英文是由德文發展而來的, 它是印歐語言中變化最大, 語法簡化程度最高的語言, 在語法上, 它由歐洲各語言的黏結體而逐步變成基本和中文一樣的分解體. 黏結體的單詞在句子中要根據情況做各種變化. 分解體的單字在任何情況下都沒有變化.

英文基本變成了屬於和中文一樣的分解體語言, 但還沒有完全變化好, 比如單複數, 動詞時態, 受格的 him, 等等還都屬於黏結體.

但英文的構詞法相當落後, 不能像中文那樣用單字組合成新詞, 因為那樣做, 英文單詞
會變得太長, 所以每一概念幾乎都要由一個特殊的單詞表示. 如 火山, 火苗, 火爐,
火箭, 火花, 火柴, 火把, 用英文表示即: volcano, flame, stove, rocket,
spark, match, torch. 哪種構詞法更形象,更簡單,更便於記憶?

另外, 中文的成語, 典故, 對聯, 字謎, 詩詞, 書法, 繞口令, 也是其他語言無法比擬的. 中文是人類的一個奇蹟!

"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