Crack = freebasing cocaine = base.
Bay Area rapper Lil B used to be insulted by people who called him “based”, essentially meaning crackhead. He reappropriated it to mean outspokenly being yourself while actively disregarding what anybody else thinks, and started also going by Based God. That’s it.
Which was originally used on the internet as a replacement/slang for “best” but apparently I am the only one who remembers that. Everyone seems to think it started as the cringelord PCM shit, but it absolutely meant “best” for years before that.
It definitely meant crackhead in hip-hop too, but it had a double meaning of “best” as well. Based God = best crackhead god.
For anyone who claims “English is easier”, I present you The Chaos Poem:
<span style="color:#323232;">The Chaos
</span><span style="color:#323232;">by Gerard Nolst Trenité
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Dearest creature in creation
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Studying English pronunciation,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">I will teach you in my verse
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">I will keep you, Susy, busy,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Pray, console your loving poet,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Just compare heart, hear and heard,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Dies and diet, lord and word.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Sword and sward, retain and Britain
</span><span style="color:#323232;">(Mind the latter how it's written).
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Made has not the sound of bade,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Now I surely will not plague you
</span><span style="color:#323232;">With such words as vague and ague,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">But be careful how you speak,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak ,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Woven, oven, how and low,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Missiles, similes, reviles.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Same, examining, but mining,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Solar, mica, war and far.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">From "desire": desirable-admirable from "admire",
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">One, anemone, Balmoral,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Gertrude, German, wind and wind,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">This phonetic labyrinth
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Have you ever yet endeavoured
</span><span style="color:#323232;">To pronounce revered and severed,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Peter, petrol and patrol?
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Billet does not end like ballet;
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Blood and flood are not like food,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Nor is mould like should and would.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Banquet is not nearly parquet,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Which exactly rhymes with khaki.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Discount, viscount, load and broad,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Toward, to forward, to reward,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Right! Your pronunciation's OK.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Friend and fiend, alive and live.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Is your r correct in higher?
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Buoyant, minute, but minute.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Say abscission with precision,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Now: position and transition;
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Would it tally with my rhyme
</span><span style="color:#323232;">If I mentioned paradigm?
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">But cease, crease, grease and greasy?
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Rabies, but lullabies.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">You'll envelop lists, I hope,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">In a linen envelope.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Would you like some more? You'll have it!
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Affidavit, David, davit.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Does not sound like Czech but ache.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">We say hallowed, but allowed,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">People, leopard, towed but vowed.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Mark the difference, moreover,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Between mover, plover, Dover.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Chalice, but police and lice,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Camel, constable, unstable,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Principle, disciple, label.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Petal, penal, and canal,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it",
</span><span style="color:#323232;">But it is not hard to tell
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Senator, spectator, mayor,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Has the a of drachm and hammer.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Pussy, hussy and possess,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Desert, but desert, address.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Cow, but Cowper, some and home.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">"Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker",
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Quoth he, "than liqueur or liquor",
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Making, it is sad but true,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">In bravado, much ado.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Neither does devour with clangour.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Arsenic, specific, scenic,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Make the latter rhyme with eagle.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Mind! Meandering but mean,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Valentine and magazine.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">And I bet you, dear, a penny,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">You say mani-(fold) like many,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Tier (one who ties), but tier.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Rhyme with herring or with stirring?
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Prison, bison, treasure trove,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Treason, hover, cover, cove,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Perseverance, severance. Ribald
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Don't be down, my own, but rough it,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">And distinguish buffet, buffet;
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Say in sounds correct and sterling
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Evil, devil, mezzotint,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Now you need not pay attention
</span><span style="color:#323232;">To such sounds as I don't mention,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Rhyming with the pronoun yours;
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Nor are proper names included,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Though I often heard, as you did,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Funny rhymes to unicorn,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">No, my maiden, coy and comely,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">I don't want to speak of Cholmondeley.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">No. Yet Froude compared with proud
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Is no better than McLeod.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">But mind trivial and vial,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Tripod, menial, denial,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
</span><span style="color:#323232;">May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">But you're not supposed to say
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Had this invalid invalid
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Worthless documents? How pallid,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">How uncouth he, couchant, looked,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">When for Portsmouth I had booked!
