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| Worldwide language!! | |||||||||
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| Worldwide language!! on Wed Oct 18, 2006 11:36 pm | |||||||||
sined911
Joined: 20 Jul 2006 |
So i was speaking with dave (bio teacher) in spanish durring my resource room class about the work that was assigned surring math last period and joe say's to me "we're in america, speak english" ofcource this is a common ignorant biggity remark i just brushed it off as one of his stupid mouth spazms.
what i was wondering was that if some day we did choose to have a language spoken by everyone worldwide what would it be? The most widley spoken language is chinese i think? But since america is so high on the power scale english is a possablity too... Honestly i think it should be latin. Latin is a very generic and helpfull language. Its a way for everyone to start from scratch i know its not likley but i was just curious as to your opinions on this |
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| Posted on Thu Oct 19, 2006 12:19 am | |||||||||
Tankdown
Joined: 10 Aug 2006 |
Right now as far that I know of, math is the universal language. Trying to get everyone to go by a certain language is disrepect to other people cultures and relgions (yes there are some). But to avoid talking about religions...
Its just that there is going to be fights, yes its smart to go with latin but no everyone wants to go with it. A after problem is that not all our words are based off the latin language, even now with the fusion of japanese culture and other things with us there are a mixure of phrases jumping around. It justs not that easy! |
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| Posted on Thu Oct 19, 2006 4:21 am | |||||||||
Sirius
Joined: 12 Jan 2006 |
Screw Latin. Russian and English for the win.
I believe the most widely spoken languages are Mandarin Chinese, English, Hindi(I think, though it may actually be Hindi and a couple other similar languages, all grouped as one), Spanish, and Russian(Edit: Actually, I believe my information may be wrong on this. Maybe it is Arabic in this position, with Russian further down the list - I'll edit later when I figure it out), in that order. Really, though, if there were to be a 'Worldwide Standard Language', it would have to be completely new. Something without characters based in Roman letters, Chinese letters, Arabic letters, etc. It would have to have its own words. Using any current, or previous language as either a base or as the standard would just cause problems with people adopting it, and a thinking, 'Why is their language so special? Why not mine?' This would lead to needless conflict. No... a new language would have to be created. Or we could just use Sindarin, or Quenya. 
-- And, really, I am tired of people coming to America and not speaking English. It isn't so much that I mind people speaking other languages in America; it's that other languages are taking over. In America, English is spoken. Period. I should not have any other language take precedence anywhere in America over English. I do not want to go to a store, and see everything in Spanish with English in small print under it. He was right. This is America, speak English. You come here, you learn and speak English. It's simple. Speak other languages with your family, or with your own people, as you were. I don't mind that. I don't care, but when English starts becoming second to another language in America, I get pissed. |
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| Posted on Thu Oct 19, 2006 5:04 am | |||||||||
EnKi
Joined: 07 Mar 2006 |
we should just all use the language of telepathy/empathy
it's something pretty much everybody would be avle to understand without learning a new language, because it's in us all |
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| Posted on Thu Oct 19, 2006 10:56 am | |||||||||
Woodpecker
Joined: 24 Apr 2006 |
Actually several attempts were made at creating a universal language and the one most often quoted is Esparanto, although none of them caught on properly of course.
English is a great language especially since it has one of the world's largest lexicons at over 3,000,000 words. On the other hand, Chinese is great because its character base enables a lot more to be said in the same amount of space. For example, the characters for 'China' mean 'Middle Kingdom', thus giving outside status to other countries as well as being the name for China. In addition, written Chinese is universal - the characters will mean the same thing everywhere even though the spoken language will vary from region to region. If we are going to have a universal language, I reckon the Chinese system is probably the best, at least for the written word. As for the spoken - well, I don't know. Whatever happens, lots of people will have to learn a new language. I think it would depend on the general consensus over grammar. Cantonese is nice in this respect with almost no verb conjugation and isn't too dissimilar to English, sharing the Subject-Verb-Object pattern. English has loads of verbs to conjugate and I for one do not enjoy conjugation much when learning a foreign language. 
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| Posted on Thu Oct 19, 2006 1:00 pm | |||||||||
sined911
Joined: 20 Jul 2006 |
whoa now. first off i wasnt about to speak english just so that that moron would understand what we were saying because 1. it wasnt any of his buisness and 2. dave says he enjoys speaking spanish with me because it reminds him of his peace corpe days. My "native" tounge is spanish and english because i learned both at exactly the same time so i concider myselfe nutrual in this fight. I realy don't see why people want to understand the old lady at the front of the bus speaking with her daughter... i mean, its not about you! why do you care? Also i see why you wouldnt want entire towns being completley wiped off the english language thats extremley invasive and disrespectfull. You have to see that there are boundries to this and you shouldnt go to the extreme of restricting it from being spoken in public |
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| Posted on Thu Oct 19, 2006 1:06 pm | |||||||||
sined911
Joined: 20 Jul 2006 |
yeah chinese is one of the languages were its characters identify an idea rather than a sound (like english) i agree with that. i think having a universal written only language would be a good fix. I mean people wouldnt have to learn new pronunciations for it but it would take along time to adapt. People wouldnt feel completley lost in other countries either which will make traveling alot easier and funner. 
