NationStates Jolt Archive

Do you beleive that we, the human race, require an international language? Should it be constructed or be an existing language? Do you think we already have one?

Myself, I like the idea of a constructed international language, since that way, no-one will feel like its a form of cultural imperialism and whatnot. They can even mix different language's grammar, vocab, etc. to create the ultimately global language.

While I agree English is spoken at a wide range of places, it is by no means the international lingua franca. There are many places where Spanish or French are still dominant. Chinese actually has many more speakers than English, if I remember my random trivia correctly.

Anyway, share your thoughts.

Mi amo Esperanto (or is that Esperanton. Never said I was good at it :p)

Naw... too complicated.

Hmm, its split exactly between the first two options on the poll right now. interesting.

An international language would be kinda cool, but I feel we need to protect our cultural languages. It would be sad to see so much national culture die out in the name of standardizing.

I think you could make a pretty good one by knocking together the French words that appear in English (as they are also often very similar to Spanish and Portuguese words as well), Mandarin and possibly Hindi.

Esperanto's vocabulary is just stupid :P

I think we ought to use an international written language; a language of symbols with no spoken form.

That way, we don't lose any more languages than we already have; being the lingophile I am, I really dislike language death.:(

If we were to use a spoken language, forget Esperanto. Esperanto would be good if only used for communication among Indo-European speaking countries; outside of the IE languages, though, it's no more easier to learn than a natural language. No, for spoken languages I'd suggest Lojban.

An international language would be kinda cool, but I feel we need to protect our cultural languages. It would be sad to see so much national culture die out in the name of standardizing.

Well, it doesn't necessarily have to get rid of national languages, just make it so we can all understand each other as well.

Esperanto's vocabulary is just stupid :P

How so?

An international spoken language would discourage the speaking of minority languages anyways. Nobody would enforce this, but it'd happen anyways.

OH, and a nitpick regarding your poll: Esperanto wasn't the first international auxiliary language. Volapük was.

An international spoken language would discourage the speaking of minority languages anyways. Nobody would enforce this, but it'd happen anyways.

OH, and a nitpick regarding your poll: Esperanto wasn't the first international auxiliary language. Volapük was.

Really? Never heard of that one...

How so?

Far too European, and not in any helpful way either. I mean, the word for "and" is "kaj" which is apparently Greek, but that's hardly a language spoken commonly enough to merit inclusion in what is meant to be a global language.

Any 'international' language would most likely remain international for about a century, before it is shattered and destroyed into a whole jumble of other, regional dialects, and eventually new languages. I mean, look at the regional variation of German, of all things.

Really? Never heard of that one...

Actually, Volapük is quite a bit more structurally sound than Esperanto and is agreed by most linguists to be a generally better language. Esperanto was created in Volapük's wake and somehow it caught on.

Of course, they're both hopelessly biased towards IE languages. I like Lojban the best as far as IALs go.

Any 'international' language would most likely remain international for about a century, before it is shattered and destroyed into a whole jumble of other, regional dialects, and eventually new languages. I mean, look at the regional variation of German, of all things.

But the whole point of it would be that it would be standardized and never change since it would only be used between people who speak different languages. Thus, it would evolve as normal languages would as it would not be used as often for different regional variations to form, I would think.

Actually, Volapük is quite a bit more structurally sound than Esperanto and is agreed by most linguists to be a generally better language. Esperanto was created in Volapük's wake and somehow it caught on.

Of course, they're both hopelessly biased towards IE languages. I like Lojban the best as far as IALs go.

Yeah, I agree, it is rather biased, but they were made when the Europeans were still running the show on a global level, I beleive. Ah, viva the white man's imperialism...

I think we should [attempt to] communicate with a primative system of grunts and hoots. It doesn't wear down the ol' thinking muscle.

But the whole point of it would be that it would be standardized and never change since it would only be used between people who speak different languages. Thus, it would evolve as normal languages would as it would not be used as often for different regional variations to form, I would think.
You just said that a) it would never change and b) it would evolve naturally.

How would that work?:confused:

Besides, if it were to evolve naturally it would quickly become irregular and biased towards certain languages. If it were to never change, it would die really quickly. You'd need to have something monitoring the use of it and keeping it up to date with natural, spoken languages.

I usually am extremely against linguistic prescriptivism, but prescriptivism is the only way such a thing could work.

