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English as the universal language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6250 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 185 of 206 08 March 2010 at 11:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
There's not much "inference" to be made there; that's quite a clear statement. It also doesn't really contribute to this conversation. I have no tolerance for that sort of politics, and I don't get the impression that Cordelia does other. I personally am in favor of multi-culturalism. I can't deny that English is having a profound effect on continental Europe, though - and I think it's reasonable for people in the countries where bilingualism with English is now extremely common to worry for the survival of their own languages. Civility, please. Throwing political slurs around does -not- do anything positive. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5241 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 186 of 206 09 March 2010 at 1:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I'm coming late to the debate; so, my contribution may be somewhat irrelevant. As I watched the Academy awards Sunday evening March 7, I couldn't help thinking about the pervasiveness of American popular culture in the world. Insofar as commercial cinema is concerned, nothing rivals the American film industry. I'm sure American movies dominate most markets in the world that do not have strict protectionist laws. Most of these movies are dubbed into the national languages, of course, but the images of North American culture undoubtedly have an important impact on the minds of the viewers.
Without in any way underestimating the importance of the economics and the politics of the spread of English, I think it is important to highlight the cultural importance of English as the language of modernity and contemporary popular culture. On a different note, I would like to draw attention to the fact that, as a choice for a lingua franca, English, despite a chaotic spelling system, has some enormous advantages over all the major languages in the world: 1. No accents or diacritic marks 2. No grammatical gender or noun case system 3. A relatively simple verb morphology 4. A straightforward grammar based heavily on word order without the morphological complexities of gender and case agreement I would also like to add the absence of any official academies, institutes or organizations in charge of language control or reform. English is highly tolerant of variation and change because it is in a sense "uncontrolled". In sum, I believe English is the easiest non-artificial language to learn, despite all its warts, because it is the most accessible and tolerant for learners. What other choices are there? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6250 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 187 of 206 09 March 2010 at 4:56pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
"No accents or diacritic marks" really shouldn't be an important factor; these take extremely little time to get used to. English does have remnants of a case system, in the personal pronouns - how do you think 'I', 'me', and 'mine' differ? The verb morphology isn't all that simple - we still have plenty of Germanic strong verbs. Sink/sank/sunk throws learners - as do things like teach/taught. Furthermore, phrasal verbs cause learners tons of trouble. English isn't all that much more accessible or tolerant than other languages, and language academies have nothing to do with this. By the metrics you gave, Persian and Chinese are perhaps better than English, to stick to major languages. Lingua Franca status is not decided on a language's own merits, ever. English is the closest we have to a lingua franca, and it has some nice features (as any language does if you look at it), but those nice features aren't the reason. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5241 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 188 of 206 09 March 2010 at 8:12pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Yes, English does have some remnants of a case system, I agree, particularly when we speak of remnants in pronoun morphology. But we must all agree that that is nothing like the case morphology of German or Russian nouns. And what about grammatical gender which, in the case of French and Spanish that I'm more familiar with, is a major source of difficulties? I have been told that Chinese grammar is particularly simple. I don't know anything about Persian grammar. I would certainly agree that the choice of a lingua franca is not based on merit alone. It certainly wasn't the intent of my post. I would agree that economics, politics and culture are more important. However, I tried to point out that as a choice for a lingua franca, English has some advantages. But I would like to argue more specifically the question of the accessibility or tolerance of English and the lack of official language authorities. I do not know the situation in all the countries of the world, but I am always struck by how language is not a major subject of debate in most English-speaking countries. For sure, there are people who lament the decline of the English language in the mouths of the youth. And of course schools insist on teaching a codified formal written language, At the same time, there is room for lots of innovation outside of the school system, especially in popular culture. Look at the history of popular urban music since World War II. I really think that the emergence of trends in the English-speaking world, especially North America, is linked to the freedom with which people can use the English language. Look at how the language of American movies and even television has evolved so much in the past 30 years. I get the sense that there is an urge to keep up with the trends, to try to be as realistic as possible in order to connect with younger audiences. Yes, there is a hierarchy of language based on social class. This is very striking in Great Britain. But there is also so much variation in English that there has to be a fair amount of tolerance. So, when I say that English is accessible, I mean that the combination of some structural advantages, the room for variation and diversity in a language so widespread and an attractive array of popular culture exports makes it much easier for the learner as compared to other languages. Does anybody believe that Persian and Chinese are as accessible as English? