What is the most efficient language in the world?

[Narz]

Are you fluent?

But of course. My 10,000 posts here are just a cover so the government & other evildoers don't suspect me.

 

[Brighteye]

As for spoken, English is truly horrid in terms of efficiency (contrast English verbs with Japanese verbs: Eat, Ate, Eaten = Tabemasu, Tabemashita; Do, Did, Done = Shimasu, Shimashita; Go, Went, Gone/Been = Ikimasu, Ikimashita).

Surely English is more efficient in these examples, since the words are smaller, and you can more accurately convey meaning because the meanings are split between 3 words rather than two?

Thing is, IMO a certain degree of redundancy and inefficiency in a language is actually good. Because it means you can still understand a person even if you mishear or don't quite catch some parts.

Well, I'd say that we can factor misunderstanding into our calculations of efficiency as a background noise that our signal must stand out against.

English seems to me to be a very efficient language because of the large vocabulary. More possible words means that each word has a smaller space in the great universe of meaning, and therefore fewer words are required to describe the same thing.
Add that to our easy grammar, lack of useless genders of words, and multiple verb tenses for more accurately conveying meaning and we have a very efficient language.

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

Surely English is more efficient in these examples, since the words are smaller, and you can more accurately convey meaning because the meanings are split between 3 words rather than two?

Sure, if you don't mind your conjugations having no obvious link to each other whatsoever. Japanese has 2 irregular verbs. I can conjugate any verb just by glancing at it, regardless of whether I've seen it before. Hell, having seen those few examples you could conjugate into the past tense without any outside reference (quiz: conjugate 'kimasu'). In English you've got no chance, there are countless irregulars. Every time you learn a new verb you effectively have to learn a whole host of other related words just to be able to use it correctly. In Japanese you can learn how to adapt a single dictionary form in a few hours on the first day you start learning the language and you'll never have to do it again.

The words are only smaller because I wrote them in the horribly unwieldy English alphabet. Japanese is almost always more concise.

There are aspects of Japanese (counting objects!) that make your head spin, but Japanese verbs are so spectacularly more efficient than the insanity of English verbs that neither langauge has a word to express it, efficiently or otherwise.

 

[Phlegmak]

Probably C++

C++ is easily the dumbest language ever invented.

 

[Brighteye]

The words are only smaller because I wrote them in the horribly unwieldy English alphabet. Japanese is almost always more concise.

But is an alphabet really so unwieldy? I think that an alphabet is better because, again, it allows one to convey the intended sounds precisely. If you're upset about learning verb tenses, imagine how upsetting it must be to learn a great host of characters in order to write properly.

 

[Arwon]

Our alphabet, in no way, conveys the meaningfully distinct 44 sounds of the English langage precisely or accurately.

 

[Phlegmak]

Alphabets are superior to pictograms due to the fewer characters to memorize.

 

[Arwon]

Well it's a good thing that Japanese and Korean aren't made with pictograms, huh?

 

[Phlegmak]

Well it's a good thing that Japanese and Korean aren't made with pictograms, huh?

Ok, whatever the word is for a language that uses a single symbol for an entire word. For some reason the word is slipping my mind.

 

[Gooblah]

I believe its called a syllabary.

Korean Hangul's actually quite efficient. Each square "block" character represents a syllable. Each "component" character in the block is a letter. The shape of the component represents the position of the lips and tongue needed to produce that sound, while similar components equal similar sounds. Pretty cool.

Also, Sequoya's Cherokee language is pretty sweet. He modified English letters which he didn't understand, fit them to Cherokee sounds, threw in a few of his own letters, and voila! The Cherokee had 100% literacy in no time!

 

[BirraImperial]

Spanish. Now, seriously, I think English gets the prize. It's the easiest language to learn, grammar is fairly easy as well. German grammar is a nightmare, with those declination things. I'm gonna get some more lessons to improve, but most likely, I'll never going to be able to speak it like a native.

 

[Brighteye]

I believe its called a syllabary.

Korean Hangul's actually quite efficient. Each square "block" character represents a syllable. Each "component" character in the block is a letter. The shape of the component represents the position of the lips and tongue needed to produce that sound, while similar components equal similar sounds. Pretty cool.

That sounds fun. Have you any examples?

 

[scherbchen]

German grammar is a nightmare, with those declination things. I'm gonna get some more lessons to improve, but most likely, I'll never going to be able to speak it like a native.

agreed on the nightmare that is the German language, wouldn't bother with it if it weren't my first language and I still prefer English.

And no, you will never be able to speak it like a native, then again, (almost) no speaker of any second language will ever achieve native native fluency in a language they learn after, say, 12 years of age or younger. Approach yes, achieve, no.

 

[Rossiya]

Italian

Once you know the rules of spelling, you can't go wrong. Contractions occur like "in" (in) and "il" (the) become "nel" (in the). You often do not need the pronoun: "Parlo" is "I speak", whereas "parli" is "you speak" etc.. However, one drawback is that it can be very inefficient in some things.

 

[Arwon]

Ok, whatever the word is for a language that uses a single symbol for an entire word. For some reason the word is slipping my mind.

You're thinking of logograms like Chinese script, but Japanese isn't logograms. Katakana and Haragana are syllabaries have a pretty managable amount of characters and learning them would be far less work than learning what "ough" might mean and why the letter "e" can make like 8 different vowel sounds.

But Japanese writing is complicated for other reason. There's no doubt that it's more concise than English though.

Gooblah's example of Korean is a much better example of a language with an essentially perfect writing system. Languages that invent their own rather than rip off an alphabet from a mostly unrelated language tend to have a much better othrography-sound relationship.

 

[Phlegmak]

You're thinking of logograms like Chinese script, but Japanese isn't logograms. Katakana and Haragana are syllabaries have a pretty managable amount of characters and learning them would be far less work than learning what "ough" might mean and why the letter "e" can make like 8 different vowel sounds.

But Japanese writing is complicated for other reason. There's no doubt that it's more concise than English though.

Gooblah's example of Korean is a much better example of a language with an essentially perfect writing system. Languages that invent their own rather than rip off an alphabet from a mostly unrelated language tend to have a much better othrography-sound relationship.

I was afraid you were going to write that.

At no point did I say that English is a superior language. I did indeed say that alphabets are superior to logograms. English is the dumbest language in the world.

You earn:

 

[mangxema]

You often do not need the pronoun: "Parlo" is "I speak", whereas "parli" is "you speak" etc..

Meh... I prefer the English/Esperanto where the subject is clear, and there's one generic verb conjugation. Yeah, you have to say an extra one syllable word, but it's more robust that way; it's a lot harder to mishear things.

 

[Arwon]

I was afraid you were going to write that.

At no point did I say that English is a superior language. I did indeed say that alphabets are superior to logograms. English is the dumbest language in the world.

You earn:

Well, Brighteye and Endiku Warrior's talk about Japanese was what sparked my comment so it is natural I assumed you were talking about Japanese as well.

However it seems I confused Brighteye's saying 'Japanese has too many characters' and your talking about logograms, into thinking you said Japanese had logograms and therefore wasn't consise or whatever.

 

[Civfan333]

Japanese because it's the fastest of the five languages I speak (spanish, English, Fijian, hawaiian, and Japanese) and one of the two that I speak fluently

 

[gangleri2001]

If efficiency meanings speaking to the most people with the least effort then English.

... then CHINESE.