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Paramour, enamoured, flighty,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Episodes, antipodes,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Acquiesce, and obsequies.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Please don't monkey with the geyser,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Don't peel 'taters with my razor,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Rather say in accents pure:
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Nature, stature and mature.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Wan, sedan and artisan.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">The th will surely trouble you
</span><span style="color:#323232;">More than r, ch or w.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Say then these phonetic gems:
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">There are more but I forget 'em-
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Wait! I've got it: Anthony,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Lighten your anxiety.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">The archaic word albeit
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Does not rhyme with eight-you see it;
</span><span style="color:#323232;">With and forthwith, one has voice,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">One has not, you make your choice.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Shoes, goes, does *. Now first say: finger;
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Then say: singer, ginger, linger.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Hero, heron, query, very,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Parry, tarry fury, bury,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Puisne, truism, use, to use?
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Though the difference seems little,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">We say actual, but victual,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Put, nut, granite, and unite.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Reefer does not rhyme with deafer,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Gaelic, Arabic, pacific,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Science, conscience, scientific;
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Next omit, which differs from it
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Bona fide, alibi
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Gyrate, dowry and awry.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Sea, idea, guinea, area,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Compare alien with Italian,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Dandelion with battalion,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Rally with ally; yea, ye,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Say aver, but ever, fever,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Never guess-it is not safe,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Starry, granary, canary,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Crevice, but device, and eyrie,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Face, but preface, then grimace,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Ear, but earn; and ere and tear
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Do not rhyme with here but heir.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Mind the o of off and often
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Which may be pronounced as orphan,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">With the sound of saw and sauce;
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Respite, spite, consent, resent.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Liable, but Parliament.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Seven is right, but so is even,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">A of valour, vapid vapour,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">S of news (compare newspaper),
</span><span style="color:#323232;">G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">I of antichrist and grist,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Differ like diverse and divers,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Polish, Polish, poll and poll.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Pronunciation-think of Psyche!-
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Is a paling, stout and spiky.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Won't it make you lose your wits
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Writing groats and saying "grits"?
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">It's a dark abyss or tunnel
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Islington, and Isle of Wight,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Housewife, verdict and indict.
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Don't you think so, reader, rather,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Saying lather, bather, father?
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Finally, which rhymes with enough,
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Hiccough has the sound of sup...
</span><span style="color:#323232;">My advice is: Give It Up!
</span>
English verbiage can also a source of frustration for English learners.
For instance, you can chop a tree down. Once you’re done, you can chop a tree up.
Imagine the confusion this causes lol.
I do agree though that the general lack of gender for most uses are really useful. It makes learning other languages more difficult though (basically all other languages).
The only issue with “you” is that it lacks a plural version so we have to use the Southern “y’all” instead. Some people go even further with a mass plural “all y’all”.
This also happens in English, by selection of the words you use. Using Du und Sie is fairly simple in comparison. Strangers, last name basis, or professional? Sie. Kids, friends, talking to people out drinking on a friendly basis? Du.
The whole ‘position of peer’ thing has a lot more nuances in Japanese, and even that’s not too hard once you get the hang of it.
Ah, we disagree my friend. I think languages can be easier or harder based on other criteria too, and not only familiarity.
Suppose an alien, the kind from outer space, crashes on earth and now needs to learn a language to communicate with humans.
It’s not a stretch to consider that all human languages are so far removed from his own as to be considered equally hard to learn if looking only at familiarity. In this scenario, surely there are features of individual languages that make them harder to learn - stuff like gendered articles as mentioned before, as there’s no logic to them and have to memorized.
So the spelling is irregular, so what. You’ll be bad at spelling for a while.
People mostly learn languages by reading.
having to memorize arbitrary gender for every noun in the language, learn complex verb conjugations, polite and impolite forms and make every verb and adjective agree with the nouns in gender and number
If you mess those up, people will still understand you. Saying “un chaise” instead of “une chaise” doesn’t change the meaning and everyone knows what you’re saying.
However, if you learn english words through text and then try to use them vocally, nobody will understand you. (looking at you “beard”, who isn’t pronounced at all like “bear” for some reason)
There is absolutely no correlation between spoken and written english, so in practice it’s the same as having to learn two languages at once. Even adult native speakers still aren’t sure how to pronounce simple 1 syllable words such as “route” or “vase”, that’s pretty telling how confusing that language is.
This is bullshit. Anyone who knows anything about linguistics can tell you that languages aren’t objectively easier or more difficult to learn. What makes a language easy is its similarity to a learner’s native language, or other languages they’ve already learned. Furthermore, there’s a myth that certain things or ideas can be said or expressed in some languages but not in others, and this too is objectively untrue. All languages do the same thing, they just do it differently. If one language doesn’t have a word for something, that doesn’t mean it can’t express the concept, just that it has to do so through other means, typically in a sentence or phrase.
