Depends on what you consider “success”. English is the number one second language, after all. And besides, French, while highly regulated, is full of insanity like 420+2 you would expect a prescription would iron out, meanwhile the parts of English that were prescribed, like is*land or not ending on prepositions, are notably more weird than they would be normally.
That’s the thing, though: McDonald’s is well structured, easy to use, and consistent - unlike French. And, incidentally, a high quality tool isn’t necessarily easy to use - like French.
In fact, I’d argue English fits your three criteria: as it’s effectively a pidgin at least once over, it lost damn near all grammatical structures (rendering it simple) and therefore depends on rigid (consistent) word ordering (structure).
English is a vibes based language with lose grammer and spelling that enables people who speak wildly different native languages ti fairly effectively communicate. It’s the giant bin of random Lego pieces of human languages. It’s unruly, but anyone can pick it up fairly quickly and get to work.
Eh it could be argued this would be better if a more standard language with fewer exceptions were used though. They’re not using English because they had a real choice between different languages.
yes. which is why it sucks. It’s like, yeah a swiss army knife is pretty cool I guess, but I don’t want to debone and chop up a chicken into cubes with it.
No one is forcing you to use English on Lemmy. The German instance is very active, so feel free to only use German since English is such an inconvenience.
McDonalds is the worlds best resturant with that kind of logic.
It is. It’s the best at not being shit. You don’t expect a gourmet meal, but you get very standardised food no matter where on the planet you are.
Even Michelin star restaurant give you the shits more often than plain old MickeyD’s which never fails to have the same mediocre quality.
Just like broken English.
Finnish can do a billion things English can’t but English has hundreds of thousands of words, nearing a million if you count obsolete terms, whereas Finnish has barely 100 000 even when you do count even obsolete terms.
So just like with McD, it’s the usecase which matters. “Best” is such a subjective term if you don’t define it.
I’m confused why you seem to think that because English is the most popular second language, that automatically means it is the best communication tool. Don’t you think the reason it is so well-known is more because the US (and UK, to a lesser extent) is such a dominant force economically and militarily? That non-English-speaking states consider it important to learn, so they teach it early in school – and then on top of that the largest film industry is in the US, so English content is pretty available?
I mean, there is a lot more external force going behind the dissemination of English than that of Toki Pona, so I dunno, seems pretty silly to attribute it’s “success” (popularity) to some internal aspect of the language.
Depends on what you consider “success”. English is the number one second language, after all. And besides, French, while highly regulated, is full of insanity like 420+2 you would expect a prescription would iron out, meanwhile the parts of English that were prescribed, like is*land or not ending on prepositions, are notably more weird than they would be normally.
Being a well structured language that is consistent and easy to use. As in “high quality tool”
McDonalds is the worlds best resturant with that kind of logic.
That’s the thing, though: McDonald’s is well structured, easy to use, and consistent - unlike French. And, incidentally, a high quality tool isn’t necessarily easy to use - like French.
In fact, I’d argue English fits your three criteria: as it’s effectively a pidgin at least once over, it lost damn near all grammatical structures (rendering it simple) and therefore depends on rigid (consistent) word ordering (structure).
English absolutely has grammar, it just has very analytical grammar, unlike many other indo European languages
But not consistent
yeah, having one aspect have rules but other parts descend into complete chaos because it’s a bastard langauge doesn’t make english consistent
English is a vibes based language with lose grammer and spelling that enables people who speak wildly different native languages ti fairly effectively communicate. It’s the giant bin of random Lego pieces of human languages. It’s unruly, but anyone can pick it up fairly quickly and get to work.
Eh it could be argued this would be better if a more standard language with fewer exceptions were used though. They’re not using English because they had a real choice between different languages.
yes. which is why it sucks. It’s like, yeah a swiss army knife is pretty cool I guess, but I don’t want to debone and chop up a chicken into cubes with it.
No one is forcing you to use English on Lemmy. The German instance is very active, so feel free to only use German since English is such an inconvenience.
It is. It’s the best at not being shit. You don’t expect a gourmet meal, but you get very standardised food no matter where on the planet you are.
Even Michelin star restaurant give you the shits more often than plain old MickeyD’s which never fails to have the same mediocre quality.
Just like broken English.
Finnish can do a billion things English can’t but English has hundreds of thousands of words, nearing a million if you count obsolete terms, whereas Finnish has barely 100 000 even when you do count even obsolete terms.
So just like with McD, it’s the usecase which matters. “Best” is such a subjective term if you don’t define it.
i did define it though.
Oh. Please do point me to where you did such.
Yes, I thought you might refer to that.
So, by that definition, you consider Toki Pona far more successful language than English, I take it?
It is much better structured and far simpler to use.
I’m confused why you seem to think that because English is the most popular second language, that automatically means it is the best communication tool. Don’t you think the reason it is so well-known is more because the US (and UK, to a lesser extent) is such a dominant force economically and militarily? That non-English-speaking states consider it important to learn, so they teach it early in school – and then on top of that the largest film industry is in the US, so English content is pretty available?
I mean, there is a lot more external force going behind the dissemination of English than that of Toki Pona, so I dunno, seems pretty silly to attribute it’s “success” (popularity) to some internal aspect of the language.
No no no no.
YOU made a claim. I asked you how you define the “best” language. You clarified. Simplicity and good structure.
Toki Pona definitely has better structure and is simpler than English.
Yet you now refuse to stand behind the argument you made?
“Sad.”