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A comment on Hand of Irulegi: ancient artefact could help trace origins of Basque language. Parent comment

Re:Hand of Irulegi: ancient artefact could help trace origin... by thaumasiotes on Wednesday November 16, 2022 @07:54PM (#33633440)
> In Linguistics the notion that a language is more difficult/complex than another is not accepted.

This is not quite true; it is widely accepted that certain languages are less complex than most others. A few languages can't be less complex without most languages being more complex.

Interestingly, among the examples of languages losing complexity due to real-world interactions are English and Mandarin Chinese, both of which endless people will be happy to tell you are uniquely difficult.

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Re:Hand of Irulegi: ancient artefact could help trace origin... by thylacine222 on Wednesday November 16, 2022 @11:06PM (#33634835)
> This is not quite true; it is widely accepted that certain languages are less complex than most others.

This is just false, it is not widely accepted.

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Re:Hand of Irulegi: ancient artefact could help trace origin... by thaumasiotes on Thursday November 17, 2022 @12:56AM (#33635493)
It might be false, but it is in fact widely accepted. Where are you getting your information from?

See e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33629425

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Re:Hand of Irulegi: ancient artefact could help trace origin... by thylacine222 on Thursday November 17, 2022 @01:59AM (#33635840)
I was saying that it is false that is is widely accepted.

I am a linguist, that's where my knowledge of what is widely accepted in our field comes from.

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