It’s also ‘easy’ to communicate in English. ‘I want eat’ ‘where go this place’ and so on. People understand, and probably will answer you. It’s easier for something like that in Chinese to be grammatically correct - but did you master pitch accents and never mixed them up after ‘a few weeks’? We’re you able to read hanzi?
The thing is that with European languages, it’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to express ideas that are too complex for your language ability if you are native in an European language. I don’t remember French for shit anymore, but say I were to ask some French guy that doesn’t speak English for a good restaurant to eat in, I’d probably go something like ‘je veux mange, tu sais un bon Restaurant ici?’ I doubt that’s grammatically correct whatsoever, and sounds weird as fuck, but you’d probably get my point. It’s probable you sound similar when speaking Chinese only for a few weeks.
I agree with your second point. But it would seem that normaly the languages that are spoken primarily by people that learnned them as second languages would become more simplified.
For example english speakers say ate instead of eated wich would be the logical choice. If enough peaole learn it as a second language so that it becomes eated then the language becomes simpler.
And then tend to become complicated again as the speakers develop ideosincracies. But if there is a mechanism preventing this, for example its spoken over a wide area so the ideosyncracies never stick. Or the speakers are constantly interacting with forengers or both. Then the languaged gramar would remainsimple.
Persian gramar is much easier to learn than russian or spanish. And i asume chinise is likewise easier.
The thing about ‘not being able to be expressed in another language’ is that one language might have a shortcut word for something another doesn’t. That shortcut word might also be culturally charged, not that easily explained. Yes, you can explain anything in any language - for some languages you can just take shortcuts
Yes, you can explain anything in any language - for some languages you can just take shortcuts
Along these lines, some languages have a preference for longer or shorter words. There’s an oft repeated factoid that the Inuit language has something like 50 words for snow. That’s not entirely untrue, but it ignores that the language tends to have unique words that encompass more concepts. So whereas English would combine other words in a phrase to produce concepts like “soft deep snow”, the Inuit language has an entire word. It’s not like Inuit has special descriptive powers. It just takes up vocabulary space for concepts that could be mix-and-match instead.
It’s just not comparable to having to memorize arbitrary gender for every noun in the language
Yes, instead of having to memorize one of up to three possible genders for every noun, you only have to memorize an infinity of arbitrary pronunciations for every word. Much easier.
Those pronunciations are not arbitrary. Consistent spelling was not always important to English writers, so some of that may be arbitrary. The words though have diverse etymologies reflecting multiculturalism born from brutal imperialism spanning centuries. It is often a system of language evolved from violent colonial expansion. Every weird word and spelling that breaks the rule has a story. It may not be a perfectly ordered system because it lives and breathes while some parts grow and others whither and die, but nothing about it arbitrary. Maybe I’ve been listening to too much of The Allusionist podcast.
Yes, but we’re not talking about the linguistic history of how words developed.
We’re talking about learning a language and the lack of consistent rules can make that quite difficult.
You brought up history, not me, by ignoring it through your claim about arbitrary pronunciations. Such a claim ignores history to make a weak argument for language learning difficulty. Pronunciations are not arbitrary.
I’m saying that there are no consistent rules so language learners have to learn each word individually.
If you learn languages by memorizing every singe vowel shift since proto-indo-european then be my guest but for someone who just wants to speak the language and has to learn the difference between plough, through, though etc, it seems pretty damn arbitrary.
I remember reading something about the size of Kanji in comparison to the alphabet, and someone brought up that while (eg) Japanese has something like a little over 100 syllables you have to learn to pronounce, English has over two thousand
This isn't unique to video games*. It can happen with anything that you spend a ton of time on, and either burn out on or start to develop more refined taste in. I've had it happen with:
novels
board games
movies
people
You start to see patterns, tropes, or just plain get burnt out on something. It's a sign you either need to take a break, or that your tastes have simply become refined enough that you require a higher bar to find something interesting.
I'm in my 40s and definitely don't play games as much as I used to. But there are still times I get sucked in and have a great time. Most recent example: Cosmoteer, a spaceship building game with loads of freedom and creativity. I'm also looking forward to the Factorio DLC and the Dyson Sphere Program combat update.
Edit: case in point that I can still get excited about games: I finally tried Shadows of Doubt and, wow, what an interesting game. It's like a Deus Ex shadowy sneak-around world with detailed voxel simulation.
though the enshittification phenomenon is a real thing, and why people should play more indie games
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