NationStates Jolt Archive

Fellow delegates, Member-States of the United Nations,

The proposal aiming at imposing the English language throughout the world is arguably one of the most horrific attacks upon worlwide cultural diversity ever seen. A language bears a people's culture and way of viewing the world; the cultural richness of languages is to be treasured and preserved. Again, the aim of the United Nations is being distorted.

I would be interested to hear your thoughts on the matter.

The 'Universal language' prposal is a danger to the cultural diversity. Even though our country introduced an artificial language (rejistanian) to improve trade and inter-naranti-relations, in regional matters we kepp our regional languages. You won't hear rejistanian in the court, since it is not a native language and by rejistanian law it is prohibited to be forced to speak in court in a foreign language. We will NOT force people to speak another language since this is a violation of the civil rights!

Not to mention the fact that English would probably be the worst language to spread world wide, because of how complicated and unsensible it is.

Yes. 2nd hardest language in the world to learn. Now French, that's easy.

Yes. 2nd hardest language in the world to learn. Now French, that's easy.

I hihgly doubt that.

There's MANY obscure tribal languages that are harder than English.

Korean and Chinese are definitely harder than English.

Officially Mandarin Chinese is the hardest, English second hardest.

Yes. 2nd hardest language in the world to learn. Now French, that's easy.

I hihgly doubt that.

There's MANY obscure tribal languages that are harder than English.

Korean and Chinese are definitely harder than English.

actually, korean is the only language in the east that actually has an alphabet. japanese, however has a semi-alphabet, composed of consonants paired with a set number of vowels, making a chart of syllables.

Officially Mandarin Chinese is the hardest, English second hardest.

Heh I speak both.

I still bet there's lots of weird tribal languages that are harder.

And what about Arabic or Malay?

There is no "hardest language" to learn in any absolute sense. If you're a kid acquiring a language as your native language, all natural languages are equally easy to learn. If you're an adult who's already passed the critical period for language acquisition, then the degree to which a new language will be hard for you to learn depends to a great extent on how similar it is to your native language. For a native speaker of English, Frisian would be easier to learn than Cree; for a native speaker of Ojibwa (assuming you can find a monolingual Ojibwa speaker), it would be the other way around.

We agree that there shouldn't be an official language imposed on all nations within the UN.

Also, we think that the difficulty of a language is related mostly to which language is your mother tongue. While it would be easier for all Westerners to learn French than Japanese, it would be easier for all Asians to learn Japanese than French. Furthermore, on the difficulty of French issue: our French friends consistently inform us, out of the blue, that English is much easier to learn than either French or German, except in the case of spelling.

There is no "hardest language" to learn in any absolute sense. If you're a kid acquiring a language as your native language, all natural languages are equally easy to learn. If you're an adult who's already passed the critical period for language acquisition, then the degree to which a new language will be hard for you to learn depends to a great extent on how similar it is to your native language. For a native speaker of English, Frisian would be easier to learn than Cree; for a native speaker of Ojibwa (assuming you can find a monolingual Ojibwa speaker), it would be the other way around.

Stop being so intelligent! :lol: Yes, the ease with which you can learn a language depends on how similar your own language's grammar works, pronounciation similarities, etc. But OVERALL it has been decided (by somebody - probably someone in an office, completely bored) that yhose are the hardest languages.

Geez... Our ambassador really neads to churn out her replies faster--we thought we were being s smart pointing out that learning languages is relevant, and several nations beat us to it.

There's MANY obscure tribal languages that are harder than English.

Such as !Xóõ, which has 141 sounds, including 80 clicks.

If we must institute a universal language, Letilan is the best choice. Name one lang that allows you to say "I like very big butts" in one word. You can't. Fê|xomun@âûlkakuma

On a tangent, but what's the name of the language the Kalahari bushmen ("Gods Must Be Crazy") speak?

On a tangent, but what's the name of the language the Kalahari bushmen ("Gods Must Be Crazy") speak?

!Kabe, according to this: http://www.nd.edu/~sborman/personal/sa/san/language

This has been an OOC post.

If we must institute a universal language, Letilan is the best choice. Name one lang that allows you to say "I like very big butts" in one word. You can't. Fê|xomun@âûlkakuma

I suspect, although I can't say for sure, that it may be possible to express that proposition in a single word in Inuktitut, Turkish, and various other languages that are (how should I put this diplomatically?) more widely spoken than Letilan.

On a tangent, but what's the name of the language the Kalahari bushmen ("Gods Must Be Crazy") speak?

I believe it is Ju|'õansi.

I suspect, although I can't say for sure, that it may be possible to express that proposition in a single word in Inuktitut, Turkish, and various other languages that are (how should I put this diplomatically?) more widely spoken than Letilan.

Inuktitut probably can, but I'm not sure about Turkish.

I did not endorse this proposal.

Unless it is Esparanto(or another easy to learn con lang), then we shall support no universal language

Unless it is Esparanto(or another easy to learn con lang), then we shall support no universal language

:evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: Boooooooooooooooooooooooooo esperanto! It only borrows from European langs and is thus hard for non-eurolang speakers. It's also sexist.

I think the concept of a "hardest language to learn" is a bit abstract- if English was so hard to learn, it wouldn't be the most widely spoken or understood language on the plant (not counting Chinese, which isn't spoken outside China in any real sense).

Russian, Arabic, any Asian language, and a lot of the African Tribal languages are almost incomprehensible to English speakers. I for one have immense trouble with Arabic and Chinese- I just can't pick any words in a spoken sentence, and written Arabic just looks like wavy lines with dots above it. This is in no way an attack on the language (It's been around a hell of a lot longer than written English has), but an observation.

At the end of the day, I think we need to accept that English and French are the worlds Lingua Franca, and probably always will be, barring invasion from Outer Space or conquest by Damn, Dirty Apes... :D

I've read in several places that the most widely spoken "artificial" (ie created, not anyone's "mother toungue") language isn't Esperanto, but is, in fact:

Klingon :shock:

What's scary is that this doesn't surprise me...

Russian, Arabic, any Asian language, and a lot of the African Tribal languages are almost incomprehensible to English speakers.

!Xóõ certainly would be.