| Most Recent Messages of Each Discussion |
Created by |
Re:Mark’s Soap Box, part VIII
> Let’s go ahead and create a language that
> is kind of Korean and kind of Swahili and
> kind of Romanian. Let’s be sure and mix
> in a little of everything else while
> we’re at it. Use umlauts, clicks, vowel
> harmonies, gender AND measure words.
> We’ll conjugate the nouns and decline
> the verbs.
>
And for a good measure, let's add the
Asian tones, too.
I think one of the real attempts to solve
these problems are the pidgin languages.
The pidgins I have heard of, have
appeared between two languages having
very different grammar and vocabulary.
And in the backstreets of large cities
there are probably many slangs and
"unofficial pidgins" serving the same
purpose of bridging two languages together.
Pidgins are often looked down; isn't the
very word "pidgin" originally derogatory?
Yet the speakers of these languages are
unconsciously doing excellent field
research on topics nobody else is pursuing
actively. A look into the structures of
these languages might reveal many
interesting, exciting, and surprisingly
streamlined partial solutions to the
problem of a universal language.
Yet another source of information could
be bilingual children learning to speak.
Instead of scolding them by: "Shame on
you, do not mix two languages in the same
sentence!" we could instead listen to
HOW they mix two languages. Children are
likely to cut corners and throw away
anything that they deem too unwieldy for
fluent communication.
Puti
|
Language pair: English; All
|
|
Juha-Petri T.
February 23, 2005
# Msgs: 28
Latest: February 27, 2005
|
Mark’s Soap Box, part VIII
Mark’s Soap Box, Part VIII: Conclusion on the Universal Language, or, “Is he EVER going to shut UP?”
. This process of bonding, finding things in common, and building peace or fellowship (or both) is the same thing that happened in that other episode, where the two men played survival games in order to learn to communicate with each other.
So we’d actually be much better off finding a universal language that tries to make everyone happy, regardless of what continent they come from, and fails miserably at it. Let’s go ahead and create a language that is kind of Korean and kind of Swahili and kind of Romanian. Let’s be sure and mix in a little of everything else while we’re at it. Use umlauts, clicks, vowel harmonies, gender AND measure words. We’ll conjugate the nouns and decline the verbs. Let’s make it HARD to learn.
By the time we’re done learning it, we’ll understand each other a whole lot better, I think.
Well, I’ve gone on for eight messages now. I hope I haven’t put anyone to sleep. I hope I’ve maybe shed some light on a very complicated problem. More than that, I hope someone out there will bounce off of my thinking and shed some more light on it for ME. I sure hope there’s someone out there smart enough to solve this. I can’t wait for my country to recover from being a superpower and discover that the rest of you out there are pretty cool.
Mark Springer
Sacramento, CA, USA
Normal member
Speaking: English, Spanish
Studying: Spanish, Portuguese
Studied: German, Turkish, Mandarin Chinese
Played with: Russian, Hebrew, Latin, Tagalog, French, Sign language
|
Language pair: English; All
|
|
Mark S.
February 21, 2005
# Msgs: 28
Latest: February 27, 2005
|
Error on Mark’s Soap Box, part VII
Note: MSG part VII was mistakenly sent out as message VI. If you saw two messages headed Mark’s Soap Box, part VI, but the very first line says that it's message number VII, Ignore the subject title of the message and go by the one on the first line of the message, which is correct. Sorry for the confusion!
Mark
|
Language pair: English; All
|
|
Mark S.
February 21, 2005
# Msgs: 28
Latest: February 27, 2005
|
Re:Mark’s Soap Box, part VI
> I’m afraid I’ve never heard of Novial,
> but I’ve had some experience of Esperanto,
> which is very much a European language,
> unquestionably.
>
So is Novial, too. If you are interested,
an Internet search program will take you
to Novial resources.
Puti
|
Language pair: English; All
|
|
Juha-Petri T.
February 21, 2005
# Msgs: 28
Latest: February 27, 2005
|
Re:Mark’s Soap Box, part V
> Some of us can go to school, work, raise
> kids, and go to language group meetings.
> Others of us find it's all we can do just
> to get through work or school. [...]
> Whoever has always gets more, and whoever
> doesn't gets less and less.
>
Could it be possible to do the daily
work in a place, where most of the other
workers are speaking a foreign language?
That would mean 40+ hours of language
education per week with no extra costs
in time or money. I know that this option
is not available to everyone, but people
who have to find a new job now and then
might have a chance there.
Puti
|
Language pair: English; All
|
|
Juha-Petri T.
February 21, 2005
# Msgs: 28
Latest: February 27, 2005
|
Re:Dwyn Hart
> I've been worried about Dwyn and how
> she might have taken Amanda's comments,
> [...] I don't even think she knows
> how much fun we're having on her nickel.
>
This place is like a village market:
people come and go all the time, and
there is no guarantee that they will
stay to read the replies.
> By the way, I really appreciate the
> comments you're making in response
> to my musings.
