While the consensus is turning towards recognizing that complexity is a suitable research area, a central focus has been on methodological choices.
[4][5] On the other hand, Friedrich Schlegel noted that some nations "which appear to be at the very lowest grade of intellectual culture", such as Basque, Sámi and some native American languages, possess a striking degree of elaborateness.
[4] During the 20th century, linguists and anthropologists adopted a standpoint that would reject any nationalist ideas about superiority of the languages of establishment.
The first known quote that puts forward the idea that all languages are equally complex comes from Rulon S. Wells III, 1954, who attributes it to Charles F.
At a general level, language complexity can be characterized as the number and variety of elements, and the elaborateness of their interrelational structure.
[11][12] This general characterisation can be broken down into sub-areas: Measuring complexity is considered difficult, and the comparison of whole natural languages as a daunting task.
Research suggests that while methodological choices affect the results, even rather crude analytic tools may provide a feasible starting point for measuring grammatical complexity.