Huh? What is a synthetic language? Polyester??
Analytical language? What is that?
I suspect some of my readers are acquainted with the differences between analytical and synthetic languages. I, however, must admit I had never heard these words used to describe language (or to differentiate among languages) until one of my readers (thank you, Bruce Blakely) suggested that I write a blog post about the topic. Well, that led me to look into it.
If you have ever studied Latin, you might easily understand the difference between synthetic and analytic languages. English, although at one time more synthetic, is now a pretty analytical language. Latin, which no one uses anymore, is quite synthetic. I will explain.
A synthetic language changes the actual word to use it differently in a sentence. For example, in Latin there are five cases for nouns. If you use a noun as the subject of a sentence (nominative case), it is a different form than if you use it as a direct object (accusative case). Puella is nominative case for girl; puellam is accusative (if I remember correctly). In English, we use the word girl to mean a girl however we use it (except we do have possessive, where it is slightly changed). However, we put it in a different part of the sentence depending on how we use it. So in English, word position is significant. In some languages, the verb form always changes with tense. In English, we use auxiliary words often (not always) to change tense: I run; I will run; I have run. The verb stays the same most of the time. Of course, there are verbs that change with tense ( eat, ate, eaten, for example) as in some other more synthetic languages.
No language is completely one or the other, but languages tend to be more analytical or more synthetic. The Czech language is still largely synthetic with seven noun cases and many different verb forms. Spanish is now somewhere in between, having different verb forms but the same noun forms. English has gone from synthetic into the analytic.
Languages that have influenced English:
5% Greek
7,5% Latin
40% Anglo-Saxon
15% Norse
30% French
2.5% other languages
The Oxford English dictionary has about 300,000 entries, not including scientific and technical words. An educated English speaker, however, only uses about 30,000 words, one tenth of the available words.
Thanks for this website for some of the language information.
Latin is still the official language of the Vatican
Latin numerals are still in use where a double system is required
Thank you!
Thanks for the great post. I am learning Spanish, and it is far more synthetic than English. My first language is German, and I wonder where it falls on the synthetic versus analytic range.
Hmmmm. Good question. Are there different forms for nouns depending on usage? Verbs? Then it must lean toward synthetic.