I speak Esperanto like a native.

(really, really sorry. I couldn't resist)

I have to say, I'm not fond of the idea of an international language. Especially an artificial one. Since I think the idea is unworkable. A few lingua franca would probably work better and organise organically anyway.

You just said that a) it would never change and b) it would evolve naturally.

How would that work?:confused:

Besides, if it were to evolve naturally it would quickly become irregular and biased towards certain languages. If it were to never change, it would die really quickly. You'd need to have something monitoring the use of it and keeping it up to date with natural, spoken languages.

I usually am extremely against linguistic prescriptivism, but prescriptivism is the only way such a thing could work.

Whoops, my bad, I meant it would not evolve as natural languages do. I'm a bit tired, so sorry.:p

Probably, the education systems would make sure that the language remained standardized, so that proper 'whatever the language's name is' would remain exactly the same, even if certain people from different regions had different accents, used their own words or whatever. They would the minority of the cases.

They could possibly create an organization for making sure it remains standard, and updating it for the different era's context. Maybe the UN could tackle the issue, if they manage to get enough funding for it, if this even happens.

Dammit, there are actually people who beleive that 'American' is indeed an international language. I hope they're not serious...

I would support the creation of an artificial Hobbesian language. One where words have very few separate meanings and normally only one; one where the grammar is standardised, regular and rigid; and one that is one that is desgined to be an instrument of precision rather than one of art or expression. Oh and minimalist.

I would prefer it to be like that so that it is easy to learn, avoids misinterpretation, but does not become a medium for art and so diminish the importance and prevalance of other languages.

Linguists recognize three international languages; English, Spanish and Arabic.

English is of course the economic language. There are more people in China that speak English than there are people in the US that speak English.

Making up a language will always have the problem of "critical mass". You would have to get so many people to use it to make it useful. And why bother learning it when there aren't enough people using it to make it useful.

I would support the creation of an artificial Hobbesian language. One where words have very few separate meanings and normally only one; one where the grammar is standardised, regular and rigid; and one that is one that is desgined to be an instrument of precision rather than one of art or expression. Oh and minimalist.

I would prefer it to be like that so that it is easy to learn, avoids misinterpretation, but does not become a medium for art and so diminish the importance and prevalance of other languages.

The precision might just allow it to become quite arty... I beleive classical Arabic rarely has multiple meanings or ways of misinterpretation, and it is very rigid and ordered language, but some of the poetry they've created is quite interesting. That is, if you can understand the language like I can. However, the rely more on metaphorical language rather than fanciness of tongue.

Happens to us all. xÞ

Standardisation would be key in a new IAL. Actually, despite my misgivings towards the language itself I like the way Esperanto is currently being standardised.

The biggest issue with standardisation, though, is that prescriptive rules quickly becomes obsolete; look at English! Does anyone really use "whom" anymore or care about putting prepositions at the end of their sentences? These rules are pointless and futile and disrupting the natural evolution of language.

If in an IAL, which it's not spoken as a natural language would be and therefore can not stand on its own, prescriptivism gets out of hand as it tends to do, the language would be rendered useless and archaic as a whole. If there's no prescriptivism, the language would split into different dialects and would become useless for international auxiliary communication. The line is very fine, and I rather doubt that people could manage it.

One thing we could do is use a natural language as an IAL; not English, probably. A different natural language. That way, there would always be native speakers to fall back on for natural evolution.

But now I babble and probably don't make sense.

Linguists recognize three international languages; English, Spanish and Arabic.

English is of course the economic language. There are more people in China that speak English than there are people in the US that speak English.

Making up a language will always have the problem of "critical mass". You would have to get so many people to use it to make it useful. And why bother learning it when there aren't enough people using it to make it useful.

Well, if the governments of the world decided to actually go through with it and put it into their education systems, there would be a great incentive. Government backing is usually helpful in such things.

Happens to us all. xÞ

Standardisation would be key in a new IAL. Actually, despite my misgivings towards the language itself I like the way Esperanto is currently being standardised.

The biggest issue with standardisation, though, is that prescriptive rules quickly becomes obsolete; look at English! Does anyone really use "whom" anymore or care about putting prepositions at the end of their sentences? These rules are pointless and futile and disrupting the natural evolution of language.

