[Sherman]

Languages have been disappearing for a long time. There was a time when the majority of people in France didn't speak French and the majority of Italians didn't speak Italian. These languages were imposed on other speakers by the state through nationalism. The nation state with its uniform language is an artificial construct. There are still old people who speak Breton in France. My grandfather spoke Calabrian and never learned Italian.

   

[Simeon_Strangelight]

It matters and it doesn't.

The disappearance of smaller languages and dialects are not a great loss. Many African languages - tens of thousands at least if not more - have such a little vocabulary that there are no definitions for time, exact space and the overwhelming majority of expressions even in the dumbed down English version.

On the other hand - the globalists want to limit and unify all languages - best into something dumb and limited as Esperanto which has not taken. The net idea is to restrict the language so far that you cannot even express any rebellious thought or reality as you see it, because the language has been destroyed.

Currently you see this onslaught on multiple levels - PC talk where certain subjects and even words are forbidden, attack against the classics because they are racist, general dumbing down of the population via chemicals, indoctrination and other means.

We will see whether the globalists can pull it off - it takes decades and generations to destroy languages.

[Mage]

(04-25-2018 10:48 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  

Odd to suggest that English is incomplete because it borrows heavily from French or Latin. Ask George bush. The French don't even have a word for espionage. Seriously though. How many languages are borderline forced to use English terms for nearly everything invented in the post-colonial era, albeit at times a slight variation.

English: Computer
Spanish: Computadora
German: Computer
Japanese: Konpyūtā
Hindi: kampyootar

Quote:

Latin definition for:
computatrum, computatri
noun

declension: 2nd declension
gender: neuter
Definitions:

calculator
Age: Coined recently, words for new things (19th-21st centuries)

Now, someone in an advanced nation could try to find an existing word that gave the right impression but that makes little sense because a new concept can't simply displace the old meaning in the process or you lose the old meaning. They could mash up words to the effect of "electric abacus" or some other nonsense but they'll just end up sounding like idiots. In the end they just use the English word or the butchered version of it.

In a primitive nation? They would end up with "small skyfire counting pouch" at best. I don't know Japanese but I'm guessing the Japanese were advanced enough when the washing machine was invented to already have terms amounting to "washing" and "machine" so they just used their own words to name the same device, but more primitive languages that have no effective word for 'machine' are once again stuck with using English words to describe a new device.

You only have to listen to a foreign language show set in modern times to constantly pick up on dozens of English words that seep into the dialogue. Corporate branding makes this phenomenon even more ubiquitous. Do non-english speakers call an iPhone an i(insert foreign word for phone) or do they just call it an iPhone?

The foreign words adopted by the English language pale in number by comparison to the opposite. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the fastest ways to grapple with a foreign language is simply to memorise a list of all the words that are drawn directly from english or exist as minor variations of the same word.

In Latvian — a much older language, the word for computer is: Dators. It comes from latin word datum (engish - data).

In Latvian we can also say Kompjūters, which is an anglicism, but since dators is much shorter most people use that.

So as you can see not all languages use English to draw their vocabulary from.

Also even if we would accept this anglicism it still is a word that is conjugated in various forms and tenses in that language. For instance in Latvian both Dators and Kompjūters is masculine. Also both these words can be cojugated in Nominative, Accusative, Dative, Genetive, Instrumental and Locative forms. All these forms can be in singular and in plural and an artificial feminine form can also be constructed for all these forms if we ever wanted to say "wife of a computer" in a single word. Lithuanian would go even further with ability to constuct words meaning "married wife of a computer" or "unmarried mate / sister of computer" Also we have multiple Deminative forms for both these words that allow us to say in a single word that this computer (or any other thing) is small, cute or a child version of itself and of course these Deminative forms can also be conjugated in the forms listed above.

So you see in english it is just one world but in other languages it can be multitude of words with different shades and meanings and therefore the language is much richer and more expressive. For every single noun in Latvian there exits:

Nominative +1
Accusative +1
Dative +1
Genetive+1
Instrumental +1
Locative +1

All these in plural x2
All these in feminine x2
All thse in multiple types of deminative x2 or x3 or x4

That makes at least 6x2x2x2=48 forms minimum and each form carries more infrmation then the english word. That is 24 times more then English where there is only singular and plural forms and the word only carries it's basic meaning and the meaning about it's singleness or pluralness.

