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What are examples, if any, of "sensible" languages?

Occams Barber

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The word ye also means you, as in "Come all Ye Faithful."

True - sometimes 'ye' (the) gets confused with 'ye' (you). Ye (the) is actually pronounced the same as 'the'.

How did you type the thorn on your keyboard?

To type þ use ALT + 0254.

This is a different version call 'eth' - ð (ALT + 0240) (I've bolded and increased the font size to make it clearer)

OB
 
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Occams Barber

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Now you know about thorn and eth you should have no trouble translating this bit of Old English.

HINT 1. try reading it out loud pronouncing each letter individually. Listen to the sound. Don't be confused by the spelling.
HINT 2. it's probably the best known piece of scripture there is.


Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum;
Si þin nama gehalgod
to becume þin rice
gewurþe ðin willa
on eorðan swa swa on heofonum.
urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg
and forgyf us ure gyltas
swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum
and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge
ac alys us of yfele
soþlice


OB
 
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JSRG

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True. Though like I said, and this is why it's hard for me to decide whether I see articles as unnecessary, is that even though most of the time they don't add any information, sometimes they do clarify a meaning. There are, for example, some passages in the New Testament that are more ambiguous because Greek back then didn't have an indefinite article.

To me, "general" usage of prepositions isn't too bad when learning another language, e.g. the fact you say "on the table" rather than "in the table", "of the table", "with the table," etc. The hardest part about prepositions is remembering when a verb requires it, because you not only have to remember the verb itself, but what preposition to use. For example, in English you don't look something; instead, you look at something. Without the preposition "at" the sentence is ungrammatical (e.g. "I look the sky"). So not only do you have to remember the verb itself, you also have to remember that it requires the preposition.

This makes some sense for verbs that change meaning based on prepositions (e.g. compare "to count", which means determine the number of, versus "to count on", which means to rely on) but verbs that always require a preposition might as well not even have one.

The downside of that is, if my understanding of Finnish is correct (and it might not be), Finnish has a complex noun case system, right? English word order might be restrictive, but it means that aside from pronouns, the nouns stay the same no matter what they're being used for. The general rule of "subject verb object" seems simpler (at least for someone trying to learn the language) than having to remember all of the different case forms.
 
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Kalevalatar

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To me, "general" usage of prepositions isn't too bad when learning another language, e.g. the fact you say "on the table" rather than "in the table", "of the table", "with the table," etc.

Here in Finland, Finnish speaking pupils usually learn Swedish and English side by side, which means that you can go from a Swedish class to a English class back-to-back. No problem if and when the logic of prepositions remains the same: på bussen, på tåget men i bilen -- on the bus, on the train but in the car. But there are exceptions, and that's when it gets trickier to try and remember which language uses what preposition again.


Absolutely. The Finnish noun cases, although very challenging to foreigners, do allow a lot expressiveness, however. You can put so much nuance in there just by adding a few more letters or playing with the order of the word. Laulella and lauleskella are so much more vivid activities than the plain laulaa, to sing.
 
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