If in an IAL, which it's not spoken as a natural language would be and therefore can not stand on its own, prescriptivism gets out of hand as it tends to do, the language would be rendered useless and archaic as a whole. If there's no prescriptivism, the language would split into different dialects and would become useless for international auxiliary communication. The line is very fine, and I rather doubt that people could manage it.

One thing we could do is use a natural language as an IAL; not English, probably. A different natural language. That way, there would always be native speakers to fall back on for natural evolution.

But now I babble and probably don't make sense.


Hmm, well, like Infinite Dunes said, it would need to very precise, and avoid all the pointless rules. The organization would probably make sure it remained standard to the time and place, or something like that. Even if there were regional dialects, they would still have to know the standard language in order to communicate with other people from different places. Thus, the formation of dialects would probably be very minimal. The whole point of the language would be that people would all speak it the same way. Why would anyone want to change it when they have their own languages still?

Nah, I think if it was a natural language, there would be the standard language, and the dialects of the natives which would mess everyone up actually.

I would support the creation of an artificial Hobbesian language. One where words have very few separate meanings and normally only one; one where the grammar is standardised, regular and rigid; and one that is one that is desgined to be an instrument of precision rather than one of art or expression. Oh and minimalist.

I would prefer it to be like that so that it is easy to learn, avoids misinterpretation, but does not become a medium for art and so diminish the importance and prevalance of other languages.

*slaps 1984 out of Infinite Dunes' hands*

Just get the British to teach all the Chinese English like India...problem solved...

Just get the British to teach all the Chinese English like India...problem solved...

Besides being possibly imperialist by favoring English, you'd still have the rest of Non-Anglophone Europe, Africa and South America.

Clearly, Esperanto is winning the race, despite being Eurocentric.

Latinae est gaudium et utils

Latinae est gaudium et utils

That would be interesting, bringing Latin back into the world as a language.

I imagine it would have to be massively updated for today's world, however.

Besides being possibly imperialist by favoring English, you'd still have the rest of Non-Anglophone Europe, Africa and South America.

Just get the British to teach all the Africans English like China… … … !

Making up a language will always have the problem of "critical mass". You would have to get so many people to use it to make it useful. And why bother learning it when there aren't enough people using it to make it useful.

That's exactly the problem. People speak English because the previous global superpower spread it all over the world, and the current superpower uses it now. There is also an economic reason to learn Spanish, because of all the Hispanic businesses in much of the US. There is no reason for anyone, besides a language nut, to learn Esperanto.

Esperanto is an international language.

Or English, since it is widely spoken already.

The only problem with international languages, though, is that other languages would die out. If the entire world were to adopt Flufflian (which is a language I just made up, it doesn't exist), then what would happen to tribal languages, or more widely-known languages like English, Spanish, Arabic, German, Chinese,etc.?

On the other hand, it would be a good idea if everyone had a common language.

Esperanto is an international language.

Or English, since it is widely spoken already.

The only problem with international languages, though, is that other languages would die out. If the entire world were to adopt Flufflian (which is a language I just made up, it doesn't exist), then what would happen to tribal languages, or more widely-known languages like English, Spanish, Arabic, German, Chinese,etc.?

On the other hand, it would be a good idea if everyone had a common language.

Well, they could possibly die out, but I think they would survive as people's mother tongues, while the international language would become a way of everyone being able to communicate with everyone else.

In a sense, everyone would become bilingual.

*slaps 1984 out of Infinite Dunes' hands*

Double-plus-good.

Isn't English effectively the international language, even moreso than it has been in the past?

Isn't English effectively the international language, even moreso than it has been in the past?

Well, not really. There are many places where English isn't spoken on a major level. Parts of South America, China, Europe and Africa speak their own native languages, Spanish or French mostly.

Well, they could possibly die out, but I think they would survive as people's mother tongues, while the international language would become a way of everyone being able to communicate with everyone else.

In a sense, everyone would become bilingual.

That too... :)

*slaps 1984 out of Infinite Dunes' hands*1984 is attempting to make newspeak the sole language in use. I was suggesting the opposite. :p

The precision might just allow it to become quite arty... I beleive classical Arabic rarely has multiple meanings or ways of misinterpretation, and it is very rigid and ordered language, but some of the poetry they've created is quite interesting. That is, if you can understand the language like I can. However, the rely more on metaphorical language rather than fanciness of tongue.Ah, I'd heard Arabic poetry was good, but not as to why. But wait, doesn't the use of metaphor introduce the possibility for misinterpretation depending upon the ideas and images invoke by the metaphors.

eg. You are my sun.

