Wow, there is quite a lot in your question here. First, I think it is true that a broadly 'analytic' approach is probably dominant in the English speaking world, but I wouldn't say that all of philosophy is 'analytic'. Also, I don't think that the broadly analytic approach is reducible to 'rigorous linguistics.' Yes, there is a corner of the philosophical world that never seems to argue about anything other than linguistics, but it seems pretty clear to me that it is only a small portion of philosophy. I still think there are important debates that are being examined.... for example in ethics compare John Rawls's A Theory of Justice , Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue or Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry , and Peter Singer's How Are We To Live? these thinkers are certainly engaging in very substantial debates. Or in philosophy of religion read J.L. Mackie's Miracle of Theism and Richard Swinburne's The Existence of God . I'm sure other panelists could come up with their...

Sure, but there are several different things we could mean by saying that one language is more difficult than other. One language could have more complex grammatical rules than another. Another language might have simpler grammatical rules, but have more irregularities that break those rules (I am told that English is notorious for having a large number of irregularities). One language might have more letters, words, or use more sounds than another. We also might mean that one language is harder than another in the sense that learning it might be harder for me based on what I already know. For example, a native English speaker might find Latin relatively easy to learn due to the fact that it uses the same alphabet as English and because many English words have Latin roots and therefore many similar words have similar meanings in the two languages. In contrast, that same person might find Thai to be difficult to learn due to its foreign alphabet, unfamiliar pronunciations, and lack of similarities...