>
Commenting each other is one of the
very reasons why we are here. :-)
Puti
|
Language pair: English; All
|
|
Juha-Petri T.
February 21, 2005
# Msgs: 28
Latest: February 27, 2005
|
Re:Mark’s Soap Box, part VI
Mark’s Soap Box, Part VII: How Universal do you want to get?
Any of you out there fans of Star Trek? (Now, now, don’t groan. It’s not for everybody, and a good thing, too!) Actually, I have learned a good many very important lessons on Star Trek. Two episodes come to mind that I think are relevant here.
One episode involved two cultures who had very sophisticated sciences of linguistics, but couldn’t figure out how to communicate, because the fundamental bases of their languages were just incompatible. They solved their problem by stranding themselves on a planet and being in the position of having to work together in order to survive. Finding a way to communicate became a matter of survival, and they worked it out.
The other episode involved a man who had a very unusual style of communication. He was mute, but he had a psychic connection with three servants who did all of his speaking for him. He was a diplomat, in this episode, and he was responsible for helping two warring nations work out a peace agreement. When he showed up to the peace talks, there was a problem, people started shooting, and his servants were killed. Not knowing how to communicate left the ambassador in despair of being able to complete his mission. But he ultimately realized that he could turn his weakness into strength (something he always tries to get people to do when working out peace). Without his servants, he would have to learn to speak in sign language in order to be able to communicate. He realized that by going to the two warring leaders and working together with the three of them to learn sign language, they would have a common cause that would help them to bond together, to establish a sort of fraternity that would establish commonalities among the warring leaders that would then form the basis for a lasting peace.
Next time: Getting back to Earth
Mark Springer
Sacramento, CA, USA
|
Language pair: English; All
|
|
Mark S.
February 20, 2005
# Msgs: 28
Latest: February 27, 2005
|
Mark’s Soap Box, part VI
Universal Language
In light of all of this discussion of how important it is to be multi-lingual and how difficult it is to address that in the U.S.A, it’s funny to talk about having a universal language. Nonetheless, I agree that it is not only useful but very important.
Of course, until 1991, we had two universal languages; now we have one, and it is English. Again, I hope I’m not being arrogant. The fact is, the point of universal language primarily is trade. If you can speak English, you can travel anywhere in the world and do business. This is not absolutely true, but it is generally true. I visited once to a little town in Italy called Paestum. A beautiful place, and it was especially beautiful to me that nobody spoke English. That would have been a problem for me, not speaking any Italian (and sadly, I haven’t fixed that yet), but since they were used to German tourists, many people spoke German, so I was able to get around pretty well.
But look at a country like India. Every part of the country has a different language to speak, and these languages are not mutually intelligible. A person from the South cannot communicate to a person from the East. But everyone in India speaks English, and so Indians communicate from all parts of the country in English.
The one point I have to concede to my arrogant American brothers is, however much I hate the fact that Americans think that everyone should speak English, the reality is that between the ascendancies of the British Empire and the age of American imperialism, we have created a world where it is sadly a fact that you pretty much have to speak English in order to communicate at an international level.
But rather than leave the subject on that note, I want to come back to a very interesting point that Puti makes. I’m afraid I’ve never heard of Novial, but I’ve had some experience of Esperanto, which is very much a European language, unquestionably. And I think that Puti asks for the impossible (and I don’t doubt he knows this) in asking for a universal language that is accessible to Europeans, Asians, and Africans. But that’s not a bad thing. Next time, When universal includes the stars
Mark Springer
Sacramento, CA, USA
|
Language pair: English; All
|
|
Mark S.
February 20, 2005
# Msgs: 28
Latest: February 27, 2005
|
Dwyn Hart
You know, it's funny, Puti,
I've been worried about Dwyn and how she might have taken Amanda's comments, but I did a little checking around, and it looks like she may not have even been on board since 2/12. I see a flurry of messages from her 2/11 and 2/12, and then nothing. I don't even think she knows how much fun we're having on her nickel.
By the way, I really appreciate the comments you're making in response to my musings. It's kind of nice to think that someone out their finds my ramblings worth reading.
Cheers!
Mark
|
Language pair: English; All
|
|
Mark S.
February 20, 2005
# Msgs: 28
Latest: February 27, 2005
|
Re:Re:Mark’s Soap Box, part V
I agree, and that can be a wonderful resource for some. Unfortunately, we're not all equal in our levels of responsibilities, obligations, energy levels and so forth. Some of us can go to school, work, raise kids, and go to language group meetings. Others of us find it's all we can do just to get through work or school. Forget having kids! In that situation, going to meetings once a week (which in order to really benefit must be supported by regular exercises each day!)
It comes back to the same problem we always have in capitalism: Whoever has always gets more, and whoever doesn't gets less and less.
Mark
|
Language pair: English; All
|
|
Mark S.
February 20, 2005
# Msgs: 28
Latest: February 27, 2005
|