I could understand that to mean

a) you brighten up my life and make it more easy (the sun is a source of light)
OR
b) You make me ill if I have to be in your presence for too long (overexposure to UV leads to skin cancer).

Bah!

Well, not really. There are many places where English isn't spoken on a major level. Parts of South America, China, Europe and Africa speak their own native languages, Spanish or French mostly.

True, but many people speak it in addition to their native languages. It would make more sense to use English (and teach English speakers other languages) than to try and build a conlang for global use. But chances are, trends in communications and the accelerating pace of globalization will result in our languages evolving in to a global tongue on their own.

1984 is attempting to make newspeak the sole language in use. I was suggesting the opposite. :p

Ah, I'd heard Arabic poetry was good, but not as to why. But wait, doesn't the use of metaphor introduce the possibility for misinterpretation depending upon the ideas and images invoke by the metaphors.

eg. You are my sun.

I could understand that to mean

a) you brighten up my life and make it more easy (the sun is a source of light)
OR
b) You make me ill if I have to be in your presence for too long (overexposure to UV leads to skin cancer).

Bah!

Well, it's usually assumed to be the more Romantic version.:D

True, but many people speak it in addition to their native languages. It would make more sense to use English (and teach English speakers other languages) than to try and build a conlang for global use. But chances are, trends in communications and the accelerating pace of globalization will result in our languages evolving in to a global tongue on their own.

But isn't it rather unfair that English is imposed on other cultures? This could lead to native cultures being slowly diminished and destroyed, because learning the language comes with learning the culture as well(if you want to be fluent, anyway). This we can see a great deal today with the spreading of American culture around the world. I can provide some examples if you like... beleive me, I have many here I've seen in the middle east.

The IAL would be nuetral and stop that trend.

Besides, it would be a real problem to try teaching English to South Americans, for example, as they would still want to learn Spanish as well, and including their own languages, so that they would probably not end up being fluent at all, as there is far less incentive for them to learn it rather than Spanish (which is basically South America's lingua franca). The IAL would be learned with an incentive, as this would be the world's global communication language, and thus Spanish would be simply a mother tongue, not a lingua franca.

I don't know if that made sense, but I hope it did.:p

Well, it's usually assumed to be the more Romantic version.:DAh, yes, but the key word here is 'assume'. If you have to assume meaning them it takes the precision out of the lanaguage, thus making it useless for my intended purposes.

I just thought up another meaning for 'You are my sun' - You are an overprotective parent who will never let me leave home and grant me some degree of independence, even after several billion years.

Oh, and with the Arabic thing, I can understand now why Muslims tend to insist that the Quran should not be translated out of Arabic.

I can't really see why it would be necessary. On a day-to-day level, there's no need for everybody to communicate with everybody in a new language: I speak English, the people I work with speak English and my family speak English. I don't need to know another language, even for the one week a year I go to France on holiday, a French phrasebook and a smattering of the language works fine. In fact, I would prefer not to be able to communicate in universal language: a change in culture is why I go in the first place.

In professional and diplomatic circles, where fluent interlingual communication is necessary. We've got translators. IMHO, an international language is a solution looking for a problem.

Ah, yes, but the key word here is 'assume'. If you have to assume meaning them it takes the precision out of the lanaguage, thus making it useless for my intended purposes.

I just thought up another meaning for 'You are my sun' - You are an overprotective parent who will never let me leave home and grant me some degree of independence, even after several billion years.

Oh, and with the Arabic thing, I can understand now why Muslims tend to insist that the Quran should not be translated out of Arabic.

Well, almost all the poems are about love, so it's safe to assume without it feeling unprecise. If you read one of them, you would see that its really hard to draw up any other meaning about the poem besides love and romance and whatnot. You could, but it would be rather far-fetched, most likely.

But, of course, that depends on the era the poetry was done. Pre-islamic poetry is all about that sort of thing. Sufi poetry is also highly metaphorical, but it's mostly about God and spirituality.

Only if the language is funk.

Yes, we need one. The sooner the better.

