Originally posted to sff.people.lwe on March 23, 2006:
I have a theory — not a very serious one — that languages are optimized for specific uses. German’s good for giving orders, Italian’s good for singing, Spanish is good for gossiping, English is good for explaining.
And Mandarin Chinese is good for arguing.
Any comments? Suggestions for other languages?
Italian was literally designed to be good for poetry.
Well, sort of, as much as it was designed at all.