Broken
From Carls wiki
A feature of a language is broken if it
- is based on a regular system,
- deviates from the regular system in various ways, and
- the deviations cannot be motivated by rational reasons, only by aesthetic or historical ones.
As far as I know, I'm the only one who uses the term "broken" in this way, but it feels like a sane use of the word in this context.
It is, I guess, debatable how bad it is that natural languages often have a lot of broken features. All I know is that I often appreciate non-brokenness in a language to a great extent.
The term is inherently biased insofar as it portrays superfluous irregularities as something undesirable. Even though I'm not sure on what foot to stand in the issue myself, I've intentionally meant the word to be used so as to convey the bias. Those who find the idea of brokenness silly can simply choose not to make use of the term.
Things that are borken
These are just examples.
- Number systems in many languages
- Gender — though this is debatable
- Irregular verbs
