You are changing my words. "ashamed of" is not the same as "not proud of".
I have full respect for anyone speaking his/her native language.
Heavy price to pay for little gains.
Latest update: Keymats are here, how strong will the logo plate be - and pretty cases.
- Thread starter EvilDragon
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You are changing my words. "ashamed of" is not the same as "not proud of".
I have full respect for anyone speaking his/her native language.
Heavy price to pay for little gains.
λ the β-Redex Reducer
β-Redex Reducing Member
It seems like a misunderstanding is going on. I was not correcting you, I was agreeing that it's nothing to be proud of and adding to that that it's nothing to be ashamed of either. Thus my point was that pride is irrelevant. I speak English and am happy with it purely because of pragmatism.
Which brings me back to my question, what is the price? What are the disadvantages of everyone speaking English? British colonisation is too vague for me to understand what you mean.
Though I do regret countries losing their culture. Thanks to the ability of people to mix, cultures get mixed too. I like places that have a strong identity and a distinct culture. But nowadays most cultures are becoming more and more like America's culture, which is mostly just about hedonistic greed and gluttony with a McDonalds on every corner. IMO it's hardly a culture at all, and since my own country is filled with it as well it's one I quickly tire of. My country lost it's culture many decades ago.
Letalis Sonus
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I'd say the American imperialism during the cold war era was what really gave the language the final push to become the international language, though - American English is pretty much the most favoured variant in non English speaking countries after all. Before that German was pretty close to get that title as well, as it was the language of science back then - that's where all those very specific German words in the English vocabulary originate from. As a related trivia, the Muhlenberg Legend claims that there was a vote to make German the official language of the US or one of its states, which failed by only a single vote.
asimov-solensan
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I vote to use esperanto as official language in the forum.
Not that I know it anyhow but it is an interesting idea.
And as someone from a country with multiple languages in use I can assure you that this thread is going to upset some people.
Not that I know it anyhow but it is an interesting idea.
And as someone from a country with multiple languages in use I can assure you that this thread is going to upset some people.
Djoga'Ro
moonstruck
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Thought, that was just for a county or something like that. ?
levi
Still fresh, damnit!
As a myth or officially speaking, a legend, the facts don't matter much and they can be whatever you want them to be, provided you can get them past your audience.
Letalis Sonus
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There are several versions, apparently the earliest known version is about Pennsylvania, but the modern urban legend in the US is about the whole US.
levi
Still fresh, damnit!
Except when it's
Maybe lojban
levi
Still fresh, damnit!
Mi na jimpe
Confuzzled
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Actually, if you speak to the Scots, Welsh, and Irish, it is a sign of English colonization. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a relatively recent political construction, and there is an interesting believable but false fact that of all the countries in the world, only about 20 have not been invaded at some point in their history by the English or their successors, the British (Something closer to truth is here: https://www.quora.com/How-accurate-...as-invaded-all-but-22-countries-in-the-world# ). It took a long and costly campaign to subdue the Welsh, and Welsh is still an official language of the UK. Other languages are still in use, such as Scots, Scots Gaelic, Ulster Scots, and Irish. There is long-standing multi-generational resentment against the English in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. Note that the first official language of Ireland (the country) is Irish, even though most inhabitants speak primarily English.
Choosing to speak English when you are not being forced to by force of arms is an arguably reasonable course of action. You are not compelled to speak English, and intelligent English monoglots recognize this and appreciate that you make this choice.
λ the β-Redex Reducer
β-Redex Reducing Member
It's not Mandarin. Mandarin has a lot of speakers, but it's a poor international language because people outside of Asia are unlikely to know Mandarin. English on the other hand is known worldwide and for many countries it's the best language to know there right after those countries' native languages.
As for Chinese, that's not even a language.
Post automatically merged:
As for converting this forum, I think that I would like Ithkuil. I've read a bit about it and it seems pretty cool. Failing that I'd like people here to talk French so that I can practice it a bit.
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Silent-Hunter
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I think English is a poor choice for an international language, because its rules are inconsistent.
Letalis Sonus
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It is still a pretty simple language that is quite easy to learn. Many languages are an absolute nightmare - weird counting systems and cases that split up into more than just "one" and "more than one", insanely large amounts of tenses or even (grammatical!) genders, pronunciations that are so finely nuanced that you can't hear the difference between about 7 words with a completely different meaning...
I mean, just take German as an example. If you didn't grew up with it, chances are pretty high that you'll never fully figure out how to gender your nouns in your lifetime - while it hardly matters at all in the English language.
levi
Still fresh, damnit!
Lots of people's universes are so small that they only ever need to learn Mandarin Chinese. It's not an international language in any real sense of course, but I'd contend it's still a universal language for that reason.
As for Chinese not being a language, the chinese people I met in Beijing who could speak english seemed to think it was, and didn't even seem to know that Cantonese was spoken in Hong Kong. They called their language Chinese.
Nani? Moi you nyet verstehen!
Language also shapes the way you think. I think the Mayans had 4 binary states: Yes Absolutely, Yes Maybe, Maybe Not and No absolutely.
To convey an idea unambiguously, to order a machine to do things... well, Lojban is the best language so far.
To convey an idea unambiguously, to order a machine to do things... well, Lojban is the best language so far.
Djoga'Ro
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Nope. Just, nope!
ok ok... quaternary state then!
