Elizabeth said:
Because you can't say something in the vein of "I've finally decided to use the interest on the money earned last summer traveling around doing part time work as a glass technician at a factory in Minnesota my stepfather inherited five years ago to buy my kid sister a garnet necklace for her next marriage next year." and all clauses and phrases need to at least have an implied particle, the entire language is somehow irreparably deficient and doomed from the outset ?
It may be hard to grasp if you haven't analysed the evolution and fate of other languages, but yes. Why do you think classical Latin was replaced by vulgar Latin, which evolved in the modern Romance languages ? The grammar was just too complex and inflexible. As a result, it disappeared. The same happened with Old English, which had declinations like in Latin, German, Russia, or I'd say Japanese to some extend (the postpositions like wa, ga, ni, wo... have the same function).
And that is not all. French became Europe's lingua franca after (vulgar) Latin and remained it until the early 20th century. Why do you think English replaced it ? Because its grammar is simpler (little conjugation, no gender for things which don't have one...) more efficient (more flexible structure, nouns can act as verbs, ease to coin up new words...) and its vocabulary bigger (from the fusion of some 6 languages in time). I am very aware of this, as French is my mother-tongue. You could believe that people usually find their own language better than others (especially proud French-speakers, whose language is considered the most refined, beautiful, etc.). But I am not a sentimentalist. I learn languages, "test them" and see which one works best. Japanese is my 7th language, and I'd say it is the best for expressing one's emotions, thanks to the many meaningless word that coney some feelings (da yo, desu ne, nan desu, kanaa...).
But as an intellectual and coldly logical and rational person, my preference goes for English - not French, not German and not Japanese. Naturally this is only the way I feel about these languages. But seeing how the popularity of English (again, not French and not Japanese) is increasing as a world language, even in continental Europe or in China, I can only assume that there are good reasons other than political or the beauty of Shakespeare's tongue for it. But that doesn't mean English speakers should not learn other languages ! As I say, Japanese is superior for expressing emotions, and French or Italian are more beautiful (subjective as this statement may be). But learning other languages also open up the mind, which is the prime reason people should do it.