It should be English, with all the dead wood dropped from it (i.e. I am, you am, we am, instead of I am, you are, we are. It's pointless when you think about it).

Only if the language is funk.

Word.

Oh, and with the Arabic thing, I can understand now why Muslims tend to insist that the Quran should not be translated out of Arabic.

Why? Because ugly writings just don't go well without an ugly language?

Why? Because ugly writings just don't go well without an ugly language?

Yay, Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia! Peace and love, everybody!

Semites are also arabs, by the way, so the term is correct.

Word.

Fo' shizzle, my nizzle.

Fo' shizzle, my nizzle.

That's not funk.

That's not funk.

Ah, it is a regional dialect of funk.

There is an easy way to spread English as an international language without imposing American culture.

Teach the world Geordie. :D

It should be English, with all the dead wood dropped from it (i.e. I am, you am, we am, instead of I am, you are, we are. It's pointless when you think about it).ZOMG! You want to make the English language Amish?! :eek:

When you really think about you could drop 'am' and 'are' altogether. Instead you'd just say 'I be hungry', or even just 'I hungry'. The 'to be' verb is superfluous.

I, personally think we need to try and reconstruct the Ur-Language, the base language of the Indo-European Language Family. Germanic Languages, Romance Languages, Baltic Languages, Sanskrit, the Celtic Languages, all are derived from the one Ur-Language. In fact, half of the world's population speaks a derivative of the Ur-Language as a primary language, and most of the world knows a derivative as a secondary language.

Therefore, we could make the Ur-Language the language of International Trade and Diplomacy, and each nation could keep their primary language.

I believe an intuitively designed symbolic representation of semantics would be easier to implement than an actual language. If carefully made, it could be written or read in whatever language at hand, though it would not contain any inherent phonetic elements.

For examplem, consider the symbol: :).

It could have a graphic manifestation, though its inherent form could be purely abstract, well suited for communication based on modern information technology.

Otherwise, British English ftw ;)

Do you beleive that we, the human race, require an international language?Other than english? Or whatever strikes people's fancy at a given era?

Should it be constructed or be an existing language?If we need one, it is linguisticly inevitable that it will come into existence, and it is very unlikely it will be consciously constructed. Either one existing language will outcompete the alternatives, or we get a pidgin version of various existing languages which will then take on a life of it's own.
Languages are build bottom-up; the top-down approach of constructing a language and then trying to get everyone to speak it is not generally spectacularly succesfull.

Dammit, there are actually people who beleive that 'American' is indeed an international language. I hope they're not serious...

American is a language as far as I'm concerned. I'm not recognising it as a form of English.

Yeah, I agree, it is rather biased, but they were made when the Europeans were still running the show on a global level, I beleive. Ah, viva the white man's imperialism...

Ah, viva racism....

I would say english because you have to know english to become an airline pilot.

One international language? Hell no. Keep people separate and in their own little corners of the world, and leave each other the fuck alone.

Ah, viva racism....

Yes, of course, I'm racist for pointing out historical prejudices.:D How utterly logical.

Do you really beleive that Europe didn't cast a rather scornful eye on the rest of the 'uncivilized' world at the time?

Well, if the governments of the world decided to actually go through with it and put it into their education systems, there would be a great incentive. Government backing is usually helpful in such things.

The US can't get people to use the metric system, do you think they could get a whole new language?

You've all heard of mathematics, universally the same, right?

As long as it's English, I'm all for an international language - I'm a real team player like that. :p

Also, I don't like the look of Esperanto, original or not. Meh.

But isn't it rather unfair that English is imposed on other cultures? This could lead to native cultures being slowly diminished and destroyed, because learning the language comes with learning the culture as well(if you want to be fluent, anyway).


This has been happening since European expansion in the 1400s. Probably 90% of the African languages are extinct and a good share of Native American languages. Of the 3-5000 languages in the world today (depending on how you define a language) nearly all are on the "Endangered Language" list.

The future looks like maybe 10 languages could still have a critical mass of speakers in the year 2100. There will still be a few old people speaking others, but few young will remember their "native" language.

As a teacher of English, I say - Rule Brittania!
The language of Shakespeare is all that the world needs.;)

*snip*

I'm going to assume the horrible mangling of the French language you used in the poll was for comedic effect.

