Contents › Section 5: Sociolinguistics, historical development and politics › answer 6 of 45
Are languages that can derive more meaning from context more advanced?
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The responses so far have been that no language is "more evolved" than others. But in fact, no language needs more or less context than another. Context is essential in interpreting all language. What varies is what type of construction needs what type of context.
All languages are redundant. They're just redundant in different places in different ways. A great example is plural marking. Strictly speaking, you almost never need the plural marking to get the plural meaning across. The context almost always provides enough information. And it always does in counting. Thus some languages (like Hungarian or Chinese) don't have plural marking on nouns preceded by numbers. But they may require some other redundant feature such as Chinese structural particles. Most often these contribute to some kind of overall cohesion (agreement, vowel harmony, etc.)
You will find similar variation in gender or tense markings. Some languages always specify a time reference or a category reference, others very rarely do.
Also, you should not that what is obligatory in written language could well not be required in spoken language. So the example you give, would be relatively plausible in certain types of English spoken discourse.
© Dominik Lukeš. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Originally published on Linguistics Stack Exchange, attributed there to Dominik Lukes (profile).