英文是由德文发展而来的, 它是印欧语言中变化最大, 语法简化程度最高的语言, 在语法上, 它由欧洲各语言的黏结体而逐步变成基本和中文一样的分解体. 黏结体的单词在句子中要根据情况做各种变化. 分解体的单字在任何情况下都没有变化.

英文基本变成了属于和中文一样的分解体语言, 但还没有完全变化好, 比如单复数, 动词时态, 受格的 him, 等等还都属于黏结体.

但英文的构词法相当落后, 不能像中文那样用单字组合成新词, 因为那样做, 英文单词
会变得太长, 所以每一概念几乎都要由一个特殊的单词表示. 如 火山, 火苗, 火炉,
火箭, 火花, 火柴, 火把, 用英文表示即: volcano, flame, stove, rocket,
spark, match, torch. 哪种构词法更形象,更简单,更便于记忆?

另外, 中文的成语, 典故, 对联, 字谜, 诗词, 书法, 绕口令, 也是其他语言无法比拟的. 中文是人类的一个奇迹!

"The grammar of a language determines how the conceptual structures are linearized as strings of words in a sentence. English and Chinese, for example, put the subject first, the verb in the middle, and the object at the end for an SVO word order. Irish and Biblical Hebrew are VSO languages that put the verb first. Latin and Japanese are SOV languages that put the verb at the end. The grammar also determines how the units of meaning, called morphemes, are combined to form words.

Chinese is an extreme example of an analytic language in which almost all the morphemes can be used as stand-alone words. German is an agglutinative language, which forms compound words like Lebensversicherungsgesellschaftsangestellter (life insurance company employee). Old English was an agglutinative language like German, but as it evolved into modern English, it became almost as analytic as Chinese. "

from: Concepts in the Lexicon: Introduction , by John F. Sowa