NationStates Jolt Archive

I haven't decided what the language would be.. but do you like the idea of a world language?

Nein.
Non.
No.
Negative.
Haaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiil nah.

I think you get the idea. Honestly, it simply isn't practical, and it sure as hell won't be popular.

Former Minister of UN Affairs
Edward Jones

OOC: Actually, we already have a world language for NationStates, which is English. It seems kinda silly to ask for one, given that. :)

I dare say a World Language is fine and dandy; just so long as the World involved does not happen to be the one on which Eirisle is located.

In other words; no. I believe it could easily be argued that the attempt to enforce a World Language would infringe upon the United Nations-granted Right to Freedom of Speech.

~Lady Sara~

Aside from the obvious fondness each national might have for their own language, there is a strong artistic inclination to not have one language. In Norderia itself, [Norderian], French, and often, English are spoken fluently by a majority of the population. As such, we find that some phrases are better said in French than [Norderian], or English than French, and that's especially true when it comes to songs and poems. I must say, I am quite fond of several of the languages I hear even in the GA, regardless of whether or not I know what is being said. The sound alone is enough to bring a smile to this big oaf.


Tommo the Stout
Ambassador

Pig Latin.

I really think you should leave The World
as it is ok!!!!

If a languaje is include would be a complete waste of time

It is fine as it is . Salutations!!!!!

WD Monarch of Oderfliw

I haven't decided what the language would be.. but do you like the idea of a world language?

Certainly, we like the idea of a "world language". We'd all be far better off. Unfortunately, there are far too many problems and contentious issues involved for this idea ever to become a reality.

Patrick T. Olembe
Minister for Foreign Affairs

Pig Latin.Esperanto (http://lingvo.org/).

Estas jam pruv si esti universala lingvo tio, ke ĉiuj povas facile ignor¹.

¹It's already proven itself to be a universal language that everyone can easily ignore.

Ĉiuj Aklam Markso kaj Lennon! (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/53/Marx_and_Lennon_stamp_from_abkhazia.jpg)

Not this again, please! Linguistic diversity is a treasure we should cherish, not demolish. Perhaps the honourable delegate does not know that languages do not express equivalent meaning to one another. Each language is the result, cause and expression of a culture or society's way of viewing and conceptualising the world it exists in. Linguistic diversity enriches all our minds by enabling us to consider the world through different perspective.

Il est, en d'autres termes, impossible de rendre le sens exact d'une langue en transposant simplement ses termes dans une autre. E'au li wohesha ow, iul'e ahu, seui oaua lo.

And culture is inextricably connected to language. If a language falls into disuse, the culture it was tied to withers.

Plus, as the distinguished Ambassador Tommo the Stout has pointed out, would you really want all literary creation confined to a single language?

Finally... what exactly do you mean by a world language? How and when would it be used, by whom, and how would this be enforced?


Christelle Zyryanov,
Ambassador to the United Nations,
PDSRA

I-ay ould-cay ot-nay upport-say e-thay andating-may of-ay a-ay universal-ay ongue-tay, owever-hay, ere-way ere-thay one-ay eveloped-day or-fay international-ay iplomatic-day urposes-pay, ere-thay ight-may e-bay ome-say otential-pay ith-way at-thay.....

<ouch, my brain>

Dra Nukia Hydeuh uv Vmeppmaedac fuimt hajan cibbund yh ehdanhydeuhym myhkiyka bnubucym.

Timothy Schmidt
Bob Flibble's PA (who is filling in for Bob while Bob takes a nap in the General Assembly)


The Rogue Nation of Flibbleites would never support an international language proposal.

OOC/IC Combo:
Not only are there the objections raised above of linguistic diversity and such like, but also the impracticality of such a thing. There are two options: 1) Create a new language or 2) Use an existing language. The first involves a serious amount of time, and such a language would, inevitably, be less rich (in terms of synonyms etc) then an existing language.

