LAST EDITED ON Sep-02-01 AT 05:32 AM (EDT)

>>Ok, I'm not sure if this is true or not, but I was having a
>>conversation with a linguist, who explained that one of the reasons
>>that english is used so frequently is the redundancy, and the fact
>>that, for most uses, it uses the least sylabels(Ok, I mangled the
>>spelling on that. If an admin wants to stalinize it, go for it.) of
>>any language.
>
>I cannot make any sense out of that. The redundancy actually makes it
>*harder* to learn -- English is one of the most idiomatic languages
>around, surpassed only by Japanese and Chinese to my knowledge, and
>there's four or five substantial variations that see a fair amount of
>use. (An Australian who speaks with a great deal of Australian slang
>will probably sound like he's speaking a foreign language.)

Given how localised variations can be (Yorkshire English vs Lancshire English) most English speakers I know would have little trouble understanding a 'foreign' variation, because they're used to working with the problem.

Heck - I understood almost 90% of what was said to me in the States when I went on holiday there this summer. Once you take into account the times I understood on a repeat, that becomes about 99% I'd guess.

drakensisthered

So I simply said one of the great trite truths: "There is generally more than one side to a story." - Corwin, Roger Zelazny's 'Courts of Chaos'