Is there evidence that scholars made some languages willingly easier (fewer rules, more rational) or harder (many rules and exceptions) to learn in order to allow it to spread better or, on the contrary, to keep it as the mark of the elite ?

by _Oce_

Typically, as a French, English seems much more rational and easier to learn than French with its large collection of grammatical rules, tenses, and exceptions to the rules as numerous as the rules themselves.

So I wonder if it is scholars in one language or the other that willingly pushed the language to one side (and to what end?) rather than just the natural evolution of the language.

Ochd12

The “number of rules and exceptions” isn’t everything that makes it more complicated.

I look at French and see four ways to say the word “small” - petit, petits, petite, petites. Straight forward stuff. I look at Icelandic and see 48 forms (although many repeating) of the same adjective, not to mention comparatives and superlatives. Does that make Icelandic much more complicated? Maybe in the nominal system, I guess.

Then I look at verbs. Icelandic has two tenses, French however many (5 at least off the top of my head). Does that make French more complicated? Not necessarily, because the same information gets conveyed in Icelandic - they just go about it a different way (such as a form with a very similar meaning as English -ing, which is a construction French lacks). What about do-support in English? Does that mean it’s more complex?

“Rules and exceptions” is a weird way to look at things, because it’s not always easy to tell which is which.