The second one is fraught as well, as, oddly, accent can add a barier to fluency in some language (it's impossible to be truly fluent in Farsi if it's not your first language, for example). Indeed, how do you teach a nation of dogs to speak Norwegian? Ignoring these problems, there is also other problems. Say we use English. Seems easy enough. However, do we choose British English or US English? You may think it doesn't matter, but take the following two sentences:
"The driver operates the engine on the railway, the shunter operates the points in the marshalling yard, whilst wearing trousers, a waistcoat, a trilby, and a boiler suit or dungarees"
would be jibberish to most Americans, whereas
"The engineer operates the locomotive on the railroad, the switcher operates the switches in the switchyard., while wearing pants, a vest, a fedora, and coveralls or overalls"
would bamboozle a lot of brits

"The driver operates the engine on the railway, the shunter operates the points in the marshalling yard, whilst wearing trousers, a waistcoat, a trilby, and a boiler suit or dungarees"
would be jibberish to most Americans, whereas
"The engineer operates the locomotive on the railroad, the switcher operates the switches in the switchyard., while wearing pants, a vest, a fedora, and coveralls or overalls"
would bamboozle a lot of brits

OOC: haha! YES!

One word: no. And you can put that in whatever language you like.

----
Jinella Agaranth
Deputy Ambassador, Kingdom of Altanar
(filling in while her boss gets heroically drunk)

Ðita!

(Jevian (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Jevian), literally: "it is not yes")

(And if this is ever going to happen, let me know soon so I can stop spending so much time on my Jevian article) :)

Ni aprobus tielan iniciaton se ĝi estis celita sole antaŭenigi la internacian komercon kaj kultura interŝanĝ sen sia uz aŭ trejnado en sia uz estanta deviga. La sola (ludo) intenco us tiam est al permes RP'ers al dir (en fadeno), “Ni renkont kaj komenc konversaci* en $Intertongue” (aŭ kio). Alie estus kiun oni rigardas kiel en atako kontraŭ diverseco, kiu ni malakceptus.

Alie estus kiun oni rigardas kiel en atako kontraŭ diverseco, kiu ni malakceptus.We would support such an initiative if it were intended solely to promote international trade and cultural exchange without its use or training in its use being mandatory. The sole (game) purpose would then be to permit RP'ers to say (in thread), “We meet and begin conversing in $Intertongue” (or whatever).

Otherwise it would be seen as an attack on diversity, which we would oppose.

What's Kennyite for "This is a shit idea"?

Oh. Right: "This is a shit idea."

Four points:

1> If I were to go with this idea, would I work within the context of the imaginary nationstates world and come up with a language that exists in this world... or do I pick a language of the real world? If the latter I could pick one that is already common to a lot of people like Spanish, Portuguese or French.

2> I am flexible with what to do... it wouldn't have to be mandatory except in the sense that it would be spoken at the UN

3> I could have a multiple number of languages.. for example Three world languages and use them at the UN... anyone who could speak two out of three could communicate with anyone else who could also speak two out of three. We could have French, English and Mandarin Chinese for example (or if English is too controversial replace it with German)

4> Obviously it would be quite a challenge to get this passed what with all the opposition... but it would be fun to try nonetheless..

Asist dua: kion vi intencas atingi de enkondukanta universala lingvo? Vi ne havas klarigitan tio, ke tamen.Back up a second: what do you intend to achieve by introducing a universal language? You haven't explained that yet.

Twofold purpose..
To make it easier for people to communicate with one another..
although this could be acheived by each nation putting more money toward education and/or by any nation that wanted to, to require taking a second language as a requirement for a high school diploma and/or a college degree.
etc etc

the second is just to encourage people to better themselves by becoming more knowledgeable..

I think a lot of this is easy to understand

Pienso que personas exageran acerca de esta propuesta. Pienso lo que estes medios de tipo son que personas deben saber dos idiomas. Uno es su nativo, el otro es uno que todas naciones pueden hablar en las NNUU.

I think that people are exaggerating about this proposal. I think whathe meant was that people should know two languages. One it is their native, the other is one that all nations can speak in the UN.

