Language complexity
I like to watch Glenn Loury and John McWhorter on The Glenn Show podcast. They are African-American academics. They talk a lot about race, culture, politics. But Loury is an economist and McWhorter is a linguist, and when they get into the weeds in their respective disciplines they are very much worth listening to.
Recently, in response to a viewer question, McWhorter talked a bit about complexity in languages. He said that as a general rule, the most complicated languages are those spoken by peoples in either isolated or subordinated contexts. The reason is that almost no adults need to learn their languages. All the native speakers learn to speak in those languages, absorb all the fine details, nuance, and exceptions of those languages growing up. They never complain about having to learn it; it's just normal. If they have to deal with other peoples, it is always at a disadvantage, so they learn the others' languages. But nobody bothers to learn theirs.
A prime example of this is Lithuanian, a Baltic language which retains more of the grammatical machinery of its Proto-Indo-European ancestor than almost any other Indo-European language. There are five different declensions of nouns, for instance, with seven grammatical cases. Situated as they are, the Lithuanians have been dominated over the years by speakers of Swedish and Russian, both imperial powers (though at different times). German has also been a major trade language in the Baltic, going back to the days of the Hanseatic League. The earliest written texts surviving in Lithuanian date from the early 1500s.
By contrast, English has had a dynamic relationship with other languages, which has contributed greatly to its simplification. The Vikings and later Danes settling in Britain helped wear down the grammatical niceties of Old English. As English expanded its reach through trade and colonization, it added vocabulary and simplified its grammar more. English spelling is a nightmare, but its grammar is fairly simple. It has become the world's language.
Recently, in response to a viewer question, McWhorter talked a bit about complexity in languages. He said that as a general rule, the most complicated languages are those spoken by peoples in either isolated or subordinated contexts. The reason is that almost no adults need to learn their languages. All the native speakers learn to speak in those languages, absorb all the fine details, nuance, and exceptions of those languages growing up. They never complain about having to learn it; it's just normal. If they have to deal with other peoples, it is always at a disadvantage, so they learn the others' languages. But nobody bothers to learn theirs.
A prime example of this is Lithuanian, a Baltic language which retains more of the grammatical machinery of its Proto-Indo-European ancestor than almost any other Indo-European language. There are five different declensions of nouns, for instance, with seven grammatical cases. Situated as they are, the Lithuanians have been dominated over the years by speakers of Swedish and Russian, both imperial powers (though at different times). German has also been a major trade language in the Baltic, going back to the days of the Hanseatic League. The earliest written texts surviving in Lithuanian date from the early 1500s.
By contrast, English has had a dynamic relationship with other languages, which has contributed greatly to its simplification. The Vikings and later Danes settling in Britain helped wear down the grammatical niceties of Old English. As English expanded its reach through trade and colonization, it added vocabulary and simplified its grammar more. English spelling is a nightmare, but its grammar is fairly simple. It has become the world's language.