Re: Easy and Interesting Languages -- Website

Nik Taylor said:
> Joe wrote:
>> Well, there we go.  It's kind of a pointless list, then.  Different for
>> different people.
>
> Exactly.  I hear many people saying Japanese is one of the hardest
> languages, whereas I find it very easy and simple (apart from the
> writing system, that is)

It's definitely not pointless. Applied linguists who are heavily involved
in L2 acquisition research do this kind of assessment all the time -- in
much more differentiated fashion than the few categories I mentioned in my
previous post. (There's a difference between compiling a useful webpage
and conducting research in applied linguistics.)

The subfield is called "contrastive linguistics", and it's a Big Deal
pretty much everywhere in the world except in the US and Canada. It's not
pointless at all, as far as I'm concerned.

Google is your friend. :)

     http://bank.rug.ac.be/contragram/biblio.html


-- Mark