English is relatively easy to learn, but not to master (2018)
I find the transformation and evolution of languages in general and English in particular fascinating.<p>Old English was a Germanic language primarily. After 1066, the court language of England became French and remained so for centuries. It was in this period that the Middle English transformation happened.<p>The fascinating thing about this is that the language became much more regular in that period and, more importantly, it dropped a lot of what I as a native English-speaker at least consider pointless grammatical cruft.<p>For example: Old English had 3 noun genders (male, female, neuter; this being the norm for European and Semitic languages). Middle English lost that (other than male and female for people). Old English had 5 cases. By comparison, modern German has 4, Latin has 6, some Eastern European languages have more. The concept of case has almost completely disappeared from English (pronouns and the Saxon genitive notwithstanding).<p>It&#x27;s fascinating because it seems what keeps languages unchanging is a ruling class. It&#x27;s a bit like the philosophical view of grammar as being descriptive (my view) vs prescriptive. It&#x27;s almost a model for conservatism being the resistance to change.<p>As a native English speaker I&#x27;ve found it difficult to learn other languages not just because of the ubiquity of English but because other languages have concepts that English just doesn&#x27;t, like in German where adjectives and pronouns have to agree by case, number gender and article of a noun (eg &quot;the&quot; vs der&#x2F;die&#x2F;das&#x2F;den&#x2F;dem&#x2F;denen&#x2F;der&#x2F;des). That structure just seems like such pointless cognitive load, at least to learn. I&#x27;m sure it&#x27;s zero cost if you grew up with it.<p>But it does seem like it makes English easier to learn. Obviously there are some complexities in English (eg adjective order and the tenses).<p>And before anyone mentions Asian languages for simple grammar let me just point out: no clear word separators and the writing system in general (although this varies too).