[KS] the Korean language

Lee JooBai jblee6952 at hotmail.com
Wed Apr 9 18:07:49 EDT 2003


Hi,

Is there a measure of how scientific a language is?
Is it even a relevant question to ask?

Were there to be an answer and were it to prove to be
that language K is not as scientific as language
Y, will the questioner find it a blow to her self confidence?

Or, should it indeed prove to be that language K is
the most "scientific" of all languages, will she
be rushing to sign up for the courses in language K?

And if the language K is a mixture of languages KO,CH, and EN
in the proportions of 20%, 70% , and 10%, respectively,
should the "scientificness" be the weighted average of the
"scientificness" of respective languages?

It is not clear that the question is one that can be easily
answered and possibly one really belonging with the questions
of how "beautiful" a language is.

On the face of it, the question may not even be deserving of
an answer.  But it would be interesting were there to be such
a measure.

It is also a very odd question on the face of it as I suppose
the most important question one would ask in learning anything
new would be "How profitable is it to learn it given that the
learner must make an investment of precious time and effort?"

Were the question be one of profitability in the modern world, the
answer is unquestionably English.  Why bother with anything else?
What other country would give tenure to a foreigner or allow a
foreigner to participate as fully in its social and economic life?

And among the East Asian languages, the profitability scale would
be from the top to bottom, Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, Thai,
and Korean.

But then, is the question really about why should anybody study
Korean?

I do think Korean is beautiful, poetic, and scientific.  And
surely it would be porfitable for you to learn it if you have
the time and are willing to make the effort.

For most people, the attachment to a language is a matter of
birth.  For everyone on the list, it is also surely a matter of
attachment.

And on the face of it, the question does not allow for an easy
answer, and yet it surely deserves a considered answer.

Regards,

JooBai Lee



>From: jaynee <jayne at newdream.net>
>
>
>Hello,
>
>I am a second generation Korean-American who knows very little Korean.
>However, my parents and my older sister (who knows more Korean and has
>spent time in Korea) like to rattle off an interesting fact on occasion.
>They say Korean is the most scientific (spoken?) language in the world.  I
>ran a Google search and other Koreans say this on their personal website,
>but I do not know who else thinks this.  One website mentioned that it was
>supported by a German anthropologist, but it did not mention his name.  Do
>you know if this is true and if so, what was the anthropologist's
>name and title of study?
>
>Sincerely,
>Jayne Jung
>


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