Russian is the same, has about the same number of noun forms than Latvian. German is simpler, there are only Nominative, Dative and Genetive. There are 3 sexes trough but there is no method how to change sex for many words, while in Latvian, Lithuanian and Russian you can create forms of opposite sex for all words and often even multiple different forms of opposite sex.

As for phones. Latvians can either use and anglicism or use a native form. The Anglicism is Telefons and the Latvian form is Tālrunis, which is not derrived from any foreign language at all and is made from Latvian words for "far" and "speaker". So this illustrates how even modern words can be made up by any language anew and there is no need to borrow anything from English or other language.

[Thomas the Rhymer]

(04-24-2018 10:09 AM)Salvadore Wrote:  

I've also always been annoyed that English only got the one word for "You" contrary to Italian, and doesn't differ whether it's meant to a singular person (tu) or multiple (voi). If everyone just spoke Italian it would make it a whole lot easier for everyone rather than having all these other ugly languages around.

Personally, I'm a big fan of ' y'all '.

Much nicer than bringing back 'thou'.

Interesting fact: 'thou' was used only to address people of lower rank. 'You' was reserved for groups and nobility. Something to look out for when reading Shakespeare, some characters deliberately put others down by using 'thou' instead of 'you'.

[Fortis]

I'm fine with english taking over as the global language. You can speak English so many different ways. It might seem like a limited language if you view it throught he lens of modern english, but there is a lot of vocabulary you can reach down into and bring back.

[Richard Turpin]

Like most English, over a decade of state education has left me without the ability to speak a single foreign language, so I admire those who do. Even more so if it's something you've endeavoured to learn in your own time.

There are so many things I would like to learn (languages being just one of them) but as I get older I realise I'm just not going to fit it all in.

Going back to the simplicity of English, there are some crazy examples of its weirdness;

'It sucks when I read read as read and not read, so I have to re-read read as read so I can read read correctly and it can make sense'

'The bandage was wound around the wound'
'The farm was used to produce produce'
'The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse'
'We must polish the Polish furniture'
'He could lead if he would get the lead out'
'The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert'
'Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present'
'A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum'
'When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes'
'I did not object to the object'
'The insurance was invalid for the invalid'
'There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row'
'They were too close to the door to close it'

I don't even know how you would begin to teach some of the above to a non-English speaker. Though having read some of the preceding posts it sounds like other languages could get even crazier.

[Simeon_Strangelight]

(04-26-2018 07:10 AM)Fortis Wrote:  

I'm fine with english taking over as the global language. You can speak English so many different ways. It might seem like a limited language if you view it throught he lens of modern english, but there is a lot of vocabulary you can reach down into and bring back.

English grammar is more limited, but I am not sure that this is such a terrible disadvantage.

But what most folk don't know is that there are far more words in term of breadth of the language. There are twice as many English words available than in the German language. It's just dumbed down in the current use, but not gone - at least not yet unless the SJW-language police cuts it all to Newspeak.

The globalists did not even want for English to win - they bet on Esperanto. English won because it's easy for basics and the grammar is simple, but to speak and write English very well and very eloquently - that is a totally different ballgame.

Besides - it was always destined to have a whittling down of languages as technology has made us pull together. Some languages are really limited and a pain in the ass. They will hardly be missed. Others are beautiful, but not spoken by many people. French, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, German, Russian - those will survive with many more as well.

I for one will count is as a success if we don't get Newspeak.

[Super_Fire]

(04-26-2018 10:05 AM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  

I for one will count is as a success if we don't get Newspeak.

That is Unthought, please Unthink that here.

[YoungBlade]

This may help:

[fokker]

(04-26-2018 06:49 AM)Thomas the Rhymer Wrote:  

(04-24-2018 10:09 AM)Salvadore Wrote:  

I've also always been annoyed that English only got the one word for "You" contrary to Italian, and doesn't differ whether it's meant to a singular person (tu) or multiple (voi). If everyone just spoke Italian it would make it a whole lot easier for everyone rather than having all these other ugly languages around.

Personally, I'm a big fan of ' y'all '.

Much nicer than bringing back 'thou'.

Interesting fact: 'thou' was used only to address people of lower rank. 'You' was reserved for groups and nobility. Something to look out for when reading Shakespeare, some characters deliberately put others down by using 'thou' instead of 'you'.

