|
 |
Has Japanese been watered down? | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| unityandoutside Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6015 days ago 94 posts - 149 votes  Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Latin, Mandarin | Message 41 of 53 03 April 2010 at 8:35am | IP Logged | |||||
|
I think the idea of "degradation of a language" is rather absurd. A language may suit or not suit our tastes, but people are under no obligation to use their own native language to please anyone else. Language is a tool for our lives. If an English loanword fits into a situation better, it should be used. If speaking with no loadwords sounds peculiar or old fashioned, why should people be forced to speak in a way they don't like? The language will suffer nothing from it. The language has no ability to suffer.
English speakers shouldn't beat themselves up about the dominance of their language. We push loanwords on nobody. People loan from English because it's culturally relevant in modern society. If you see this kind of cultural dominance as a degradation, consider that when we as Americans align our lifestyles with corporations, we actively contribute to the process the presents modern (read: western industrialized) ways as more valid. And I'm not trying to make anyone feel guilty. America's development is so based on excess that the average person can't even get by without it. I just think its silly to judge people for their language choices. After all, if people throughout history had rejected linguistic change, much of the world would just speak proto-indo-european. 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Miznia Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5352 days ago 37 posts - 42 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Cantonese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese | Message 42 of 53 03 April 2010 at 3:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
I didn't know that's what you meant. I took hombre gordo to only be saying that Japanese is borrowing words for which there are already equivalents, and that is what was evident. For example "josei" 女性 (I don't see this when I preview it: I mean Mandarin "nvxing") comes from Chinese, but the concept wasn't original to the Chinese. Maybe it's the common view on this forum that a language is just a language and there's no such thing as a better or worse language, but that is definitely not the case for me when I consider how much I like a language or don't. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 43 of 53 08 April 2010 at 12:40am | IP Logged | |||||
Those who have experience with learning languages from different families or an academic or professional background in linguistics are more likely to be descriptivist and conclude that it is inappropriate to rank languages as "better" or "worse". This idea however does not preclude the same people from having much or little affinity for certain languages. I'll take myself as an example as a descriptivist. I am the first to admit that I LOVE Finnish, Hungarian, Polish, and Slovak. For the other languages in my "stable", I either like (e.g. Estonian, Ukrainian), like a little less (e.g. German, Slovenian) or merely tolerate them (e.g. French, Lithuanian). However like any descriptivist, I cannot conclude that French or Lithuanian are among the "worst(-sounding/looking/structured/etc.)" languages that I know or that Finnish or Slovak are the "best". I'm only one man, and I'm not bigger than any language. The important thing is that each language out there fulfills some kind of need (often communicative) for the community of its native speakers. The idea of (perceived) prestige, superiority or inferiority of a language is sociolinguistic but has nothing to do with genetic linguistics and the ability of that language to function for its user as a means of organizing personal thought or communicating to others who can understand that language. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Miznia Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5352 days ago 37 posts - 42 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Cantonese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese | Message 44 of 53 08 April 2010 at 7:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
I don't disagree with any of that. I just feel that if people share a gripe about the direction of change in a language, there isn't anything particularly invalid about that opinion, or sharing it.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5522 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 45 of 53 08 April 2010 at 8:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
Has anyone mentioned the terrible deteroration of the kanas yet?
You used to write things like てふ and くわし, nowadays it's just ちょう and かし. I am very opposed to reforms that aim to make scripts more phonetic, it always looks childish and stupid. Things that are too regular make me suspicious. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ericspinelli Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5784 days ago 249 posts - 493 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Korean, Italian | Message 46 of 53 09 April 2010 at 7:29am | IP Logged | |||||
I enjoy the fact that the kana are almost entirely phonetic*. For example, I view the shift from using ハ行 ("h"-row) kana to using ア行 ("a"-row) and ワ行 ("w"-row) kana as a more accurate representation of the language and thus a positive change. One can always write in pre-reform Japanese** if trying to be chic, but I think the ease and accuracy of the current system is a boon and helps to facilitate literacy. *More phonetic than hangul, a point often overlooked **My favorite example 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6769 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 47 of 53 09 April 2010 at 12:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
Gusutafu forgot to add the <sarcasm> tag to his post. :)
2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Miiyii Groupie Greenland Joined 5584 days ago 59 posts - 97 votes | Message 48 of 53 20 October 2010 at 1:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
Okay.. I, personally, see NO point of using kanji..
.. It must be so hard for japanese in everyday when they write! .. Like.. Small notes as: "Hi son, I'm taking the train to work today. See you!" .. Even that little sentence may probably take so long time for the mother to write, so the son, IMO, is already home before she's done with it.. I mean.. It's veeeeeeeeeery beautiful, but so damn pointless! ... Writing languages should be effective and not art.. So, is kanji even effective in everyday? Hiragana and spaces between the words would be so much more effective.. Even for the students! Not strange that the japanese people go to school in SO many years! 2 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
