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Ugliest language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| Jhorer Brishti Bilingual Triglot Newbie United States Joined 6922 days ago 16 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English*, Bengali*, Spanish | Message 73 of 80 19 May 2008 at 11:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I agree with Franzi in that love and pride are two different things. Love is an appreciation towards something whereas pride is an appreciation of oneself. If you think about it pride in one's family, culture, language, ethnicity, etc. is just an extension of pride in oneself(seeing as these are what constitute a person's identity) and this is basically what it boils down to. In my opinion this is perfectly fine as long as tensions are not created like in Maximus' case with his room mates. I think excessive national pride is quite dangerous actually as history has proven time and time again. On the other hand too little national pride makes for a very disjointed and non-unified country where individual/group interests are valued over the good of the nation as a whole which would probably affect the individuals/groups detrimentally in the long run.
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| brewmeister_tim Triglot Newbie Canada Joined 6060 days ago 8 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 74 of 80 20 May 2008 at 3:50am | IP Logged | |||||
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What was the original question? Seems to have gotten lost.
I vote Klingon 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| John Smith Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6047 days ago 396 posts - 542 votes  Speaks: English*, Czech*, Spanish Studies: German | Message 75 of 80 20 May 2008 at 6:06am | IP Logged | |||||
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Wow, I didn't realize that some people would get so upset about this topic. I personally have no problem with people pointing out what they don't like about my country or language. Their opinion is subjective not objective so I don't feel hurt. I hear people discussing what they like and don't like all the time. I doubt that those people that got upset have never ever said anything negative about anything in their lives. I actually think that this thread has helped debunk the myth that there is such a thing as an ugly or beautiful language. For example, I didn't expect French to appear here as usually it is considered to be beautiful. Furthermore, I think that perceiving a language as "ugly" even if it is only subjective may affect the languages people choose to study. I know it's one of the reasons why I didn't want to learn German. As I said before I have changed my opinion since studying it. Has anyone else found that a language they did not like turned out to be beautiful once they started learning it? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| skeeterses Senior Member United States angelfire.com/games5Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6623 days ago 302 posts - 356 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Korean, Spanish | Message 76 of 80 20 May 2008 at 8:05am | IP Logged | |||||
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Before I read all 10 pages, I better throw in my 2 cents on this.
The thing about "beautiful" or "ugly" is that we're looking at languages as if they were pieces of artwork, and they're just not. But there is a thread on the last language that people would want to learn. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7161 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 78 of 80 20 May 2008 at 9:51am | IP Logged | |||||
It got lost because language is sometimes tied more closely to culture or ethnicity. Thus for some people if I say that x (language) is ugly, then these same people tend to interpret my statement as saying that x (culture/ethnicity) is ugly/unattractive/unpleasant etc. I also believe that it also is a willful "muddying of the waters" as comments about language become tied with national pride/nationalism. In any case, it's not as if German is the preserve of Germans (what about the Swiss or Austrians?), any more than Thai is the preserve of Thais (what about people who speak Thai as a second language?). It'd be fun to argue about languages such as Arabic, Russian, Chinese, Spanish and Portuguese among others as they're native languages of people who're not "Arab", "Russian", "Han", "Spaniard" and "Portuguese" respectively. Given all of the problems with nationalism in the past two centuries, I'm still surprised that the link between language and ethnicity is still emphasized so strongly. Ethnic identity goes far beyond one's native language. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6948 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 79 of 80 20 May 2008 at 10:56am | IP Logged | |||||
Adopted children can also be very attached to their adoptive parents, who don't even need to be of the same ethnicity. At the very least they owe them a debt of gratitude for having been provided for and raised by them. We live in nation-states to which we both contribute and receive benefits from. I see nothing wrong in taking some measure of pride in the cultural and other types of achievements of the country one lives in. After all, the taxes we pay help support some of those achievements. After plunging themselves into two World Wars Europeans are understandably weary of nationalism, but the extreme opposite may have its own problems. Edited by frenkeld on 20 May 2008 at 11:14am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7020 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 80 of 80 20 May 2008 at 4:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Please remember that this is a language learning forum.
If you wish to discuss the relative merits (or otherwise) of your own particular nation/culture/ethnicity/etc. I'm sure that there are plenty of other forums available out there in cyberspace which will be happy to hear your views. Edited by patuco on 20 May 2008 at 4:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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