Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 October 4

= October 4 =

Which languages, formally recognized by countries belonging to the Council of Europe, have the simplest Grammar?
I though about: English, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. Mainly because they (i.e their modern varieties) don't have cases, and also because their verbs do not inflect for person or number (I'm now ignoring the suffix "s" added by English to verbs in the present tense for the third person singular).

Any other suggestions?

Additionally, which one of the four languages I've just mentioned has the simplest grammar? HOOTmag (talk) 12:22, 4 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Judging by your comments, by the ill-defined phrase "simplest grammar" you mean "fewest inflections". With that assumption, I would agree with your suggestions. The Scandinavian languages have lost all person and number inflection on verbs, still there vestigially in English; but they have suffixed definite articles (and retain a genitive inflection). --ColinFine (talk) 13:17, 4 October 2015 (UTC)


 * N.b. I think you mean natural languages that are formally recognized by some official body (as opposed to variety_(linguistics). A "Formal language" is something else entirely. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:46, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks to your correct comment, I've just corrected the title. HOOTmag (talk) 18:54, 5 October 2015 (UTC)


 * You may enjoy reading this scholarly article "‘All Languages Are Equally Complex’ The rise and fall of a consensus" . We also have (not very good) article on language complexity. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:10, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm looking for languages whose phonological system has (at least) nine monophthongs (as phonemes), as following:
1. An open (rather than close or semi-close) monophthong (as a phoneme); i.e. something identical - or similar - to the first monophthong in the English word "father".

2. At least 2 close or semi-close (rather than open) monophthongs (as phonemes), in each of the following four categories: front rounded, front unrounded, back rounded, back unrounded.

In this context, I'd like to ignore length / tone / nasalization distinctions between vowels.

HOOTmag (talk) 13:52, 4 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Azerbaijani comes close: it has the four pairs you describe (i/e, y/ø, ɯ/ɑ, u/o), plus an unpaired open vowel /æ/. The back unrounded counterpart to rounded /o/ is transcribed in our article as /ɑ/ and orthographically spelled "a", so phonetically it might not quite match your requirement that none of the members of the four pairs should be open rather than mid, but in terms of phonological rule patterns this /ɑ/ clearly does fill the systematic slot in the "mid" row together with /e, ø, o/ (at least if Azerbaijani vowel harmony is anything like that of neighbouring Turkish, which I expect it is.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:27, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd say it's /o/ that is unpaired in Turkic languages. In most of them this vowel is restricted to the word root or borrowings (Turkish -yor- is a rare exception).--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 00:14, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Your suggestion may be accepted, if and only if it turns out that the Azerbaijani "a" can be pronounced (in some cases) like the vowel of the English word "cut". Can it? This is the question... Anyways, if your hypothesis turns out to be correct, then Wikipedia had better described this Azerbaijani phoneme - for aesthetic reasons - as a back unrounded monophthong having two allophones one of which is the open /ɑ/. Hadn't it? (I'm saying "for aesthetic reasons" i.e. in order to have two close or semi-close monophthongs in each of the four categories). HOOTmag (talk) 19:09, 5 October 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree that such a language could possibly be found among the Turkic languages, they being known for their typical "cubic" vowel system.
 * Maybe Korean, or at least the Korean of a few decades ago, could qualify too. Korean has /a, ʌ, ɯ, o, u, ɛ, e, i/, and at Korean phonology (permalink) it says: "Two more vowels, the close-mid front rounded vowel ( ㅚ) and the close front rounded vowel ( ㅟ),[9] can still be heard in the speech of some older speakers, but they have been largely replaced by the diphthongs and, respectively." The reference is Ahn & Iverson 2006, p. 6. (It also says that there is an "almost completely lost" length distinction for each vowel.) --Theurgist (talk) 00:00, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Are these and  - phonemes, in this variety of Korean? This is the question... I assume it depends on whether the parallel diphthongs are phonemes in Modern Korean. HOOTmag (talk) 06:35, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
 * According to Comrie's The World's Major Languages, yes, they are phonemes in free variation with the initial-glide diphthongs Theurgist has mentioned, although Comrie's book is about 4 decades old. I heard the front round monophthongs used by 20-year olds in NYC in the 90's when I frequented a Korean market. μηδείς (talk) 21:52, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Interesting. Thankxs. HOOTmag (talk) 22:27, 6 October 2015 (UTC)