To those of you who are actively multi-lingual....

[AG31]

I've often heard it said that English is an especially rich language. Easier to express nuance than many other languages. Do you find this to be true?

 

[BillyWalrus]

It depends. Every language will have a few words that describe a concept for which there is no word in English. Schadenfreude in German for example.

Having said that English has benefitted from the huge import of words from French after the Norman Invasion. About 30 to 40% of English words come from French and many more come from Latin.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

It's a very practical language from my point of view. Utilitarian even. And it's usually the first to introduce some neologisms that come from pop culture, tech, etc.
Not so sure about its superiority when it comes to nuance, though. And it's definitely not among the best languages when it comes to singing, regardless of how used we are to listening to songs in English. All Germanic languages suck at this, more or less.

 

[THBGato]

It depends. Every language will have a few words that describe a concept for which there is no word in English. Schadenfreude in German for example.

Well, I think this is an illustration of why English is so rich - if English doesn't have the word, it just borrows quite happily. (While other languages, eg French, try their damn hardest to keep loan words out.)

It also has a lot more synonyms than many other languages, allowing writers in English to avoid repetitions in a way that wouldn't be possible in other tongues.

 

[BillyWalrus]

Well, I think this is an illustration of why English is so rich - if English doesn't have the word, it just borrows quite happily. (While other languages, eg French, try their damn hardest to keep loan words out.)

It also has a lot more synonyms than many other languages, allowing writers in English to avoid repetitions in a way that wouldn't be possible in other tongues.

Don't get me started on the French from France with their language purity obsessions. Je suis un Québécois and in our French we borrow any word we want and make it our own.

 

[MrPixel]

(While other languages, eg French, try their damn hardest to keep loan words out.)

Yeah. Académie Française. Language police. Somewhat nauseating how much they turn themselves inside-out trying to create phrases to keep technology lexicon out of "their" language. Sort of language Luddites. Or language Amish.

 

[Jorunn]

English is easier to speak than to write, at least for me. Spoken English, in everyday language, is full of pauses, and sentences are shorter. Though long sentences can be spoken as combinations of shorter sentences. When writing, pauses get more difficult grammatically, and, but, that, and commas drive me crazy.

But I would say the thesaurus gives many ways to upgrade a sentence with more interesting descriptions.

 

[StillStunned]

I'd say about 90% of the richness is rarely used, particularly in conversation.

Where English excels, I think, is its versatility in style. You can sound professional or formal without ever having to use fancy words, and you can use the same register for a children's book as for a business report.

 

[TheLobster]

Nuance as in shades and gradations of meaning? No, definitely not easier to express.

English simply doesn't have the tools for it. It's a rigidly analytic language with little to no morphological freedom (and what freedom it does offer is usually frowned upon if you exercise it). Skilled writers can utilize the space between words to let the reader glimpse those subtle hues, but to do so is to create the sort of syntactic filigree which takes many revisions to get right.

If you want an example of an obvious efficiency, look at cat. I can call a cute and small cat a kitty; is there a word for a cute and small racoon? No, there is not: you have to either overwrite it with adjectives or reform your sentences to convey the sense of smallness and cuteness in the non-lexical space. But the arrangement of words, and rhythm, and cadence are all overburdened with narrative functions already. Trying to squeeze in there more semantic meaning requires much higher skill in the craft of writing -- perhaps even genius or at least talent -- than it's needed in a less rigid language.

Breadth of meaning, however, as many people above pointed out, is easily achievable in English. You just chase down other languages down a dark alley, whack them on the back of their heads and rifle through their pockets for new vocabulary.

 

[LisaMayTurner]

"English" is spoken differently in different places and with many variations around the world. To make assumptions about it as a stand alone language without being specific to colloquial place, regional area, and national historical development (not to mention creole hybridity with other languages) runs the risk of linguistic generalisation and all sorts of error. I think people would need to know a few other languages to draw accurate comparative conclusions, too.

 

[AG31]

you can use the same register for a children's book as for a business report.

What do you mean here by "register?" I assume you don't mean the musical "high or low."

 

[AG31]

Breadth of meaning, however, as many people above pointed out, is easily achievable in English. You just chase down other languages down a dark alley, whack them on the back of their heads and rifle through their pockets for new vocabulary.

 

[AG31]

"English" is spoken differently in different places and with many variations around the world. To make assumptions about it as a stand alone language without being specific to colloquial place, regional area, and national historical development (not to mention creole hybridity with other languages) runs the risk of linguistic generalisation and all sorts of error. I think people would need to know a few other languages to draw accurate comparative conclusions, too.

Could you give a couple of examples where English varies enough that one would have to describe it differently in the context of this thread?

 

[StillStunned]

What do you mean here by "register?" I assume you don't mean the musical "high or low."

Mostly vocabulary and sentence structure, in this particular instance.

 

[big_cane_sugar]

I don't want to give away too much about myself but the other language I know well is one with a much smaller number of speakers. My thoughts on this are that a language is a culture; you can't fully understand what an expression means unless you understand the cultural context it comes from. Speaking a language with a small number of speakers is like being part of a group of friends with a lot of inside jokes. Other people usually aren't really going to get it even if you explain it to them.

English on the other hand has had a bajillion people speaking it over the past hundred years, people with a huge variety of cultural backgrounds. As a result, there is a much wider variety. Different varieties of slang, greetings, ways of being polite, ways of dropping a hint, ways of expressing displeasure, and so on. To me, this is what makes English interesting and perhaps even unique.

 

[THBGato]

What do you mean here by "register?" I assume you don't mean the musical "high or low."

Register is the level of formality.

As English ditched it's informal second person (thou, thee, thine) in all but a few dialects, all English is spoken/written in what is essentially a formal register.... but that makes it easier as you don't have to worry about whether to use Sie/Du, Vous/Tu, Usted/Tu, etc.

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

While I can read some Spanish and speak a little, my level of fluency isn't great enough to allow me to compare its effectiveness or its melodiousness versus English. That make this an interesting discussion.

.... look at cat. I can call a cute and small cat a kitty; is there a word for a cute and small racoon? No, there is not: you have to either overwrite it with adjectives or reform your sentences to convey the sense of smallness and cuteness in the non-lexical space.

Yes, a baby raccoon, which in my mind is naturally cute, is called a kit. However, I doubt calling it a "kitty" for added some degree of additional implied cuteness (as with kitty from kitten) would be understood by most.

 

[StillStunned]

In my wife's language, nuance is conveyed by how loud you're talking, and usually how suggestive the laughs are.