As a teacher of English, I say - Rule Brittania!
The language of Shakespeare is all that the world needs.;)

I doubt if Shakespeare would understand the language that is being spoken today. Few understand the language that Shakespeare wrote.

We speak American here. This is America.

We speak American here. This is America.

Right, right. :p

The future looks like maybe 10 languages could still have a critical mass of speakers in the year 2100. There will still be a few old people speaking others, but few young will remember their "native" language.

Which ones? Mandarin, Hindi, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese... that's all I've got.

Which ones? Mandarin, Hindi, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese... that's all I've got.

Those, English, Russian, German, Italian and perhaps still a few speaking French and Japanese. :p

Those, English, Russian, German, Italian and perhaps still a few speaking French and Japanese. :p

French, Russian and Japanese probably, English possibly, the rest will probably die out.

French, Russian and Japanese probably, English possibly, the rest will probably die out.

English will last 3x longer than Japanese, judging by Japan's population decay. ;) Same with France, to a large degree. Hindi's gonna be big, I'm willing to bet. :p

Latina lingua optima est!

After that, I think Ithkuil (http://langmaker.com/db/Ithkuil) would be best.

I doubt if Shakespeare would understand the language that is being spoken today. Few understand the language that Shakespeare wrote.

O RLY?

How is that I read Romeo and Juliet in 9th grade, and understood it?

Its only confusing because its poetic.

Anyways, English (And all its regional differences) is rapidly becoming the lingua franca of the world.

English is becoming the lingua franca of the world for three reasons - economy, entertainment and McDonald's. Between England's long history and America's crazy sprintings English is spreading out through the business and personal circles like wildfire. The last 50 years have changed the way that almost everyone talks. It scares me though, the people I've met since I moved out of the US tend to think that we all live like 'Friends' and are usually surprised when I let them know about the general populations quality of life in the states.

Anyways, there have been trends like this in the past. Latin came with the spread of the Catholics, then the French spread schools into Africa and India, now English with the money and the movies... they never last the 'forever' that they are thought to. I think the human race is too selfish and unstable to hold onto one single language for any amazingly long period of time. Eventually another language will come up, challange the one at the top, and take over.

Of course, it won't happen in our lifetimes, but it will happen that English dies out just the way that Latin did.

Constructing a language to take the 'world's common language' place is silly. If it ever actually caught on it'd last for all of a month and then people would say fuck it and go back to their translators.

i believe the day will come when we have one.
amerenglish has been unfortunately functioning as one and functioning as one rather unfortunately, being a language especially well suited to deceit.

before amerenglish became dominant, french was of course the lingua franca, and before that latin. though niether had gained quite so global a sphere of influence.

how good or bad of a thing this will prove is anybody's guess, but i do believe in the probability that the day will come that we will have one, and one far more well suited to universal well being, then the current default.

=^^=
.../\...

it should be Anglo-Saxon or Old Norse

Mi amo Esperanto (or is that Esperanton. Never said I was good at it :p)
Mi kredas, "Mi amas esperanton" estas korekta. Mi eklernis la lingvon.

Mi kredas, "Mi amas esperanton" estas korekta. Mi eklernis la lingvon.

Smart ass :P

Smart ass :P
Kora dankon, Fi-enn!

Vive la francophonie !

i believe the day will come when we have one.
amerenglish has been unfortunately functioning as one and functioning as one rather unfortunately, being a language especially well suited to deceit.

before amerenglish became dominant, french was of course the lingua franca, and before that latin. though niether had gained quite so global a sphere of influence.

how good or bad of a thing this will prove is anybody's guess, but i do believe in the probability that the day will come that we will have one, and one far more well suited to universal well being, then the current default.

=^^=
.../\...


English is the language of deception, eh? :p I like the label, of course, but I recall French being known as the 'language of diplomacy,' so they might have first dibs on it. ;)

English is becoming the lingua franca of the world for three reasons - economy, entertainment and McDonald's.

You left out aviation.

Which ones? Mandarin, Hindi, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese... that's all I've got.

This brings up an interesting subject: What is a language? It's sort of like evolution: When is a new species?

Linguists consider Spanish and Portuguese to be a single language since the people speaking them can understand each other. The same is true of Swedish and Norwegian and many other "languages". For some reason English speakers have used the word "English" for all of the variations. Although the Americans did try to develop American English into a separate language because the tradition at that time was every nation needed it's own language (such as Spain and Portugal) . That's where we got a lot of the spelling differences.

