2020-10-31 at 4:26 AM UTC
Most people think English has the best design for varied and complex thought, but are there other languages that are even better?
2020-10-31 at 5:11 AM UTC
At least in a practical sense, it's probably got to be whatever your native language is. That's probably always going to be the one you have the most mastery over, and the widest vocabulary in.
In a more general sense, who knows? English seems to be pretty popular. Scientists from every country write studies in English, and are published in English language scientific journals. Even if there are better languages with which one could potentially express ideas, the fact remains that many ideas have already been expressed first and foremost through English. If it's not the best equipped language to describe every possible idea, it's probably the language with which you will be best equipped to expose yourself to a wide variety ideas. Which would, of course, increase your capacity for varied and complex thought (although by means which are not intrinsic to the language itself).
I feel like you're asking more specifically about which language makes the best "operating system" for human consciousness, to which I doubt there can be any concrete answer. Any language has the capacity to evolve to describe any thing a speaker of that language encounters - either naturally or artificially through organizations like the Académie Française.
2020-10-31 at 5:16 AM UTC
The real answer here is to just be multilingual, so that when one language you speak fails you, another (hopefully) has the words you seek.
You could of course say that English is very fond of loanwords, and in that way - despite being one language - also serves the same function in a similar capacity to being truly multilingual, but that's not really unique to English. Loanwords exist in most every language, English just gets used so much and by so many people that it has had the opportunity to adopt an abundance of them.
2020-10-31 at 5:23 AM UTC
No I mean which language, based on it's design and complexity, allows for the person to have a deeper and wider range of thoughts.
Obviously some languages are more primitive and simple than others such as African lamguages, so the speakers and up with a smaller capacity for thinking.
2020-10-31 at 5:30 AM UTC
aldra
JIDF Controlled Opposition
I sometimes try to imagine how thought procession would be to someone that doesn't know a language
2020-10-31 at 5:32 AM UTC
Imagine the thought processes of someone like hellen Keller or krotz
2020-10-31 at 7:05 AM UTC
aldra
JIDF Controlled Opposition
I find the way different cultures or languages talk about violence to be interesting
there was a guy who fought with the Iraqi PMUs, fucking steroidal meathead who calls himself 'Abu Azrael'. I think I posted a video a while back of him laughing and setting dead ISIS troops' beards on fire so they wouldn't make it to heaven.
anyway, he had a trademark threat or battlecry, something along the lines of 'time to make bread'. sounds dumb in english but everyone knew he meant he wanted to pulverize people so completely that you could use their bones as flour
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2020-10-31 at 7:10 AM UTC
aldra
JIDF Controlled Opposition
Him and Zahreddine don't get enough credit
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According to the "survival of the fittest" theory, if applied to langauge, English is obviously the superior language, as proven by it's 2 billion speakers. Germanic languages mostly share the same thought pattern. Notice how well off all Germanic countries are? Could this be in part due to their languages? People in France, Greece or Mexico act a certain way, vs Sweden, Canada and Germany, etc. Could language be intertwined into culture?
2020-10-31 at 7:27 PM UTC
knowing only one language, ic ant answer that. all have strengths and weaknesses, asking which language is best suited for complex thought is vague. what kind of thought? french was thought to be the best for legal proceedings, german and english for technical subjects, italian for singing and poetry.
so you need to clarify what you mean. you can communicate the same thought in any language, but some would require more words for the same meaning, some less words but more syllables. the thousands of symbols in the chinese betabet always struck me as inefficient when we can have almost the same combinations of sounds with just 26 latin symbols, yet linguists say chinese is the most economic language.
