Having just read on another string: Luther is said to have once commented, “Hebrew is as deep as an ocean, Greek as deep as a river and Latin as deep as a puddle!†– I was wondering, for those polyglots out there – what is/are the best/deepest/most expressive language(s)?
mrn
the most expressive language is the one you speak…
but there are nuances in each language…
take the inuit languages… they have over 50 words for cold…
-Imp
Well the most expressive language one can use is the one you can speak, but how many nuances are there compared to possible learned other languages? How many connections are there between ideas? Greek has about four words for love: does that rate higher than # of kinds of cold or ice? How many words for love do the Inuits have?
-Imp
my real name,
I have found that the power of a language lies not only what it can say – with perhaps an abundance of vocabulary for particular things – but what it cannot say. For in every language there are aporias, things for which there are no words. And these empty spaces are not so much a deficit in the language, but the evocative space in which unsaid things can be imagined or projected. If the Inuits have 15 words for snow, it is because snow is no mystery to them, but a highly specified and described event. Any Inuit cannot say “Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Eveningâ€, because the necessary ambiguity and aura would be transcribed into something much different. If you want to find out the most hallowed or profane aspects of a language, find the parts of their world that cannot be described, the one for which there are no specific words no technical labels. I am told that in Tuscan dialect there is a word for the exact moment when a flower has reached its bloom and is tipping toward loosing it. For the speakers of that dialect, this moment cannot evoke, it can only be.
Dunamis
Mathematics.
Music…
those who spend time studying dead languages, have less time to study the truly important things.
the best language is Ge’ez as everyone knows
Untrue. Although Eskimo-Aelut languages have a larger vocabulary of “cold”, none of them have “50 words for cold”.
Inuktitut has two:
Iñupiaq has three:
It’s been a while since I studied either language, my spellings / defitions may be slightly off as I’m doing this by memory, but that’s the gist of it. 
Anyway, to the topic-at-hand; I would say that each language has its stregnths and weaknesses. I’d vote for mathematics as it’s the most fundamental of them all.
-Imp
Also, body language…
first off, clasifications of languages are possible, and it may benefit you to look into it. while a phonetical approach is possible (which language has the most vowels ? which uses the tiniest differences to differentiate phonems ? etc) and a vocabulary approach is just as possible (which has most words ? for instance hungarian speakers know close to a million, is hungarian superior to english ?) they are of little importance whenever anything like depth of meaning is considered. after all, computers only have 2 letters, and yet they can manage anything written in any language. just takes them time. so, the more words, the faster not deeper.
greek in particular, and hebrew to some degree rely alot on metaphores to convey meaning. english does it too, but not much, and latin almost not at all. does this prove depth ? to luther it did. to modern linguists it does not necessarily.
fact of the matter is, languages evolve as a result of people’s needs. thus, if your intellectual capacities for finesse and depth exceed some language you try to speak, you will simply sound very poetic and that’s that.
Welcome back, Hermes 3G, good to see you!
Elbethil, thanks very much for sharing your knowledge!
There are truely important things written in “dead languages” – great things, forgotten things.
Okay, so Dunamis and Zenofeller seem to be pointing out that words entomb ideas (Nietzsche?) You know, poetry ain’t that easy, and it is another way to convey meaning. Meaning which has not yet been tamed. Yet, can a language be deeper because it’s less scientific? I find that a little unsettling. 
mrn
my real name, what i was trying to point out is that
A language, in and by itself
IS NOT SCIENTIFIC
IS NOT DEEP
IS NOT USEFULL
IS NOT MEANINGFULL
so forth.
I’ll second zenofeller’s observation. If there were such a language that could express complete understanding, we would all be using it. The connection between language and understanding is dependent on one’s cultural reference and field of experience.
If you look carefully at most of the posts in this forum, they are either a question or response to: what do you mean by what you are saying?
JT
Curious. What would you say if I said your post contribution
“is not scientific, is not deep, is not useful, is not meaningful” and “so forth”?
(Not that I believe it to be such.)
mrn
I don’t know tentative. I thought that was just because many of the writers are post-Wittgenstein – or innocents expanding the meaning of language in the original question.
mrn
mrn,
Yes, and in ‘expanding the meaning’ we find the weakness of language. If language were capable within in it’s own form and content, why would one have need to ‘expand the meaning’? All language (with the possible exception of mathematics) is approximate and depends on reciprosity with the communicant - ie - meaning is filtered through your particular and unique field of experience
If I say the word sunshine, you and almost everyone else would know exactly that I’m referring to the sun’s radiation, correct?
That I’m thinking of a little mountain town in the Salmon River back country in Idaho named Sunshine (lovely place) might create a little confusion.
And so we’re back where we started. What do you mean by what you say? 
JT
Right. Language without concept means nothing.