Many linguists also consider written English and Spoken English to be separate languages because someone who can speak English can't easily read it, and people who can read it can't easily speak it because of its strange spellings.

Linguists consider Spanish and Portuguese to be a single language since the people speaking them can understand each other.

In that case, just about every regional dialect of German is a unique language, because people from different regions don't know what the fuck they're all saying.

In that case, just about every regional dialect of German is a unique language, because people from different regions don't know what the fuck they're all saying.

I can't argue with this. I grew up in a German area in western Nebraska. The various Germans didn't get along at all. Wouldn't let their children date Germans from the next town over because they were from the wrong part of Germany.

All the difference us non Germans could see was there were the beer drinkers, the wine drinkers, and those that would drink anything.

Many linguists also consider written English and Spoken English to be separate languages because someone who can speak English can't easily read it, and people who can read it can't easily speak it because of its strange spellings.

Well the typical English in England and in the U.S are slightlhy different. Color vs. colour. I spell it color. Flavour vs. flavour, and more. I spell it color because I'm American. Then again America is quite large and so there are different acceents and expressions. For example someone from the south may have that very distint accent. A Bostonian probably has the very distint Boston accent. So to a New Yorker listening to a Bostonian might be slightly confused even though New York and Boston are only a couple of hundred miles apart, the accents are different. As for expressions there are many, one might be southerners tend to say " ya'll " short for "you all".

Well, the same is here. Although everyone I know seems to prefer cookie to biscuit (this is in northern england. Don't you just hate cartoon network?). But the way we speak is very different to how southerners speak.

Do you beleive that we, the human race, require an international language? Should it be constructed or be an existing language? Do you think we already have one?

Myself, I like the idea of a constructed international language, since that way, no-one will feel like its a form of cultural imperialism and whatnot. They can even mix different language's grammar, vocab, etc. to create the ultimately global language.

While I agree English is spoken at a wide range of places, it is by no means the international lingua franca. There are many places where Spanish or French are still dominant. Chinese actually has many more speakers than English, if I remember my random trivia correctly.

Anyway, share your thoughts.

Saluton,

Mi parolas Esperanton, sed mi ne komprenas the tute fundementoj de la lingvon. :headbang::confused:

Mi estis learnis la lingvon for apud kvar jaroj. Gxin estas malsimpla por mi. Mi ne komprenas la tute [grammer rules] por la anglan lingvon, mi parolas, skribas, kaj legas angla-lingvo, sed, [again], mi ne komprenas la fundementojn. :confused::headbang:

Dankon, kaj gxis reskribos,
-Rafe

Aymara !

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aymara_language :

"The language has attracted interest because it is based on a three value logic system, and thus supposedly has better expressiveness than many other languages based on binary logic.

It is cited by the author Umberto Eco in The Search for the Perfect Language as a language of immense flexibility, capable of accommodating many neologisms. Ludovico Bertonio published Arte de la lengua aymara in 1603. He remarked that the language was particularly useful for expressing abstract concepts. [ ... ] Guzmán de Rojas has suggested that it be used as an intermediary language for computerised translation."


(Or even better prepare for an interstellar chat : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klingon_language)

Of course, it won't happen in our lifetimes, but it will happen that English dies out just the way that Latin did.

I don't really consider Latin "dead". The Catholics still speak it, I still speak it, it's still taught in schools, and it's still spoken (or at least understood) by a fairly large portion of the population... they even broadcast the news in Latin (http://yleradio1.fi/nuntii/)!

Doesn't quite seem dead to me. But maybe I'm just a nerd.

Saluton,

Mi parolas Esperanton, sed mi ne komprenas the tute fundementoj de la lingvon. :headbang::confused:

Mi estis learnis la lingvon for apud kvar jaroj. Gxin estas malsimpla por mi. Mi ne komprenas la tute [grammer rules] por la anglan lingvon, mi parolas, skribas, kaj legas angla-lingvo, sed, [again], mi ne komprenas la fundementojn. :confused::headbang:

Dankon, kaj gxis reskribos,
-Rafe

Ok, I didn't understand anything you said either, so it's all good, buddy!:D

You know, Quenya would be wonderful to use as an international language. JRR Tolkien really made a masterpiece with that one.

Remember the tower of Babel?