Essentialist Explanations of Language
The Essentialist Explanations page “comprises a list of 876 ‘essentialist explanations’ of the form ‘Language X is essentially language Y under conditions Z’.”
Here’re a few I like:
Vietnamese is essentially Thai with a Chinese vocabulary.
–Danny Wier
Korean is essentially angry Japanese with a speech impediment.
–Aeron Lempert
Basque is Klingon spoken by people who don’t want to be Spanish.
–Gordon Boddington
Argentinean is essentially Italian spoken so that other South Americans can catch on.
–ilvi
Taiwanese sounds essentially like a room full of rubber balls.
–Adam Walker
Dog is essentially a language spoken while begging for food.
–Dan Seriff