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" To make a long story short, there is no way to devise an objective and non-arbitrary measure for comparing the overall complexity of any two given languages. It's not simply that no one has bothered to do it--it's inherently impossible even if one tried. So where does all this leave the dogma of equal complexity? When Joe, Piers, and Tom claim that "primitive people speak primitive languages," they are making a simple and eminently meaningful statement, which just happens to be factually incorrect. But the article of faith that linguists swear by is even worse than wrong--it is meaningless. The alleged central finding of the discipline is nothing more than a hollow mouthful of air, since in the absence of a definition for the overall complexity of a language, the statement that "all languages are equally complex" makes about as much sense as the assertion that "all languages are equally cornflakes". "

Guy Deutscher , Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages


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Guy Deutscher quote : To make a long story short, there is no way to devise an objective and non-arbitrary measure for comparing the overall complexity of any two given languages. It's not simply that no one has bothered to do it--it's inherently impossible even if one tried. So where does all this leave the dogma of equal complexity? When Joe, Piers, and Tom claim that