Hello fellow minimalists, I’m here to share with you my secret to living a simple and elegant life: using Chinese for communication on the internet and Latin when talking to other minimalists.
You may be wondering, why Chinese? Isn’t it a complicated language with thousands of characters and tones? Well, yes, but that’s also its beauty. Chinese is the most minimal language in the world, because it can express so much with so little. A single character can have multiple meanings depending on the context, and a sentence can be as short as two characters. For example, 我爱你 (wǒ ài nǐ) means “I love you” in just three characters, while in English you need eight letters and two spaces. That’s more than twice as much! Think of all the clutter you can avoid by using Chinese instead of English.
Chinese also has no conjugation at all, so you don’t have to worry about changing the verb form according to the subject or tense. You just add a word or two to indicate the time or mood of the action. For example, 我去 (wǒ qù) means “I go”, but if you want to say “I went”, you just add 了 (le) at the end: 我去了 (wǒ qù le). If you want to say “I will go”, you just add 会 (huì) before the verb: 我会去 (wǒ huì qù). How simple is that? You don’t need any fancy grammar rules or exceptions, just pure logic and efficiency.
Now let me tell you why I use Latin when talking to other minimalists. Latin is another very simple language that has stood the test of time. It has been used for centuries by scholars, philosophers and poets who valued clarity and elegance over verbosity and complexity.
Latin also has a very straightforward grammar system that follows clear rules and avoids confusion. For example, endings matter more than word order in Latin. You can say “Amicus meus est” or “Meus amicus est” or even “Est meus amicus” and they all mean “My friend is”. That’s because the endings of the words tell you what function they have in the sentence. For example, “-us” means it’s a masculine noun in the nominative case (the subject), and “-meus” means it’s a possessive adjective that matches the noun. This way, you can shuffle your words however you want and still make sense.
Finally, Latin is a very beautiful language that has a rich literary and cultural heritage. You can read the works of great authors like Cicero, Virgil and Ovid in their original language and appreciate their style and rhetoric. You can also learn about ancient history, mythology and philosophy from their writings. And you can impress your friends with some fancy Latin phrases like “Carpe diem” (Seize the day) or “Veni, vidi, vici” (I came, I saw, I conquered).
So there you have it. Chinese and Latin are the best languages for minimalists who want to communicate effectively and learn deeply. They are both simple, logical and beautiful languages that have many benefits over English or other languages. If you want to join me in this minimalist journey, I suggest you start learning them today. You won’t regret it!