this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2024
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It seems like a difficult language to learn (lemmy.world)
submitted 5 days ago by The_Picard_Maneuver to c/memes
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[–] [email protected] 30 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

Ah, what you're saying is spelling. Syntax is word order, obligatory words, stuff like this. English syntax is a maze, or how programmers would call it, spaghetti code.

For example, here's how to ask a yes/no question in...

  • Latin - attach -ne after the relevant word. (Note: Latin has no word for "yes", but still has this sort of question.)
  • Spanish - why bother? Intonation is enough.
  • Polish - start the sentence with "czy".
  • German - shift the verb to the start of the sentence (first position).
  • English - if the verb belongs to a small list of exceptions, do it as in German. However most verbs refuse this movement to the first position, so for those you need to spawn a dummy support "do", then let it steal the conjugation from the leftmost verb, and then shift that "do" instead. Noting that semantic "do" also refuses the movement, so it still requires a support "do", yielding questions like "did you do this?"

Then there's the adjective order. In Latin for example it's just a "...near the noun? Whatever, just don't be ambiguous." Polish is probably like Latin in this. English though? Quantity or number, then quality or opinion, then size, then age, then shape, then colour, then material or place of origin, then purpose or qualifier, then the noun. And don't you dare to switch them - "your famous blue raincoat" is a-OK, but *"your blue famous raincoat" makes you sound like a maniac.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Think you this some kind of joke?

(What do you mean you don't want to sound like an Elizabethan or earlier?!)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

...my lizard brain is now confused, because it really your question word order as in German to interpret wants, thus still for the ending "is" waiting is.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

I think "think you that this is some kind of joke" is more grammatically correct (from a prescriptive POV, anyway), but I've seen similar sentences as the above before.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

In Latin for example it’s just a “…near the noun? Whatever, just don’t be ambiguous."

It doesn't need to be remotely close to the noun lol

Though Latin syntax can get annoying sometimes (when do I use the subjunctive? What's the correct negation? Perfect or imperfect… maybe pluperfect? Which noun is this random genitive modifying?), it does make sense eventually. I guess that is also true for English, but I still mess up the tenses sometimes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

It doesn’t need to be remotely close to the noun lol

You can, but it isn't that common, it's even considered a form of hyperbaton (messing around with word order).

Note that those distinctions that you mentioned (subjunctive vs. indicative, the right negation, perfect vs. imperfect) are all handled through the morphology in Latin, not the syntax (as in English). And yes Latin morphology can get really crazy, just like Polish or any other "old style" Indo-European language.