[Nyororin]

From the view of a linguist...

As far as languages go, English is actually one of the harder to master. There is a mix of rules from other languages that have been absorbed, making any "rule" far from definite.

When it comes to the "easiest" language out there - supposedly there is an African language that takes that title. It has no tenses or particles, and the order of words in a sentence is free. The number of words in a sentence is limited to 4 or 5.

Ex. I kick ball before / Before ball I kick / Ball kick I before / Kick ball I before / etc etc for expressing "I kicked the ball". "I *will* kick the ball" is the same, but with "before" replaced by "after".

For the life of me, I can`t remember the name of the language. *sigh* The "ease" of mastery for communication lowers the artistic expressive capabilities, so there is little or no literature or poetry... When written, it is used almost entirely as a record taking tool.

But, to recover from that tangent...

I think that the author is confusing a language being "easy" with a language having high levels of penetration. The high levels of penetration don`t mean the language is easy, nor that it is easier to learn. It just means that there are higher levels of exposure... which translates into less energy expended by the learner to encounter the language. It says nothing about the language itself.