Viestejä: 61
Kieli: English
danielcg (Näytä profiilli) 14. joulukuuta 2008 20.12.05
Daniel
andogigi:
As another aside, it worries me sometimes that English is the world's lingua franca. Firstly, I think it hurts my country in business relations.
danielcg (Näytä profiilli) 14. joulukuuta 2008 20.16.00
Daniel
danielcg:I can't help but smiling when I read that the country whose language is used as lingua franca is hurt in business relations by that very fact. What is left, then, to the other countries who are forced to use a foreign language?
Daniel
vejktoro (Näytä profiilli) 14. joulukuuta 2008 20.54.02
Most languages, however, tend to stick to themselves linguistically and treat foreign words as foreign, whereas English, since the time of the Norman Conquest, has become very international. Only about 25% of the lexicon is native. This tendency for a love of foreign words predates the spread of the British around the globe.
I think that may help the stability of the language globally. Of course, that`s just what I think.
Still, I believe Esperanto to be the better choice. It`s neutrality and regularity are unparalleled by any natural language, no matter how international and forgiving.
And the 'but' is fine. Often I can`t help but smile myself!
Rogir (Näytä profiilli) 14. joulukuuta 2008 21.52.28
One of the nice things about Esperanto is that because it's semi-Romance, borrowings from Latin, the classical language of science, are very easy to fit in, usually only an -us, -um or -a has to be replaced by -o and the c's by k's.
vejktoro (Näytä profiilli) 14. joulukuuta 2008 22.55.53
Rogir:For that it is only too bad that the English phonological system quite deforms any foreign word up to irrecognizability.Yes, I suppose all languages must adapt foreign words into the existing phonetic rules as every language has a limited library of sounds and rules as to how they can be put together.
One of the nice things about Esperanto is that because it's semi-Romance, borrowings from Latin, the classical language of science, are very easy to fit in, usually only an -us, -um or -a has to be replaced by -o and the c's by k's.
English tries desperately to preserve the original spellings where possible. I find this extremely confusing. If it wasn`t for spellcheck, I`d be lost!
I`m glad Esperanto assimilates words phonetically instead of by orthographics.
How are borrowings handled in Dutch?
andogigi (Näytä profiilli) 14. joulukuuta 2008 23.16.31
It is one of life's ironies, isn't it? There is an excellant book on the subject entitled, "Why you need a foreign language & How to learn one" by Edward Trimnell. He goes in depth into the reasons why English being a lingua franca is detrimental to English speaking countries. His logic is very good and I have seen first hand that he is correct.
erinja (Näytä profiilli) 15. joulukuuta 2008 0.08.23
vejktoro:Where I live, the English can be unintelligible to speakers of the standard. And we must learn at least two dialects. We are in danger of being swallowed by Standard English in a way that the Swedes and Danes are not.You must live in Newfoundland, if you come from Canada and speak an unintelligible English
This seems to be the way of things. Dialects are swallowed up and new ones are created. This has definitely happened in the US as well. There is a creole spoken in some parts of the South, Gullah, that has nearly died off. And some isolated islands still speak a more old-fashioned form of English, though that too is dying off, as communication and transport links improve.
The BBC did a very interesting report on accent shifts in the UK. There was concern about the spread of Estuary English (=London accent) and the loss of regional dialects. The bottom line was that although old dialects are disappearing and changing, new dialects are being created at the same time.
vejktoro (Näytä profiilli) 15. joulukuuta 2008 1.51.16
You must live in Newfoundland, if you come from Canada and speak an unintelligible EnglishTrue dat.
We adopted the Canadian education system in `49 when we joined Confederation, which was/is very injurious to our dialects. We are constantly told in school that we are wrong and should give it up.
Now there`s a kettle o` politics I`ll open no further.
Luckily the culture is strong here, which has helped to combat that stuff somewhat.
Oddly, Canadian education brought French to our schools, but I was taught Parisian French, and not Canadian French!
What`s up with that?
Incidentally, there remain a few speakers of Newfoundland French as well, and there is a small effort to keep it alive. I wish them luck.
As far as I know, I`m the only speaker of Esperanto on the entire Island... so they are doing better then I.
erinja (Näytä profiilli) 15. joulukuuta 2008 3.47.34
vejktoro:We adopted the Canadian education system in `49 when we joined Confederation, which was/is very injurious to our dialects. We are constantly told in school that we are wrong and should give it up.I feel there has to be a middle ground here, that perhaps we have trouble seeing, as North Americans. In many countries in Europe, they have local languages/dialects as well as national languages. Children must learn the national language in school, but they speak the local language or dialect at home and with their friends. It makes sense to some extent, because if I speak Venetian and you speak Sicilian, it will be impossible for us to communicate. But if we both learn Italian in school, we can communicate and read the national newspapers - even though we will likely speak Venetian or Sicilian at home and with friends (assuming this is what our families speak).
So I think there is a place for teaching a standardized language, and also a place for respecting local dialects, so that people can participate fully in the world of English speakers and be economically successful, and also preserve their local speech patterns.
For what it's worth, African-American English is going strong as a spoken language, though no school system would ever call it "correct", and English teachers would have a fit if you wrote papers that way. But if you spoke only that, if you were unable to at least write in standard American English, you would have trouble finding a job that paid very well. It's important to be "bilingual" (bi-dialectal?) in that way.
ceigered (Näytä profiilli) 15. joulukuuta 2008 7.14.44
In response to something Vejktoro said about Norman French and English, I still find it amazing that English survived as the language of the Anglo-Saxons (in the generic sense) without having any real standard or regulatory body, even when Anglo-Norman French became the 'official' language back in the day. It sure left it's impact on English though.
@ Andogigi: I wouldn't have thought that television would have been so influential, I've watched much Japanese television but it doesn't seem to do much. Would the similarities of English to the Norse languages be important too?
Back to the Spanish-English thing, imagine how messy the spelling and pronunciation would be then! Combining words from both languages would make a unified spelling system quite difficult, I guess thats why all these mixed vernaculars popping up around the world currently exist solely spoken.