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| lackinglatin Triglot Groupie United States randomwritingsetc.blRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5791 days ago 62 posts - 146 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, Modern Hebrew Studies: Spanish | Message 189 of 206 09 March 2010 at 10:55pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I guess that Latin alphabet must cause peace among its users. :P
Early on in this conversation, page 4 or so, someone mentioned that language simplification is a zero sum game--that reducing complexity somewhere forces it to be introduced somewhere else. This point has been argued again and again. So two things--the first is that English is *simple*, but it is *chaotic* and *vast*. Second, Esperanto is a minimalist grammar that can be grasped as a whole within 5 hours. In fact, it could be even a bit simpler, but it allows for such things as a progressive present, progressive past, progressive future, completed past and future, etc., giving huge amount of expresivity with minimal complexity because it is *well structured* (i.e., not *chaotic*), *simple*, and what's more, *recycles morphemes*. My point is twofold: one, Simplicity is not zero-sum. Two, I want to clarify the positive/negative values of difficulty in English. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6967 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 190 of 206 09 March 2010 at 11:22pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Esperanto seems too good to be true... :-P Simplicity in languages (at least natural ones) is not a rigid zero-sum of assorted characteristics, but there does appear to be a relationship. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6250 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 191 of 206 10 March 2010 at 4:38am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
English is easier than those languages, with respect to those characteristics - they mainly lead to grating errors rather than incomprehension, though. It's harder in other ones, such as the large number of phrasal verbs and monosyllabic words which differ by sounds not found in many people's languages.
Persian grammar went through changes quite comparable to those between old and modern English, but quite a long time before English did; it's comparable in many ways.
Sure, it does; I just think every other language I've heard of has some advantages too, and don't read all that much into this.
The French Academy and Greek language riots are exceptional because they're unusual, not because they're the status quo for everything outside of the English speaking world. English really doesn't strike me as linguistically freer than most other languages. Variation and tolerance also don't strike me as all that linked - there is plenty of prejudice about different varieties of English. There's a lot to be said about English-language media, but I don't think that the language itself is a major part of why it has the properties it does. Most of these are really arguments about culture - interesting ones - not about language.
Yes. The only ways that I can think of that they're less accessible is that they're less a part of everyday popular culture in most of the world, and that there are less learning materials and economic motivations to learn them, plus political factors which are way beyond the scope of this forum. However, as languages, they have some nice properties when compared to English. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6250 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 192 of 206 10 March 2010 at 4:47am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Esperanto isn't too good to be true, but some of the ideas promoted about it are. I feel like I'm still struggling with the finer points of the grammar. Enough to speak fluently and correctly with regards to grammar can be learned in 5 hours, but there are quite a lot of details when you look at it harder. The biggest elephant in the room is probably the notion of the 'base' form of words, when they don't have an ending - some are inherently verbs, some nouns, etc. Hence, 'kombi' is fundamentally a verb meaning to comb, and 'kombilo' is the correct way to say 'a comb', while 'broso' means 'a brush' and the derivative verb is 'brosi' - neither 'kombo' nor 'brosilo' are common words. This is essentially a form of grammatical gender, similar to noun classes in some African languages or counters in Asian languages. It's largely predictable, but not entirely, as the odd kombi/brosi example shows. Secondarily, people tend not to understand the nuances of relative vs absolute time reference for the more complicated types of Esperanto verbs, even if they're speakers at basic fluency. It's still way easier than any national language, but it's not something a non-linguist can fully grasp the nuances of all that quickly. Neither of the above annoyances stop people from communicating, freely and in depth, but both are causes for a lot of minor errors. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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