Re: Emacs learning curve

[Juanma Barranquero]

On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 20:50, Drew Adams <address@hidden> wrote:

> Mandarin is bigger than Spanish and English combined.

Yes, though that's likely related to the fact that what Chinese
linguistics call dialects, indoeuropeists would call languages
(meaning that there are likely "mandarin speakers" whose native
language is as different as Portuguese is from Spanish).

> English is #2 in total speakers (50% more than Spanish).

Yes, of course.

> That underlines the fact that no one knows - these are only
> estimates.

Reading the Language Log has given me a healthy distrust of most
numbers quoted on linguistics claims in the internet or the press.

> Interestingly (surprising to me, at least), there are more secondary speakers 
> of
> French than of English (and Spanish is #5 in secondary speakers).

Not surprising to me. French has long been considered a "language of
culture". Even in Spanish-speaking countries, French as a second
language was for a long time much more common than English (I should
know, I was never taught English).

> Almost anything is simpler and much more regular than English.
> Even Emacs.

True :-)

> And that alphabet was
> designed once and for all back in the 1500s, if I'm not mistaken.  A good
> example of the value of careful study and good design.

And a good example of politics; it wasn't official until ~1890 because
it gave the common people too much power.

> BTW, I heard on the radio the other day that they ("They" (TM)) have logged 
> the
> one-millionth word in English.  It was "Web 2.0", IIRC.  "Defriend" was also a
> recent one.  By contrast, French was clocked at about 250,000 words.

I heartily recommend the Language Log posts about the "million word".

> Like sluts everywhere, English is not picky about what it picks up.  French is
> picky (or it would like to be).  In English you can verb any noun.

Calvin said it succinctly: "verbing weirds things".

(And, as everybody knows, if there's two things the anglo-saxon
culture should be remembered for, surely they are Shakespeare and
Calvin & Hobbes :-)

    Juanma