Is there any scientific or objective way to measure how "expressive" a language is?

To provide just a glimpse of how expressive Lithuanian can be, just a some derivations from the verb valgyti (to eat):

valgąs — present active participle

valgęs — past active participle

valgydavęs — frequentative past active participle

valgysiąs — future active participle

valgomas — present passive participle

valgytas — past passive participle

valgysimas — future passive participle

valgant — adverbial present active participle

valgius — adverbial past active participle

valgydavus — adverbial frequentative past active participle

valgysiant — adverbial future active participle

valgydamas — special adverbial present active participle

valgytinas — participle of necessity

The approximate meanings:

valgąs — 'the one who is eating'

valgęs — 'the one who ate; has eaten; was eating'

valgydavęs — 'the one who used to eat'

valgysiąs — 'the one who will be eating'

valgomas — 'something that is being eaten'

valgytas — 'something that has been eaten'

valgysimas — 'something which will be eaten'

valgant — 'while eating'

valgius — 'after having eaten'

valgydavus — 'after having eaten repeatedly'

valgysiant — 'having to eat'

valgydamas — 'eating'

valgytinas — 'something to be eaten'

Taken from http://www.lituanus.org/1984_3/84_3_05.htm

All of those, which can be applied to prefixed verbs [1], such as the ones below derived from the verb "valgyti" (to eat) [2]:

antsivalgyti - (with genitive) to eat one's fill (of); to fill up (on)

apvalgyti - (with accusative) to eat (someone) out of house and home

įvalgyti - to be able to eat up; to be able to consume

išvalgyti - to eat up; to devour; to eat away

pravalgyti - to spend (one's money) on food

privalgyti - to eat one's fill

suvalgyti - to eat up; to consume

užvalgyti - to eat a snack

[1]: http://www.lituanus.org/1991_4/91_4_06.htm

[2]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/valgyti#Derived_terms

But you gave English translations for all of those examples. So they don’t actually show that Lithuanian is more expressive than English.

One word instead of four is quite expressive, I'd say.

Actually, Lithuanian is the most archaic language in Europe, which is what makes it so good.

Lithuanian is very conservative in some aspects, and very progressive in others. For example, it has lost the neutral gender and it has innovated some cases that didn't exist in PIE. There is no scientific, consistent way to call it as a whole more archaic than any other language.

> Lithuanian is the most archaic language in Europe

By what metric?

> which is what makes it so good

By what metric?

By most archaic language they are probably referring to Lithuanian being considered closest to Proto-Indo-European in terms of language features: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_language

I’ve heard this and also heard it’s mostly complete rubbish. It might technically be the closest but that is still not close at all, simplifying like this doesn’t really help anything.

   > and the one I am currently learning (Lithuanian).

Smagu matyti, kai nelietuviai mokosi lietuvių kalbos. Sėkmės!

Ačiū! Aš pradėjau mokytis lietuvių kalbą todėl šeimos priežasčių.

Dabar, aš mokausi todėl, kad tai man yra viena iš gražaisių kalbų pasaulyje: kaip tai gražiai garsa, koks ekspressiva lietuvių kalba yra ir kiek įdomios knygos parašytos lietuviškai! :)

Oh, feel free to correct my mistakes! :D

Puiku!

   > Oh, feel free to correct my mistakes! :

If you wish so ;)

I will have my comments in Lithuanian, I think you will be able to understand them just fine.

1. „mokytis lietuvių kalbą“ -> „mokytis lietuvių kalbos“ [0].

2. „todėl šeimos priežasčių“ keisčiau į „dėl šeimyininių aplinkybių“. „Todėl“ čia netinka: jis prasmiškai artimesnis angliškam „thus“, o anglišką „for/because of“ atitinka „dėl“. Pavyzdžiui: „automobilis sugedo, todėl pavėlavau į darbą“ ir „Į darbą pavėlavau dėl automobilio gedimo“.

3. „viena iš gražaisių kalbų pasaulyje“ — beveik idealu, tik „gražaisių“ turi būti „gražiausių“.

4. „kaip tai gražiai garsa“ — turbūt norėta pasakyti „kaip tai gražiai skamba“. "a sound" (noun) -> „garsas“. "to sound" (verb) -> „skambėti“. Stilistiškai vietoj tai „tai“ geriau tiktų „ji“.

5.„koks ekspressiva lietuvių kalba yra“ -> „kokia išraiškinga lietuvių kalba yra“ arba šiek tiek geriau stilistiškai: „kokia išraiškinga yra lietuvių kalba“. „Kalba“ — moteriškos giminės, todėl „kokia“, ne „koks“.

6. „įdomios knygos parašytos lietuviškai“ — nors atskirai paėmus ši frazė gramatiškai teisinga, bet šiame kontekste (su „kiek“) taisyklingiau būtų „kiek įdomių knygų parašyta lietuviškai“.

Nepaisant kelių klaidų, dar kartą noriu pasidžiaugti, kad yra žmonių, kuriems ši kalba patinka ir kurie jos mokosi. Kuo didžiausios sėkmės!

[0] http://www.vlkk.lt/konsultacijos/3919-mokytis-ka

Sometimes it feels like Lithuanian (as well as a number of other languages like Vietnamese) could benefit from having its own alphabet.

Well, we do have it. Of course, it is Latin based, but still.

The reason, in this case, is mostly historical (religious affiliation). At the same time, Latin alphabet is phonetic and as such it is not really a good single base for many languages that have more sounds than Latin (even there some letters represent two different sounds). Excessive use of diacritics is not a good solution. Some languages address this by mixing several base alphabets, but ideally, each should have its own alphabet; besides the obvious advantage, this allows to avoid issues arising from the sharing of an alphabet between completely different languages (like "literal" carrying over personal names etc. without taking their pronunciation into account; this issue even exists in regard to Chinese, where names spelled in pinyin are carried over into English leaving them unpronounceable for a native English reader; but forget pinyin: here is a last name - Chrzaszcz - you'll have a hard time even remembering how to pronounce it a while after you have been told how).

Lithuanian is mostly phonetic. And "mostly" here is just a precaution to take some edge cases into account. Some diacritics just modify the length of the base sound (Ą, Ę, Į, Ų, Ū). I would not say that case Ė, Č, Š and Ž warrant having a completely new alphabet. If that was a case pretty much any language that has Latin-based alphabet should get a new one, because pretty much all of them have their own additions.