Gender and cases allow you to write much more complex sentences, and make long and complex sentences easy to understand.
Comment on And they say English is bad
The2500@thelemmy.club 5 months ago
Who is saying English is bad? You save yourself so much trouble not having to like genderize all the words.
pumpkinseedoil@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Agrivar@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I require elaboration.
pumpkinseedoil@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Read some speeches from Cicero for example (in Latin). Latin has six cases and three genders so while Cicero’s sentences often consist of multiple sentences and sub sentences with beautifully spread out sentence structures they’re still very clear and easy to understand (with sufficient Latin skills). Same for all modern languages with cases and genders (like German).
In English you only have one gender more or less (you do have he she it but in terms of referring to previous words (which, etc.) or linking attributes you only have one) and the case solely depends on where the word stands in the structure (leading to a fixed sentence structure and limited possibilities to refer back to previous words, so you have to repeat them more commonly).
kono_throwaway_da@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
I mean this is subjective. Asian languages let you play with words freely. When you don’t need agreement of verbs and subjects and nouns, you get to make a lot of puns and other kinds of wordplay. See Malay pantuns.
lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 5 months ago
I offer you Indonesian, which has a word for “he/she/they/it” (dia) but no words for “he” or “she”. Indonesian has words for older sibling (kakak) and younger sibling (adik) but it’s rare to specify the sibling’s gender. It ever has rude slang for “primary reproductive organ” (titis, among many others) without specifying wether it concerns a vagina or penis. TL;DR Indonesia is based.
lars@lemmy.sdf.org 5 months ago
Oh wow just like Turkish. Probably little sexism in Indonesia and none in Turkey, right?
lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 5 months ago
Nah sexism across the board in both from what I’ve seen, but the language is dope
kono_throwaway_da@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
On top of that the grammar is far more regular than whatever bullshit the European languages have. The ber- prefix is always ber-. If you are talking about the past you say sudah instead of juggling with the verbs. No sing-sang-sung do-did-done and all that irregular stuff.
lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 5 months ago
Ber- might be a bad example as it sometimes turns into be- and some dialects make it bre-, but still “I walk” is “Saya jalan” and “Yesterday I walked” is “Kemarin saya jalan” because “yesterday” already makes it past tense, duh!