I know that some European second-language speakers of English tend to emulate the T-V distinction by capitalising the Y when writing "you" in a formal sense.

[questor70]

"You only have to listen to a foreign language show set in modern times to constantly pick up on dozens of English words that seep into the dialogue. "

I hear a lot of this. It sounds more like bilingual dialogue than loan-words.

BTW, this is slightly off-topic, but I saw this youtube clip a while back and it's an interesting thought-experiment to see what english would be like if it remained purely germanic. Sounds like JRR Tolkien (who of course, was an expert in language history).

The point being that there is usually a way to construct new words as compounds of existing words. It's not absolutely necessary to bring in loan-words. That's how a lot of english is anyway (tele-phone, tele-vision) but the compounds are brought in from other languages.

[Matt Fecal]

What about new languages being created? This might well happen in the near future. Like the Klingon language of Star Trek that was 100% created by linguists for the series, but which is actually functional.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klingon_language

As nation-states slowly become irrelevant, and educated people increasingly become related to each other worldwide through common interests and subcultures (rather than the geographical/ethnic/administrative area they were born in), we might see the apparition of artificial new languages.

New languages can either be born from the mixing of previous ones (as in Singapore's Singlish) or be artificially created by a team of linguists (not as difficult as it sounds, as the Klingon example shows)

For example, all those nerds and basement dwellers who spend half their lifetimes in virtual reality worlds could also create their own language that is relevant to their own activities. Maybe it will start there.

Other example, more and more people in the Yoga community for example are taking up Sanskrit. It's not out of the question that in 30 ears the global Yoga community communicates with each other exclusively in Sanskrit...

English is great as a basic, global language for practical applications. It is now evolving more and more into "global English". But in the future people mayadopt various new languages to fit more specialized niches, lifestyles, subcultures, etc.

[questor70]

I think people are fundamentally lazy and making a whole new language and then "selling" it is hard. Add to this laziness is how ADD everyone is these days. The less speaking, less keystrokes, the better.

Face to face interactions are being increasingly limited to just the transactional and the rest is being mediated by screens which has driven the rise of emojis/emoticons and reaction gifs. So you can say we're regressing back to a pre-written stage of non-verbal cues, only performed by the prerecorded pop-culture clip.



I mean, how many people can even sit through all of Lincoln's Gettysburg address these days? Its point could probably have been made much more directly and succinctly. People back then treated a good speech like a form of poetry. Today the closest we get to that is the caricature and anachronisms of the state of the union speeches. People simply don't value the written word as much anymore.

You could say the same about most of the humanities and social graces, actually. It's a McDonald's drive-thru cut-to-the-chase sort of world.

[scrambled]

(04-24-2018 02:33 PM)Mage Wrote:  

Languages are a miraculous thing that go against all concepts of evolution theory. If evolution is correct then more complex forms must evolve out of more simplistic. But in languages it is the opposite. Sanskrit is a very complex language with many forms and tenses.

You are starting history in the middle: languages started out much simpler, as it would be impossible for people to just spontaneously speak in something complex like Sanskrit. Over time these languages grew in complexity, then perhaps stabilized somewhat, but as the society grew and foreign adults attempted to learn the language, it simplified due to their inability to fully acquire it. So Sanskrit became Hindi.

Evolution is about genetics but in any case doesn't mean that things only move in one direction (towards complexity) but that they adapt to the circumstances.

[Lunostrelki]

English is in a position similar to French in the 18th and 19th- century Europe. It's important, but aside from people already native to the Anglosphere, nobody really thinks of it as their own language. In fact I might even argue that English is being severely corrupted because so many people use it without first learning it properly, and because progressive linguists praise substandard creoles.

In a few generations, English may not be as ubiquitous as it is now. As America loses its economic and cultural shine, Europeans might begin to find German, French or Russian more useful, while Chinese would become more attractive across Asia for obvious reasons.

As for language death, it's a little bit like the loss of culture. Even discounting the negative influences of globalization and Cultural Marxism on traditional heritage around the world, not all cultures are equal. Likewise, many languages are actually just pastoral dialects doomed to go away upon prolonged contact with education and literacy.

[questor70]

(05-09-2018 04:06 PM)Lunostrelki Wrote:  

progressive linguists praise substandard creoles.

