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Which Language is Hardest?

Arnold Rosenberg wrote an interesting paper (PDF link) on this topic, which Raffi Krikorian has posted on his site, Wasted Bits. The paper deals with how speakers of various languages perceive the difficulty of other spoken languages.

Via Boing Boing

Posted by Songdog on April 24, 2002 08:47 AM |

Comments

I should point out that the paper, while published in an actual linguistics journal, is not meant seriously -- it's a bit of japery of the sort that used to appear in the much-lamented Journal of Irreproducible Results.

(You knew I wouldn't be able to resist commenting on this!)

Posted by: steve | April 24, 2002 11:14 AM

I particularly enjoyed the parody of the "anthropological style" of referencing: "Alcuin. 800. Letter to Charlemagne," referenced in the text as Alcuin 800.

Posted by: steve | April 24, 2002 11:24 AM

You should let the folks at Boing Boing know :)

Posted by: Songdog | April 24, 2002 11:44 AM

Already done!

Posted by: steve | April 24, 2002 01:08 PM

Also check out the dialog developing in the comments section of Wasted Bits.

Posted by: steve | April 24, 2002 03:06 PM

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