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Arguelles’ Six Most Important Languages | ||
Tags: Hit List | Alexander Arguelles | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5345 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes  Speaks: Spanish* | Message 25 of 44 26 January 2011 at 3:27am | IP Logged | |||||
I'd say either of them would profit from appreciating both Shakespeare and electrodynamics. But while as you rightly point out science is universal (or so we believe) and in principle anyone anywhere can take part in physics sharing but a single language, that of mathematics, not knowing Chinese or Arabic or Sanskrit will irremediably preclude you from accessing vast stores of the great wonders of human inventiveness. Language study allows one to approach the universal through diversity, and this is what makes it interesting, at least to me. Furthermore, even in mathematics, knowledge of Russian for an American or European mathematician opens up great possibilities. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5273 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 26 of 44 26 January 2011 at 4:00am | IP Logged | |||||
Actually, what you say about mathematics is quite true, much more so than in science. In science English is generally sufficient, but in mathematics, many graduate schools in America require students to know two other languages to a reading knowledge, usually French, German, or Russian. Historically, mathematicians writing in English, French, German, and Russian have dominated the field, with Polish and Italian being important secondary languages. Edited by Merv on 26 January 2011 at 4:00am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| CheeseInsider Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5122 days ago 193 posts - 238 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin* Studies: French, German | Message 27 of 44 27 January 2011 at 8:11am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm not down with learning Latin, AND Ancient Chinese simply because my dad is European and my mom is Taiwanese... Why should I? Why should anyone have to learn a language simply because they are part of the race of people who once spoke it? After reading all the posts, that struck me as the most absurd point of view. Edited by CheeseInsider on 27 January 2011 at 8:12am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Mad Max Tetraglot Groupie Spain Joined 5051 days ago 79 posts - 146 votes Speaks: Spanish*, French, English, Russian Studies: Arabic (classical) | Message 28 of 44 27 January 2011 at 12:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't agree with the idea to study Latin or Classical Greek to know better my language and my own literature. They are dead languages, not used nowadays.
If you want to know 6 languages, we can study all UNO languages, for instance: English, Spanish, French, Russian, Arabic and Chinese. All of them are major languages and very useful to understand people from all the world. But, it is too much, unless you work in an export dept. or it is your hobby. If you are Westerner we should know three major European languages (Asian people one). English is almost compulsory. Besides, we should study one or two of the next: Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese or Russian. Finally, we should study one Asian language (Asian people two): Chinese, Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Japanese, Hindi or Indonesian. For example: 1. English 2. Spanish and/or French 3. Chinese and/or Arabic 4. Regional language if you have it. In my opinion, it is enough with 3-4 languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| biagio Newbie Italy Joined 5208 days ago 26 posts - 33 votes Speaks: English | Message 29 of 44 27 January 2011 at 1:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
As to "dead" languages, I've often found myself capable of grasping the meaning of a totally unheard of new word simply because there was a Greek or Latin stem in it. So, these dead languages can be useful, after all... 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| CS Groupie United States Joined 5128 days ago 49 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Icelandic, Latin, French | Message 30 of 44 27 January 2011 at 1:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
Not to mention the thousands of years of literature in Greek and Latin. I wouldn't say that it's every Westerner's duty to learn these languages, but the roots of specifically Western civillization are found in them. I don't think of this in racial or ethnic terms either, there are non-Western students of those languages, just as there are Western students of Classical Chinese. Edited by CS on 27 January 2011 at 2:00pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| CS Groupie United States Joined 5128 days ago 49 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Icelandic, Latin, French | Message 31 of 44 27 January 2011 at 3:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
Tocharian was centum, so I don't think that the distinction is given much attention these days. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7156 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 32 of 44 27 January 2011 at 7:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
I was just thinking the same thing and indeed distinction is one of several isoglosses that occur within Indo-European, and not even all of these align to a simplistic cultural division between "Western" and "Eastern" civilizations. However there appears to be something to Merv's idea where in the early days of Indo-European studies linguists were affected by the idea of separating Western European civilizations from the rest of the world, as if languages and the associated cultures or civilizations shared something intrinsic that went beyond linguistics. This centum-satem division was in line with this kind of distancing by Westerners from Easterners (notice also how many of the pioneers in Indo-European studies were English, French or German). It became coincidental and lost its implication of East vs. West once the eastern Tocharian was discovered to be centum. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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