

Is English a “writer-responsible language” and Japanese “reader-responsible”? - kwilsom
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=14467

======
jinushaun
Interesting. I wonder if it stems from the difference between grammar.
European languages tend to have a lot of different forms for words based on
tense, case, mood, gender, number, etc. Asian grammar is comparatively
simpler, so understanding comes from context.

As an Asian person, I still don't understand why European languages needs so
much "metadata" to transmit the same message. Likewise, Esperanto is still
much more complex than Asian languages, so it fails as a true IAL for me.

~~~
yongjik
I have a feeling that, when you say "Asian languages", you're probably not
thinking about Japanese. :)

OK, I don't really know Japanese, but (for example) Korean allows thousands of
possible forms for every verb. I don't think "Asian/European" is a useful
category for languages. There's so much variety inside each continent.

------
wodenokoto
This is not a linguistic property of the language. It's a cultural property.

There is nothing in-English about saying McDonalds without adding "is a fast
food chain".

