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Re:The Awful German Language (1880) by pantalaimon on Saturday October 06, 2018 @04:03AM (#18154108)
I think all this unnecessary 'clutter' serves as error correction when spoken.

Even if you don't fully understand a word, you can piece together from the context what was said.

Re:The Awful German Language (1880) by ur-whale on Saturday October 06, 2018 @06:20AM (#18154410)
That's a common sophism that completely ignores the cost/benefit trade-off of those supposedly useful error correction mechanisms.

In German for example, they're IMO total overkill (as in cost far outweighs benefit).

But then, you have to take into account that over-engineering things is a national hobby in Germany.

The question becomes chicken-and-egg: did the language induce the cultural trait or did the cultural trait structure the language.