On Wed, 15 Dec 2004, Charmian wrote: > Agreed. I don't know how linguists could prove that one language is > inherently more difficult in terms of grammar than another, since no > one does not have a native language. The best they could do is study > language acquisition in infants, but when they do that, they find that > kids learn their native language all about the same time. We discussed this a number of months back, at which time I proposed comparing the acquisition rate of language B by language A speakers with the A-B rate. > Studies have shown, however, that English is harder to read and write > than many other European languages. Interesting - from the point of view of concision, English usually wins - that could work either way.