You mean like treating ebonics like a real language?

(05-09-2018 04:06 PM)Lunostrelki Wrote:  

many languages are actually just pastoral dialects doomed to go away upon prolonged contact with education and literacy.

What other languages have that english lacks is quirks. Like welsh using w like a vowel. I mean, how can that not be cool? And what would the world be without umlauts?

[Kid Twist]

English cannot be a low level language, it has its benefits and its costs, like any other language, and can be dumbed down as well --- like any other language.

As others have said, you don't get Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton, Newton, Rutherford, Chesterton, etc unless you have a linguistic heritage that is suitable to produce such great works. IQ doesn't manifest itself without a useful language, at least in one way or another.

The knocking of English I've seen so far on this thread is foolishness. Again, do other languages do certain things better than English? Absolutely. Is English more precise in many ways, or adaptable, than other languages? Absolutely. It's sorta weird I have to point this out or be emphatic about it.

[Saccade]

(05-09-2018 05:52 PM)questor70 Wrote:  

(05-09-2018 04:06 PM)Lunostrelki Wrote:  

progressive linguists praise substandard creoles.

You mean like treating ebonics like a real language?

Modern linguistic scientists consider ebonics or African-American English as a dialect of standard English.

(05-15-2018 04:45 PM)Kid Twist Wrote:  

English cannot be a low level language, it has its benefits and its costs, like any other language, and can be dumbed down as well --- like any other language.

As others have said, you don't get Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton, Newton, Rutherford, Chesterton, etc unless you have a linguistic heritage that is suitable to produce such great works. IQ doesn't manifest itself without a useful language, at least in one way or another.

The knocking of English I've seen so far on this thread is foolishness. Again, do other languages do certain things better than English? Absolutely. Is English more precise in many ways, or adaptable, than other languages? Absolutely. It's sorta weird I have to point this out or be emphatic about it.

It's hard, nigh almost impossible, to "quantify" the "worth" of a certain language. If one were to take a look at solely the data of language (aka spoken word and what we write) it would lack an egregious amount of contextual information; so much so that it would be completely disconnected from human experience.

Language is so interesting because it doesn't exactly 'exist', so to speak. It must exist in tandem with something else. When you get down to it, an essential facet of language is that is arbitrary. Ain't no reason in this world a table should be called a table. Ain't no reason Tuesday has to be Tuesday.

Everyone 'speaks' in some way. French has some identity because we know the French. Japanese has some identity because we know the Japanese, yet why must we try to quantify these languages in relation to their creator (not even their creators, but their propagators)? Could the language not be observed as a tool of the user; a mass tool that waxes and wanes in influence and perceived influence in accordance of an incredible amount of factors?

Language creation, acquisition, and propagation are too intricate a web to detangle and reduce to some quantifiable "value". That just defeats the whole point, man. The magic is in the pudding, look deeper.

English is spreading, and one could say its 'identity' is being lost. But could there not be some sort of revival that advances it? We've made it thus far, and I've got no clue right now; but at least it seems the world is taking some heed in regard to the torrential spread of English and its consequences, as of that in language death.

[CleanSlate]

(04-24-2018 09:27 AM)YoungBlade Wrote:  

(04-24-2018 09:22 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  

Reminds me. I've been meaning to take a crack at learning sign language. I've always thought it would be a great universal language, although I'm told it has some fairly strong regional 'dialects'.

There are actually two distinct languages IIRC. American and British. American sign language is descended from a Frenchman who recorded how a pair of twin deaf girls communicated and expanded it. British sign language has been around since the early renaissance. The issue with this is that depending on where you are in the world, you speak one or the other, and then with a dialect. China, for example, uses BSL, while most of the Western world uses ASL.

I'm sure CleanSlate can correct me, as I know comparatively little about sign languages

Just saw this.

There are actually more than just American or British sign languages. There's French sign language, Japanese sign language, Thai sign language, etc etc... each country with a sizeable population usually have their own deaf communities and their own sign language. There's probably over 50+ distinct sign languages all over the world, and I'm being conservative.

There is actually a "universal" sign language designed to bring deaf people from all over the world together, despite differing backgrounds and native languages. But to be honest I don't know it very well, and most deaf people around the world don't know it either because they don't really get many chances to use it. We just get by with lots of gesturing and exchanging our vocabularies from our native sign languages (and making stuff up as we go along), which is a much more interesting experience than trying to remember how to use universal sign language.