Pienso que personas exageran acerca de esta propuesta. Pienso lo que estes medios de tipo son que personas deben saber dos idiomas. Uno es su nativo, el otro es uno que todas naciones pueden hablar en las NNUU.

I think that people are exaggerating about this proposal. I think whathe meant was that people should know two languages. One it is their native, the other is one that all nations can speak in the UN.

We don't think people are exaggerating at all. A lot of us have been down this path before, and the path is strewn with the rubble of past efforts. In theory, the idea is excellent. We simply doubt, as a practical matter, that we'd ever see it adopted.

If the representative of Andromeda Islands wishes to continue pursuing the matter, more power to him. We'll do our best to contribute constructive criticism as well as to point out what we see as major stumbling blocks. But we'd suggest he not get his hopes up.

Lorelei M. Ahlmann
Ambassador-at-Large

2> I am flexible with what to do... it wouldn't have to be mandatory except in the sense that it would be spoken at the UN
In that sense, we already have a 'world language'. Nations use English when speaking at the UN. All of the legislation and rules and such are already in English. Trying to have this formalized in legislation is fairly useless, as it's already the case.

Lady Sara
Speaker of Eirisle

http://www.newscientisttech.com/channel/tech/mg19225755.800-its-the-next-best-thing-to-a-babel-fish.html

;)

In that sense, we already have a 'world language'. Nations use English when speaking at the UN. All of the legislation and rules and such are already in English. Trying to have this formalized in legislation is fairly useless, as it's already the case.

Lady Sara
Speaker of Eirisle

Is English necessarily the most popular choice for a world language? English is spoken here, I assume, because the founder of nationstates.net speaks English.

I haven't decided what the language would be.. but do you like the idea of a world language?

Nein danke.
Aber Deutsch ist ein gut international gesellschaft sprechen wahl.

Is English necessarily the most popular choice for a world language? English is spoken here, I assume, because the founder of nationstates.net speaks English.
It doesn't matter if it's popular or not, quite frankly, because that's what we already use. I see absolutely no reasons whatsoever to attempt to either create a new language for the purpose or to select an existing language, and then switch to it. We would then have to make sure that every single government official who deals with the United Nations is educated to the degree of fluency (if this is even possible) in the chosen language, and go through the hassle of translating all of the legislation into this language. Most United Nations officials already speak English - why not be content with the language that we are currently using for the purpose you seem to want this language to fulfill, instead of attempting to create a new system which could easily result in far more confusion and communication difficulties?

I would just as soon propose that we all start writing our UN documents using the Cyrillic alphabet, as opposed to the Roman one we are currently using. It would have just as much function, be just as convenient, and have just as significant an effect on the educational level of our governmental officials as changing the United Nations language.

Lady Sara

Pienso que personas exageran acerca de esta propuesta. Pienso lo que estes medios de tipo son que personas deben saber dos idiomas. Uno es su nativo, el otro es uno que todas naciones pueden hablar en las NNUU.

I think that people are exaggerating about this proposal. I think whathe meant was that people should know two languages. One it is their native, the other is one that all nations can speak in the UN.

Or you guys could, you know, just make use universal translators which cover the entire above ground and a good chunk of the below ground portions of the UN Building. After all just look at how many times in this discussion alone people have spoken in other languages and translations were automatically provided. While I will admit that the translators are not perfect (anyone else remember the Octovanyo incident?) they do work 99.9% of the time and pretty much preclude any need for a "world language." A term which I'll point out is a bit of a misnomer due to the fact that you guys can only affect UN members and since only 1/4 to 1/3 of the nations in the world are UN members (a fact we in the UN Building Management are eternally grateful for, as we have enough trouble keeping up with the maintence needs of the building as is, I'd hate to have to try to do it with 3 to 4 times as many people) a majority of the world wouldn't be required to use this language.

Ida Ratherbe
Manager, Universal Translator Divsion, Communications Department
UN Building Management

Tread carefully.

