Making a Language for EVERYONE..?
ca, kivuye
Ubutumwa 15
ururimi: English
eugenerator4 (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 20 Ruheshi 2012 06:25:16
I'm only 18, and I'm not nearly as educated about linguistics as a lot of you guys, so maybe the answer isn't as complicated as I am making it. But, given the extraordinary diversity of languages on our planet, is it really reasonable to attempt to make a language that is accessible to everyone? I'm asking this because I saw several posts on the thread about Esperanto being Pro-Genocide that discussed how Esperanto is clearly bias towards Westerners. Which then lead me to think, "Well, then we need to make a language that is less Western and more globalized. But then..how would you even do that?" I feel throwing in a bunch of languages into one would make it less accessible for EVERYONE (which, I suppose would be more "fair" as it would require roughly the same amount of effort to be learned by everyone), but is that practical? Wouldn't it be more practical just to examine a few larger scale languages from different areas (e.g. English, Russian, Spanish, Mandarin) and work with those as opposed to trying to mix a ton of other, smaller languages into the equation? But then there is the issue of leaving out small indigenous groups who have very obscure languages..
And then, another question..if one were to create a language that attempted to assimilate several other languages, how would..it be proportioned? Like, since X% of the people on the world speak English, for example, would X% of that language's vocabulary and grammar be similar to English? Or would all languages be represented more or less equally, regardless of the number of speakers, since that would be considered "fair"?
Bleh, maybe these are all stupid, irrelevant questions. It's just late where I live, and you know how your brain can start thinking about silly things when it's 1:30am..
Thoughts?
acdibble (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 20 Ruheshi 2012 07:14:26
sudanglo (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 20 Ruheshi 2012 07:55:15
hebda999 (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 20 Ruheshi 2012 08:29:24
brodicius (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 20 Ruheshi 2012 09:00:37
HOWEVER: there's a thought that many have had on this topic. Supposing each general linguistic region makes its own intermediary language (such as with Esperanto for European languages, Afrihili for the horn and east of Africa etc.), one might then be able to create an intermediary between the intermediaries. So in a kind of weird, roundabout way, you could create a language appropriate for most people. Of course, starting up a language and movement a la Esperanto for each of these areas, then somehow creating a uniting body to blend the languages (and possibly movements) would be a logistical nightmare.
Still, this could never really work for everyone. So many languages just have such fundamental differences between each other (for example, languages without, what many would consider, such ordinary concepts as nouns or adjectives). Unfortunately you can never cater to absolutely everyone.
Oh, and there's an army of conlangers out there who will never stop trying to achieve this goal. Maybe just getting close enough, without being perfect, shall work.
Fenris_kcf (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 20 Ruheshi 2012 12:08:13
But for the grammer it seems quite hard. I think the most useful solution is to choose a morphologic typology, which is half isolating and half agglutinating with high segmentability. Esperanto is near that. The third extreme in morphologic typology would be the polysynthetic languages, but since these are quite difficult to learn and have almost died out on our planet, i would leave them out.
Bruso (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 20 Ruheshi 2012 12:53:39
Fenris_kcf:Regarding the vocabulary it's quite easy to put noone at an advantage: Just use an a priori (i.e. totally new created) vocabulary.But that's not a language that caters to everybody, but rather a language that caters to nobody.
A language that's somehow easy and intuitive to everybody just isn't possible.
bartlett22183 (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 20 Ruheshi 2012 17:22:47
Bruso:We often tend to think in terms of adult learners. In that context, then I agree that there simply is no one constructed language that is going to be equally easy for everybody. Like it or not, somebody, somewhere, somehow, is going to have to put forth some kind of effort to learn something.Fenris_kcf:Regarding the vocabulary it's quite easy to put noone at an advantage: Just use an a priori (i.e. totally new created) vocabulary.But that's not a language that caters to everybody, but rather a language that caters to nobody.
A language that's somehow easy and intuitive to everybody just isn't possible.
However, we tend to forget that, to some degree of approximation, all languages are about equally easy for all children in immersion environments. As Mario Pei pointed out in his book "One Language for the World," if we (figuratively speaking) would just pick a language -- almost any language will do if it has adequate vocabulary -- and teach it to all children around the world, then the "interlanguage problem" would be largely solved. (Granted, there could be practical issues in accomplishing this.) Until such time as that might happen (I am not holding my breath), we just have to make do as best we can, realizing that with adult learners there simply is no perfect solution.
Hyperboreus (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 20 Ruheshi 2012 18:35:00
cannona (Kwerekana umwidondoro) 20 Ruheshi 2012 19:18:34
bartlett22183:I would question the assertion that almost any language will do. I wonder if there aren't some languages that are easier than others for native speakers. For example, I consider myself reasonably educated and quite familiar with English, it being my native language. However, there are some grammatical constructions that still give me problems.
We often tend to think in terms of adult learners. In that context, then I agree that there simply is no one constructed language that is going to be equally easy for everybody. Like it or not, somebody, somewhere, somehow, is going to have to put forth some kind of effort to learn something.
However, we tend to forget that, to some degree of approximation, all languages are about equally easy for all children in immersion environments. As Mario Pei pointed out in his book "One Language for the World," if we (figuratively speaking) would just pick a language -- almost any language will do if it has adequate vocabulary -- and teach it to all children around the world, then the "interlanguage problem" would be largely solved. (Granted, there could be practical issues in accomplishing this.) Until such time as that might happen (I am not holding my breath), we just have to make do as best we can, realizing that with adult learners there simply is no perfect solution.
Think of how much time, effort and money could be saved on language instruction for native speakers if English was as simple and regular as Esperanto.
Aaron