what would you make Earth's official language?
- Thread starter Mr. Omega
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Boring Answer: English.
Fun Answer: Flag Waving.
I'd love to see people walking around with flags in their hands, flailing about trying to communicate with one another.
Fun Answer: Flag Waving.
I'd love to see people walking around with flags in their hands, flailing about trying to communicate with one another.
English, but not before all the uncannily intuitive words (like schadenfraude and betsubara) are adopted from other languages.
English. It's the best language I've been forced to study, and I dislike them all. I have had Dutch, German and French(Dutch being my native tongue) and English is just easier and the most sophisticated of the lot. Almost everyone high up speaks it, and you can't tell me that Brits, Australians and Canadians have bad accents. I LOVE THOSE ACCENTS 
Hopefully, with the perfection of machine translation in 30 or so years, we won't have to bother with a world-wide language.
At the moment... as much as it pains me to say it... english. Most scientific papers are written in English, as are most medical texts. It's difficult to escape the legacy of the fact that English is the language of science. Most scientists around the world speak English - they have to! To read the books, to understand the terminology.
It's also really, really, really difficult to translate some of the terms from Latin/Greek into another language. How would you translate Bilirubin Diglucuronide or glucuronyltransferase into Chinese? Or Arabic? You'd have to invent an entirely new set of words, and most scientists, even ones who only speak english as a second language, can't be bothered learning a whole new set of words to replace the English/Latin/Greek words.
Malaysia, the country I was born in, tried to change all the English scientific words to Malay words in the 50's and the 60's - this involved changing Nuclear to Nuklear. It was a completely pointless endeavour they spent millions on for the sake of 'national' pride. They abandoned it, because at the end of the day, they weren't fooling anyone by changing C to K and claiming it as a Malay word.
In a fair world, we'd all switch to either Hindi or Mandarin or Spanish. But the world isn't fair. English, from a technological, scientific, medical viewpoint makes the most sense as the world language.
At the moment... as much as it pains me to say it... english. Most scientific papers are written in English, as are most medical texts. It's difficult to escape the legacy of the fact that English is the language of science. Most scientists around the world speak English - they have to! To read the books, to understand the terminology.
It's also really, really, really difficult to translate some of the terms from Latin/Greek into another language. How would you translate Bilirubin Diglucuronide or glucuronyltransferase into Chinese? Or Arabic? You'd have to invent an entirely new set of words, and most scientists, even ones who only speak english as a second language, can't be bothered learning a whole new set of words to replace the English/Latin/Greek words.
Malaysia, the country I was born in, tried to change all the English scientific words to Malay words in the 50's and the 60's - this involved changing Nuclear to Nuklear. It was a completely pointless endeavour they spent millions on for the sake of 'national' pride. They abandoned it, because at the end of the day, they weren't fooling anyone by changing C to K and claiming it as a Malay word.
In a fair world, we'd all switch to either Hindi or Mandarin or Spanish. But the world isn't fair. English, from a technological, scientific, medical viewpoint makes the most sense as the world language.
English with a Boston accent. The accent that turns me to mush when guys have it.
Also Irish, Irish is nice too.
Also Irish, Irish is nice too.
Elvish. Yeah, the language Tolkien made up.
It shouldn't be English, because English isn't anywhere near the most used language, and many nations do not have a high fluency in it. Spanish would make far more sense than English (but tell that to most americans, lol),
It shouldn't be English, because English isn't anywhere near the most used language, and many nations do not have a high fluency in it. Spanish would make far more sense than English (but tell that to most americans, lol),
You sir, win. I add my vote to this guys idea.Raven said:
Firefly forever.
Spanish and chinese are more spoken as a first language, but english is the most spoken language on earth. A lot, a lot, a lot of international business is conducted in english, and many countries teach english in HS.Mr.Squishy said:
We should all speak fly. Because I'm sure I heard somewhere that that "Bzzzzzz" isn't the sound of their wings.
And all buzzing must be done with the tongue exiting the mouth. Soon our tongues would strengthen from pressure and we can all give great oral sex.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....
And all buzzing must be done with the tongue exiting the mouth. Soon our tongues would strengthen from pressure and we can all give great oral sex.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....
English would be the practical one because it's already the primary second language on earth.
Lojban would brobably be the best because it's constructed to be mindboglingly ligical.
Though it would be nice to use Piraha, just because of their pronounciations rules based on the source of information.
Type 1. You saw/experienced it.
Type 2. Your friend saw/experienced it.
Type 3. Hearsay.
Needless to say: The missionary didn't get far with his 2000 year old stories there.
Lojban would brobably be the best because it's constructed to be mindboglingly ligical.
Though it would be nice to use Piraha, just because of their pronounciations rules based on the source of information.
Type 1. You saw/experienced it.
Type 2. Your friend saw/experienced it.
Type 3. Hearsay.
Needless to say: The missionary didn't get far with his 2000 year old stories there.