While I understand that the article is more about academic fun than seriousness, it does annoy me that articles like this go "X is not ideal! Y is better than X at foo, and Z is better than X at bar!". You never get a gestalt comparison, just "English is a shit language, because Spanish is better at this one item, and Hawaiian is better at this one item, and Swahili is better at this one item".
You get similar articles in the vein of animal comparison: "The human is physically feeble and weak, because our vision doesn't match that of an eagle, our jaws don't match those of a jaguar, and we can't swim like a dolphin", when in fact, we're physically just fine. Jaguars don't have eagle eyesight either, nor can they swim like dolphins.
> then went on to discuss how English managed to attain its astonishing (and increasing) global status despite its manifest unsuitability.
Not that mysterious: the global superpowers of the 19th (UK) and 20-21st centuries (US) both spoke English, and both were significant exporters of culture. If you wanted to be a have instead of a have-not, you were better off speaking English than Spanish, Hawaiian, or Swahili...
You get similar articles in the vein of animal comparison: "The human is physically feeble and weak, because our vision doesn't match that of an eagle, our jaws don't match those of a jaguar, and we can't swim like a dolphin", when in fact, we're physically just fine. Jaguars don't have eagle eyesight either, nor can they swim like dolphins.
> then went on to discuss how English managed to attain its astonishing (and increasing) global status despite its manifest unsuitability.
Not that mysterious: the global superpowers of the 19th (UK) and 20-21st centuries (US) both spoke English, and both were significant exporters of culture. If you wanted to be a have instead of a have-not, you were better off speaking English than Spanish, Hawaiian, or Swahili...