes Hindi, Farsi, Greek, English, Russian, Spanish, Icelandic and many other languages. Indo-European has many sub-families, like the Germanic branch, the Slavic branch, and the Romance branch (these groups compose the majority of languages spoken in Europe). Really, just check out the wikipedia page for a basic understanding.

How did they come into being? Uh, I'll leave that one for someone else...

Why the rolling eyes?

BSK · #3 2008-12-17, 07:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by static_void

Why the rolling eyes?

that´s why I treat this as a troll post. "most difficult" is a very relative and therefor dumb expression. hamming distance might be a better description. the question should be, "which language has the biggest hamming distance to my mother tongue?" ..

Nataliapicado · #4 2008-12-17, 12:32

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trustt · #5 2008-12-17, 17:36

some experts point out that Sanskrit is the mother of all languages that are Indo-European. is it true?
plus , are these languages older than the Egyptian Languages during the times of Pyramids?

Zay · #6 2008-12-17, 21:11

For an english speaker? I'd say that one of the Northeast Caucasian languages would be the most difficult.

They have up to 60 consonant sounds, up to 30 vowels, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northea...sian_languages

There is also Finnish and hungarian, which sound nothing like indo-european languages, and finnish has 16 noun cases if I remember correctly.

Yggdrasil · #7 2008-12-17, 23:54

Actually, Zay, I'd say the hardest language to learn for any person on Earth would be Basque. After countless decades of linguistic investigation, analyzing everything from the Vedas to Sumerian to Japanese, it has been determined that there are absolutely no languages on the face of the earth related to Basque.

It's actually believed Basque is the last remaining language of pre Indo-European origin in Europe.

static_void · #8 2008-12-17, 23:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yggdrasil

Actually, Zay, I'd say the hardest language to learn for any person on Earth would be Basque. After countless decades of linguistic investigation, analyzing everything from the Vedas to Sumerian to Japanese, it has been determined that there are absolutely no languages on the face of the earth related to Basque.

It's actually believed Basque is the last remaining language of pre Indo-European origin in Europe.

Interesting idea. Out of curiosity, have you read anything about possible links between the Etruscans and the Basques? I don't mean to patronize anybody, but in case you didn't know, the Etruscans were a tribe situated on the mid-northern Italian peninsula (not terribly far from northern Spain...) -- they eventually got wiped out by the Romans, c. 400-500 BC. They spoke a thus-unidentified language called... Etruscan. It seems there may have been a "native" language family in Europe long before any Indo-Europeans inhabited the continent.

Still, are we completely throwing away the idea of Mandarin? I've not even tried to delve into it, but I know people who do speak it, and they say it is next to fucking impossible to comprehend until you've studied it consistently for 2 years. I suppose these Caucasian languages may be very hard for a native Anglophone, but from what I know, they at least use a phonetic alphabet...

Yggdrasil · #9 2008-12-18, 05:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by static_void

Interesting idea. Out of curiosity, have you read anything about possible links between the Etruscans and the Basques? I don't mean to patronize anybody, but in case you didn't know, the Etruscans were a tribe situated on the mid-northern Italian peninsula (not terribly far from northern Spain...) -- they eventually got wiped out by the Romans, c. 400-500 BC. They spoke a thus-unidentified language called... Etruscan. It seems there may have been a "native" language family in Europe long before any Indo-Europeans inhabited the continent.

Still, are we completely throwing away the idea of Mandarin? I've not even tried to delve into it, but I know people who do speak it, and they say it is next to fucking impossible to comprehend until you've studied it consistently for 2 years. I suppose these Caucasian languages may be very hard for a native Anglophone, but from what I know, they at least use a phonetic alphabet...

Well, no offense taken; you raised an interesting point. I know that there have been many artifacts found in ancestral Etruscan lands engraved with what seems to be an alphabetic script, as of yet barely readable. It seems that although the Etruscans had Near-Eastern genetics (Anatolian), they spoke an Indo European tongue.

I looked it up, and it seems that other pre Indo-European languages in Europe, like Iberian, were completely unrelated to Basque, yet neither were Indo-European. Odd...

Anyways, I was talking to a friend about Chinese (Mandarin to be precise), and it seems that after you get over their script, it's a relatively easy language to learn. The grammar is incredibly simple: There are no tenses, no genders, nor a system for differentiating amounts (singular, plural).

But, on the other hand, they have a set of grammatical rules different from our own.

Zay · #10 2008-12-18, 07:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yggdrasil

Anyways, I was talking to a friend about Chinese (Mandarin to be precise), and it seems that after you get over their script, it's a relatively easy language to learn. The grammar is incredibly simple: There are no tenses, no genders, nor a system for differentiating amounts (singular, plural).

But, on the other hand, they have a set of grammatical rules different from our own.

Did you mean for pronouns for something else? They do differentiate between singular and plural and pronouns, but it is extremely easy. Woa/I Woa-min/us/we. ta(he,she,it)-ta-min(they). Chinese grammar is very simple, and if you're learning just for the sake of conversation and not studying the written language, the only obstacle is the fact that the words sound like nothing in your own language. Other than that nothing is particularly hard to pronounce.