Language complexity: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 10:59, 19 March 2012

Revision as of 17:30, 17 June 2012

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{{original research|date=December 2011}}

It is sometimes said that all [[human language]]s are equally complex. This is partially an overcorrection of racialist theories that held that "primitive" people spoke "primitive" languages, but also an implication of [[ChomskianChomskyan]] linguistics, which postulates that all human languages are underlyingly the same. However, there is no empirical support for that theoretical prediction, and there is empirical evidence to the contrary. For example, [[French language|French]] is generally considered more complex than [[Spanish language|Spanish]], at least in its [[phonology]] and [[morphology (linguistics)|morphology]].

==A comparison==

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*{{cite book | ref = harv | last = Miestamo | first = Matti | title = Language Complexity: Typology, Contact, Change | publisher = John Benjamins Publishing Company | ___location = Amsterdam | year = 2008 | isbn = 978-90-272-3104-8 }}

*{{cite book | ref = harv | last = Ristad | first = Eric | title = The Language Complexity Game | publisher = MIT Press | ___location = Cambridge | year = 1993 | isbn = 978-0-262-18147-1 }}

*{{cite book | ref = harv | last = Sweet | first = Henry | year = 1899 | title = The practical study of languages; a guide for teachers and learners | publisher = J. M. Dent & Co. | ___location = London | url = http://www.archive.org/details/practicalstudyof00swee | accessdate = 2011-03-15 }}

*{{cite book | last = Sampson | first = Geoffrey | title = Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable | publisher = Oxford University Press | ___location = Oxford Oxfordshire | year = 2009 | isbn = 978-0-19-954522-3 }}

{{refend}}