|
 |
English as a mongrel language | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| LanguagePhysics Newbie United States Joined 4147 days ago 34 posts - 43 votes Speaks: English* | Message 1 of 7 21 July 2014 at 3:40pm | IP Logged | ||
|
More than a few times I have heard people dismissively refer to English as a mongrel language, and as a language that has "stolen" its vocabulary from other languages and has few words of its own.
When compared to world languages in general, English probably does have a higher percentage of loan word than average, but it is by no means unique in this regard. Japanese, for example, could equally be considered a mongrel language that has "stolen" most of its vocabulary from the Chinese. Yet no one ever sees Japanese in that manner. It is only ever English that is referred to as a mongrel language? On the contrary, many people regard the Japanese and the Japanese language as the epitome of a "pure" culture and language, despite the fact that the majority of Japanese words aren't even Japanese. Why does English have this perception when it is not the only language that has a large amount of loan words? Edited by LanguagePhysics on 21 July 2014 at 3:44pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| soclydeza85 Senior Member United States Joined 3908 days ago 357 posts - 502 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, French | Message 2 of 7 21 July 2014 at 3:47pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I would think that this perception stems from the fact that English is a lot more popular and necessary in the world in general; it's in the spotlight at this point in history.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5600 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 3 of 7 21 July 2014 at 3:56pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Well, both languages suffer from the same ridiculous heterogeneous orthography. The many additional on readings for characters next to the native kun readings make reading as unconfortable as the maze of English spelling.
Maybe Japanese is not seen as much as a mongrel language as English, because it is an isolated language without purer brothers and sisters, but in the case of English you are always aware of the more conservative Germanic languages and notice, how much English deviates. Edited by Cabaire on 21 July 2014 at 3:57pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5533 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 7 21 July 2014 at 4:59pm | IP Logged | ||
Well, one big difference is that you speak English, so you actually get to hear how English speakers feel about their own language. And even then, it's not like your average English speaker regularly walks down the street and exclaims, "Hey, English is a weird hybrid language!" You'd have to spend a lot of time speaking English before you ever heard anybody say this. Or at least you'd have to speak a Romance or a Germanic language, and hang out around people who were learning English. Now, as far as I know, you don't read Japanese. Nor, for that matter, do you appear to read Chinese, Korean, or any other language spoken by people in that region. So even if (say) Chinese speakers thought that Japanese was a bit odd, or if Japanese speakers themselves had interesting opinions on the Chinese heritage of their language, how would you even know? Seriously, basically everything I knew about France before I met my wife was wrong. Today I read French books, watch popular French TV series, read French newspapers, and hang out with French speakers, and it turns out that the French are far more interesting than the silly stereotypes that other countries have of France. Making huge, sweeping generalizations about languages and culture seems like a waste of time to me, because any really interesting observations require learning a language and then marinating in the culture for a while. And afterwards, it's hard to boil down all that huge, messy cultural knowledge into a sound bite. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cthulhu Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 7224 days ago 139 posts - 235 votes Speaks: French*, English, Mandarin, Russian | Message 5 of 7 21 July 2014 at 9:12pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I agree with most of what emk just said, but I just wanted to add a couple things.
1) Chinese people do in fact sometimes make derisive comments about how derivative the Japanese language is. 2) While both English and Japanese have borrowed an ENORMOUS percentage of their vocabulary, this works out very differently in each case; in English, the meaning of words is obscured by being based on Latin and Greek words so that pneumonia is just a jumbled pile of letters that you have to deliberately learn because few know the Ancient Greek word πνευμονία or even that πνεύμων is 'lung'. In Japanese on the other hand, even though the words are borrowed from a foreign language, the use of Chinese characters makes the words just as intuitive as if the word was constructed from native roots. So just as the German word Lungenentzündung is extremely transparent to a German speaker, the Japanese word 肺炎 is equally transparent in spite of being a foreign borrowing. In short, they're both mongrel languages, but English does a shoddier job of it. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Stolan Senior Member United States Joined 4033 days ago 274 posts - 368 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Lowland Scots Studies: Arabic (classical), Cantonese | Message 6 of 7 22 July 2014 at 6:44am | IP Logged | ||
Because those people have no clue or any hint what languages are like in the other 78% of the world that is not Indo European nor do they have an accurate view of linguistics outside of the subjunctive crud. Imagine discussing how different societies historically varied in agriculture and organization due to regional factors and circumstance, but that will fly over many heads, the common idea being passed around is that Aborigines never colonized the world due to being somehow inferior as a race which is untrue. You could not hope to explain just how incorrect that person would be or the thousands that outnumber you like him/her. You can't expect them to apply the same thought to Japanese, people who are mistaken can't possibly be consistent in their beliefs. Likewise, they say every language is supposedly pure except for some freaks and some other junk. Edited by Stolan on 22 July 2014 at 6:58am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| holly heels Groupie United States Joined 3887 days ago 47 posts - 107 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 7 of 7 23 July 2014 at 5:56am | IP Logged | ||
|
By this standard, what about the purity of Spanish, another world language?
Doesn't it have about 700 Arabic words? I used to think every Spanish word had the blessing of the Vatican. I guess any language, world or not, can appropriate whatever words it wants whenever its own vocabulary cannot adapt to changing circumstances. Turkish abandoned its entire alphabet (also borrowed) in favor of the Latin, but I doubt anyone feels it's been corrupted. The "mongrelization" or whatever you want to call it of English allows a speaker more choices. You can say "to end" if you want to use the Germanic word and be more blunt. You can say "to finish" if you want to use the Latin via French word and be more dramatic. Or you can say "to conclude" if you want to use the standard Latin word and be more legalistic. So the influence of other languages on English can give a single concept more layers of meaning. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
