Poll: One world language... that isn't yours.
- Thread starter Squilookle
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I went with Esperanto, not because I'd want it, but because if we were going to have a world language, we should make a new one. Its a dumb idea to pick an existing language as the language for the whole of humanity unless by far the majority of people already speak it. Assuming we have to inconvenience anyone, then we may as well do it to everyone. Least then everyone gets a fair start.
How are we going to enforce a world language anyway ? I always assumed that any official language shows up purely because thats what everyone speaks. Unless we had one country covering the whole world I can't see why this would happen... Also, English is winning the race for world language anyway. Sure chinese and spanish have more first language speakers, but English is pretty much the de fact second language anywhere that doesn't speak it natively. Something like 1.8bil people have English as first or second language.
You can really tell that its an internet poll when Japanese (180mil speakers) beats Chinese (1.3bil speakers) and Spanish (500mil speakers) combined because 'It sounds really pretty'. Damn wapanese... This is why voting on anything is such a painfully dreadful idea when it actually gets acted on. Why decide based on most speakers, widest distribution or easiest to learn when you can just point at the pretty *facepalm*
How are we going to enforce a world language anyway ? I always assumed that any official language shows up purely because thats what everyone speaks. Unless we had one country covering the whole world I can't see why this would happen... Also, English is winning the race for world language anyway. Sure chinese and spanish have more first language speakers, but English is pretty much the de fact second language anywhere that doesn't speak it natively. Something like 1.8bil people have English as first or second language.
You can really tell that its an internet poll when Japanese (180mil speakers) beats Chinese (1.3bil speakers) and Spanish (500mil speakers) combined because 'It sounds really pretty'. Damn wapanese... This is why voting on anything is such a painfully dreadful idea when it actually gets acted on. Why decide based on most speakers, widest distribution or easiest to learn when you can just point at the pretty *facepalm*
You're kidding, right? Mandarin and Cantonese have many changes in the written language. Why? The writing system was invented for the predecessor to Mandarin (Well at least the northern dialects [官話]), not Cantonese (A Yue language [粵語]). Sure, they started off in Old Chinese, but the divergence into Middle Chinese changed the usage of characters, mainly because of differences in pronunciation.Kryzantine said:
Also, the characters are more superior when they are traditional/complex characters (the ones used in Taiwan and Hong Kong), as opposed to the People's Republic of China. In general, this is because the characters in China have been simplified with sometimes little regard to meaning. In Taiwan and Hong Kong, characters still retain their meaning and contextual clues (the little bits that make up many words reveal meaning, where some don't exist anymore in simplified Chinese). It may be easier to memorize the smaller characters in China, but if you want meaning, then you'll have to go with traditional Chinese.
OT: Anyway, it's a difficult language family, Chinese, so I wouldn't see it as being good for a world language.
I chose French, mainly because the language is fairly expressive and at least pleasing to the ear. Also, a lot of the vocabulary remains the same from my native language, so it's not been that hard to learn to at least read it. Now, speaking it is a whole 'nother matter...eh, not too bad.
I voted for german because i hear its easier to learn. Just wish they didn't have those male/female nouns and stuff.
French wouldn't really work, the spelling is a mess. Spanish isn't too bad, but the completely arbitrary way words are assigned gender throws it out of the running. Any form of Chinese is far too complicated for serious consideration. Spoken Japanese is actually quite simple and easy to learn, tone doesn't change words and grammatical structure isn't difficult to pick up. The only problem with Japanese as a global language is the use of Kanji, which makes reaching full literacy a time consuming endeavor. The real issue with Kanji, however, is the added difficulty in typing. I don't think Hindi is very widespread, but aside from that I don't know if it would be a very good choice, I doubt it would be though. Esperanto obviously doesn't work, or we'd all be using it already. Russian and German would seem to be front-runners to me, though I don't really know them that well.
So, Japanese if you're willing to simplify/restructure the writing system, or possibly German or Russian. I really don't think we'll have a global language until we actually unite under a single government.
So, Japanese if you're willing to simplify/restructure the writing system, or possibly German or Russian. I really don't think we'll have a global language until we actually unite under a single government.
But french is a language with so many irregularities in its grammar... je vais aller...j'irai... ugh lol and mandarin is also pleasing to the ear imho, and is nowhere near as hard to learn as people make out...Kejui said:
And back to chinese (mandarin) with simplified characters it has improved the literacy rate of mainland china by over 20% and i'm no good at maths but over 20% of 1.3billion is a big number... Yes you are right with the change of meaning in some mandarin words... the radical for meat in old chinese ÔÂ, which now, for example is used in ÐØ £¨chest£© ÄÔ £¨brain£© is actually the character for moon. There was a regard to meaning with the simplification, as the same simplification was applied to all simplified characters...
Although saying that it was envisioned in China that they would embrace a romanised form of Putonghua called Pinyin in the 60's and 70's...
English, because it isn't my original language. Eliminating it from the poll negates any point this thread could possibly have, by showing wheather or not the majority of this community hails from english-speaking lands or not.
I get you with French grammar; but, I believe all language has irregularities and weird quirks. I've found it more pleasing than Spanish, or any of the other romance languages, or Beijing Mandarin (which sounds like a bunch of squawking pirates, haha)...If we're going by sound alone, and the language is one that exists, I hope we can go with something like German or Frisian.Kernow Chris said:
My choice was because they forced me to pick a language that wasn't my own, and didn't give me an "other" option! Also, I can't think outside the box and come up with another language if I'm given a set number of options.
Again, with Chinese, I used to make that mistake, but there is a subtle difference between "meat/flesh" and "moon":
肉 - the radical form resembles month (月
, but the top line is diagonal (top left, bottom right [\], and the bottom line the opposite (bottom left, top right [/]))月 - the radical is identical to the character
Simplified makes no distinction between the two, decreasing meaning. There was some regard, but the main purpose was to make it easier to write; less focus on meaning, more focus on ease of memorization (which, for me, made it harder to memorize...larger shapes are easier, for me).
I always enjoyed the sound of Italian. But, I also would like to learn Japanese. Ah, I can't decide.