Are some languages objectively simpler than others, or is that just a myth?
In short: For decades, linguists insisted all languages were equally complex, dismissing claims of simplicity as biased or unscientific. Yet, recent research suggests this consensus may be flawed. By examining structural features, some scholars argue that certain languages, particularly creoles, are indeed less complex than their older, more established counterparts.
Throughout the 19th century, scholars often assumed that classical languages like Latin and Sanskrit were inherently more sophisticated than others, while labeling languages spoken by less developed cultures as primitive. By the mid-20th century, this view was rejected in favor of the idea that all languages possess equal complexity. Linguists argued that any perceived simplicity in one area, such as a lack of word-endings, was always balanced by complexity elsewhere, such as rigid word-position rules.
This 'compensation hypothesis' faced a significant challenge in 2001 when John McWhorter argued that it was logically absurd to assume languages possess a mechanism to calibrate their own complexity against thousands of others. McWhorter contended that creole languages, such as Saramaccan, are structurally simpler than most older languages. He suggested that this simplicity is not a defect but a functional advantage, as these languages lack secondary features like grammatical gender or complex switch-reference marking that do not necessarily improve communication.
Defining and measuring this complexity remains a daunting task. Researchers break the concept down into sub-areas, including syntagmatic complexity, which measures the number of parts like word length, and paradigmatic complexity, which looks at the variety of parts like phoneme inventory size. Other dimensions include organizational complexity, such as word order, and hierarchic complexity, which covers recursion. While there is no universally accepted method for ranking entire languages, modern analytic tools are beginning to allow for more nuanced comparisons of specific grammatical structures.
The debate remains active, with no consensus among linguists. While some researchers continue to explore the relationship between language contact and the loss of 'natural' complexity, others remain skeptical of any framework that attempts to rank languages. Ultimately, the study of language complexity has moved from a dismissed topic to a legitimate area of inquiry, even if the tools for measurement are still being refined.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Language complexity
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