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The Daily Dish - 2006-2011 archives for The Daily Dish, featuring Andrew Sullivan

The Hardest Language

By The Daily Dish
Jan 4 2010, 8:29 AM ET

The Economist reads up on the most difficult languages. Its pick:

Tuyuca requires verb-endings on statements to show how the speaker knows something. Diga ape-wi means that “the boy played soccer (I know because I saw him)”, while diga ape-hiyi means “the boy played soccer (I assume)”. English can provide such information, but for Tuyuca that is an obligatory ending on the verb. Evidential languages force speakers to think hard about how they learned what they say they know.



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