Here is the paper : http://www.cs.umass.edu/~rsnbrg/hardest.pdf <http://www.cs.umass.edu/~rsnbrg/hardest.pdf> <http://www.cs.umass.edu/~rsnbrg/hardest.pdf> Here is a diagram summarizing the relationships : http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1024 It is worth nothing that this diagram has very little to do with the actual difficulty of learning any of the languages listed. By contrast, whether a language X entered the network as the referent for language Y has to do with the peculiar history of the languages X and Y. The example of the phrase "It is/was (all) Greek to me" would sufficiently make my point. The phrase is from Julius Caesar. (A little bit of Googling revealed the section of the play from which the phrase arose.) What Casca was saying was that he didn't understand what Cicero said because Cicero spoke Greek and Casca did not. Somehow, this entered the English language as implying that that the Greek language itself is somehow hard to learn. Anand == http://blogoftheeruptingvolcano.blogspot.com/2010/07/8-phrases-coined-by\ -shakespeare-still.html
CASSIUS: Did Cicero say any thing? CASCA: Ay, he spoke Greek. CASSIUS: To what effect? CASCA: Nay, an I tell you that, Ill ne'er look you i' the face again: but those that understood him smiled at one another and shook their heads; but, for mine own part, it was Greek to me. I could tell you more news too: Marullus and Flavius, for pulling scarfs off Caesar's images, are put to silence. Fare you well. There was more foolery yet, if I could remember it. --- In [email protected], Dave Long <dave.long@...> wrote: > > > I think It was Greek to Pliny as well. > > there's a paper where someone examined the language network in which > one of the links is "english->greek", in order to find the terminal > "most confusing" language(s). sorry, don't have time to dig up the > reference. > > -Dave >