Oh and here's another tidbit you might find interesting. Almost half of American Sign Language is derived from French Sign Language because most deaf people who colonized America in the 17th-18th centuries were French themselves. So if you knew ASL, you'd also understand roughly half of the French sign language and probably guess the rest given enough context.

[Jetset]

(04-24-2018 10:25 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:  

(04-24-2018 10:09 AM)Salvadore Wrote:  

...
If everyone just spoke Italian it would make it a whole lot easier for everyone rather than having all these other ugly languages around.

I tried to learn it but my arms always got too sore.

I learned more than enough Italian to very competently order everything I might ever want to eat during a long summer trip with a duffel bag.

It was effective enough that waiters would be amazed and start babbling away in Italian as if I were a native speaker.

As a result, every interaction was like this, if the dog were the waiter trying to speak English:

Anyway, Siciliano, Occitan, Scots. The death warrants were drawn up for those types of languages with the invention of the radio. American dialects aren't holding out especially well, either. If you have an interest, learn them to preserve them and keep the best words in your family. Most have some kind of organization online that can help you research and study. Some even can help you find translated children's books.

[puckerman]

There are over 80 indigenous languages in Perú and over 200 in Brazil. Those are definitely on their last legs. Most of the people there realize their languages don't hold much economic progress. So, the indigenous Peruvians are learning Spanish. Most of those languages are in trouble.

[Dalaran1991]

People tend to think of the Vietnamese as one people, but what you are thinking about is the Kinh people, which represents about 95% of the Vietnamese population. In truth there are around 80+ different ethnicities in Vietnam, each with their own languages and customs.

Now, more and more of them are speaking "Vietnamese" and even English. Most have moved down to the bigger cities. Many of the tribes have "disappeared" as they get assimilated into the bigger culture.

No problem so far other than liberal anthropologists protesting about dumb shit.

If I marry a French girl I don't think I'll teach my kid Vietnamese. They would learn French, then English, Spanish and probably Chinese (and I say this last one with utter distaste). Our brain only got so much capacity and I would rather my kids become fluent in the languages that will matter and survive. If they want to have a root connection with Vietnam they can do it well enough in English, and eventually learn Vietnamese themselves as they see fit.

I dont see why survival of the fittest should not apply to cultures and languages. We are in this shit in the first place because liberal fuckers always want "diversity".

[Winston Wolfe]

[Felix88]

I like Vietnamese because the curse words are so much better than English. How would I live if I can't curse by talking about other people's mother's genital?

[Contagion]

(05-23-2018 07:42 AM)Dalaran1991 Wrote:  

People tend to think of the Vietnamese as one people, but what you are thinking about is the Kinh people, which represents about 95% of the Vietnamese population. In truth there are around 80+ different ethnicities in Vietnam, each with their own languages and customs.

Now, more and more of them are speaking "Vietnamese" and even English. Most have moved down to the bigger cities. Many of the tribes have "disappeared" as they get assimilated into the bigger culture.

No problem so far other than liberal anthropologists protesting about dumb shit.

If I marry a French girl I don't think I'll teach my kid Vietnamese. They would learn French, then English, Spanish and probably Chinese (and I say this last one with utter distaste). Our brain only got so much capacity and I would rather my kids become fluent in the languages that will matter and survive. If they want to have a root connection with Vietnam they can do it well enough in English, and eventually learn Vietnamese themselves as they see fit.

I dont see why survival of the fittest should not apply to cultures and languages. We are in this shit in the first place because liberal fuckers always want "diversity".

What you're describing Dalaran actually went on in France in the 1800's as well. Today, most of the territory that is France is speaks French, but that wasn't always the case. Many of the dialects were lost in place of French, though the regional languages were very similar to French so it wasn't that much of a switch. I'm not sure how similar the languages are with the 80 or so ethnicities in Vietnam.

I'm sure Vietnam will turn out all right, just like France did for the most part. But, at the same time, it would be sad if Vietnam ever lost it's 95% majority ethnicity of the Kinh people, because that's what makes Vietnam Vietnamese. While the regional dialects in Vietnam might die off, hopefully they'll learn from other places in the world to at least keep their historical demographics in check.