This is like a universal currency; it's a very fine line that you'd be walking to keep this from falling afoul of the Game Mechanics and MetaGaming rules.

What's Kennyite for "This is a shit idea"?

Oh. Right: "This is a shit idea."


Dude...that's weird. We say it the same way in Cluichstani.

Love, luck and lollipops,
Sheik Larebil bin Cluich
Cluichstani Ambassador to the UN

I was going to post something in Old Dwarvish, but I gave it a test run through UN Building Mgmt's universal translator. The result:

Six jumping icebergs elucidated the screaming apartment leotard on its captured matchbook.

I figured maybe I'd better wait until they work some of the bugs out of the translator.

Lorelei M. Ahlmann
Ambassador-at-Large

See? See? We need a universal language!

Seriously, I think that a universal language would be worthwhile (and, from an RP POV, even fun) if it was introduced:
As an additional tongue for international discourse and not a replacement for national tongues.


If its use was optional.


If its promotion by national governments was optional.
That's why I've been posting in Esperanto; it's an example of an invented language whose use is optional, but one that purports to make international communication easier. Has it? Probably not. But maybe that's the charm of it.

If done the way I'm suggesting, the effect would be mild. I'm not sure what category we'd use, though: Furtherment of Democracy? Who knows.

If done any other way, we'd oppose. Naciaj lingvoj estas trezoro, parto de nia riĉa kultura heredaĵo, kaj ruinigi ilin estos antaŭenigi la kulturan Chernobyl tio estas tutmonda “McCulture”. Naciaj lingvoj dev esti konservita.¹

¹National languages are a treasure, a part of our rich cultural heritage, and to destroy them is to promote the cultural Chernobyl that is global “McCulture”. National languages must be preserved.

OOC: You're one of those geeks learning Klingon, aren't you? :p

Dude...that's weird. We say it the same way in Cluichstani.

Same here in Gretzkyish, the language of Ice Hockey Players. In our experience, Gretzkyish seems to be the exact same as English. Maybe we should have the universal language be a lesser-known one, like our biggest minority language here, which is Gibberish. Fhsquergemapodf gnewuilternmw fhalfjrjiold. That roughly means "We don't need no stinking universal language." And again, I'm guessing at the spelling; Gibberish has no written form.

OOC: You're one of those geeks learning Klingon, aren't you? :p

I'll have you know I just recently purchased the VULCAN dictionary from LuLu.

I haven't read it yet, except for the preface.

I'll have you know I just recently purchased the VULCAN dictionary from LuLu.

I haven't read it yet, except for the preface.

OOC: Seek help immediately. :p

Wolfgang stands and barks, yelps, growls, and a variety of other sounds with tiny bits of English thrown in. This continues for a minute. Then: "To summarize: no."

Gibberish has no written form.
Wanna bet? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Txtspk)

If there is going to be one language for international discourse, I believe such a language would need to be very simple with few synonyms and homonyms etc. To this end, I propose the dialectually English spoken by Port Sir Richard Stevedores is best suited, as the language is rather simple and contains ony one adjective.

Here is the Opening paragraph of Gettysburg Address translated into Stevedore:

F**king ages ago, mate, some f**kers came 'ere and made a new f**king country, did'nay, with all f**kers being f**king equal and f**king free and stuff.

'My dear U.N members whilst you discus whether a "World Language" should be created we forget that we already have a language that is thriving and out of control. The language of England and American, the language of English, my dear friends is already spoken by some Billions of people, infact my friends, has anyone cared to notice the only language this forum is in is English, along with the entire web site all placed in English. Whilst we debate whether there should be a world language, and whilst we debate which language it should be, the English Language continues to spread through the thousands of regions, tens of thousand of nations and billions of people.'

Wanna bet? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Txtspk)

Ah, you mean several of our biggest dialects. People have hijacked our biggest minority language and turned it into alternate, indecipherable forms of our great Gibberish language.

TRUE Gibberish has no written form. All those languages that have written forms are not true Gibberish.