this is all hypothetical ofcource! i'm not making a presentation about this to the major world leaders or anything so don't get to jumpity about this as i see its already begginning to happen (*ehem*serius) |
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| Posted on Thu Oct 19, 2006 4:40 pm | |||||||||
mattz1010
Joined: 14 Jan 2006 |
"we're in america, speak english"
how about... I stick my FIST. up your ASS. We'll talk in the fucking universal language of PAAAAIIIIINNNN. Cuntface. See, now THAT's what you should say to "joe"
>_> we should have shorthand as a universal lanugage! based off of english and not engrish. |
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| Posted on Thu Oct 19, 2006 4:42 pm | |||||||||
GreatWhiteNinja
Joined: 16 Feb 2006 |
You have a point about the characters, but there is a big problem with speaking it. When I was interested in learning a few Chinese words for fun, I found out from the dictionary that there are 4 (or 5;depends where you look maybe) tones in the Chinese language. The tones deal with the volume of one's voice over a certain vowel (this being taught via pinyin of course) in a word. The first tone is represented by a flat line indicating a constant volume, the second and third are reprensented by lines slanting up or down indicating a rising or lowering of vocal volume. And the fourth is represented by a "V"-shaped symbol which I'm sure you can figure out by now  . The fifth is very vague and, according to my research, barely used/noticible. Now, consider that the Chinese speak a mile per minute (at least to our uneducated ears) and are using advanced tones over a small portion of each word. NOT A GOOD COMBINATION!!! Do you think people would want to learn how to speak a language that hard?! I wouldn't think so. There's a reason why they call it the hardest language in the world. Any screw up in a tone can change the meaning completely. For example, I was watching a funny talk show (Called "The Grahm Norton Effect) and during the show a person in the audience commented on a trip he took to China. He says that he speaks Chinese and even mentioned the four tones. He said that when he was crossing a street with a Chinese woman he said something like "How are you?" and for "some reason" the woman blushed immediately. The man was puzzled. When he checked out the word that he said in a dictionary (or whatever he uses for reference) he found that the phrase he spoke was slightly off in a tone (or two) and then translated into something completely different. The word was "vagina"  . Imagine you cross a street with someone and they say vagina, do you think they'd really meant to say that? It just isn't right. Perhaps if you made a language that used a similar/same character style with another spoken language you'd have something. But Chinese by itself just won't do. It must be almost impossible to learn a language like that unless you're very young. Most people would never dream of converting to that language simply because of the tones. I should know, that's the reason I stopped learning Chinese words.
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| Posted on Thu Oct 19, 2006 8:05 pm | |||||||||
Sirius
Joined: 12 Jan 2006 |
Pay attention. I agree, he was very rude. I don't care if you speak it - as said. It just needs to stop taking over. The reason it is taking over is because businesses must adapt to the idiots refusing to learn English. --
http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutenglish/numberwords?view=uk - Estimates at around 750000, at its highest.
I don't like the Chinese writing system. I prefer a writing system wherein the characters represent just sounds, not ideas and words. It simplifies things, to me. It's illogical to have so many characters. |
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| Posted on Thu Oct 19, 2006 10:04 pm | |||||||||
klunckmonker
Joined: 13 Jul 2006 |
HUZZAAA, heh, if psionics is the next step of evolution, I guess there would be no good reason to have a spoken language when telepathy and empathy is much more efficient. Although if people get, too advanced then there is no privacy for our mind and our thoughts. |
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| Posted on Thu Oct 19, 2006 10:09 pm | |||||||||
sgtpsion
Joined: 13 Jan 2006 |
Personally, I think that we'll come up with some crazy, easy-to-learn language that we haven't invented yet, and THAT will be the universal language. That would destroy all elitist feelings of the country that spawned the language (England if English was the universal language).
Either that, or we'll just all become telepaths and not speak at all...
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| Posted on Sat Oct 21, 2006 6:56 pm | |||||||||
Woodpecker
Joined: 24 Apr 2006 |
Good point: the tones can be a real problem. I was once trying to say 'you' and said 'pear' instead (someone was correcting my pronounciation). Homophones are much more common too, but that is alleviated in writing by the Character base.
"The tones deal with the volume of one's voice over a certain vowel (this being taught via pinyin of course) in a word. " Actually, the tones are dealing with pitch. Chinese is more of a sung language. The first tone is the high level one at the top of your pitch range and the others, as you say, deal with changing pitch. "Now, consider that the Chinese speak a mile per minute (at least to our uneducated ears) and are using advanced tones over a small portion of each word. NOT A GOOD COMBINATION!!!" Actually, it's a very good combination. I'll deal with Cantonese here (a dialect of Chinese - the common one is Mandarin). Suppose you wanted to say the word 'sell' as in 'I want to sell my car'. You learn the word for that. Then, you want to know the word for 'buy' as in 'buy a car'. The word is the same but the tone is different. OK, so getting the tone right is a problem but at least the two words are easier to remember (in my case anyway). You aren't having to learn a completely new word, just a new tone on the old word. "I really don't see why people want to understand the old lady at the front of the bus speaking with her daughter... i mean, its not about you! why do you care?" 1) Sometimes having another language spoken in front of you can create a feeling of being excluded. 2) It's not always a matter of choice. If I was on the bus and the little old lady was speaking in English, I would understand her. No, it's not about me but I still hear it and understand it - the difference is I have the choice to ignore what she says. "Also I don't see why you wouldnt want entire towns being completley wiped off the english language thats extremely invasive and disrespectful." There doesn't have to be an end to individual languages, just one spoken by everybody to be able to be understood anywhere. It would be like English on a grander scale - the Italians would still speak Italian to each other but the Universal Language to everybody else. "http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutenglish/numberwords?view=uk - Estimates at around 750000, at its highest." Whoops, yes that sounds like a better figure. Sorry!
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| Posted on Sat Oct 21, 2006 9:15 pm | |||||||||
Tankdown
Joined: 10 Aug 2006 |
I just think we should just use a writting system to talk to each other I think was menstion before. Like the chinaeze did some time ago. They all speak different languages with each other while still in tribes, but had the same writting system. | ||||||||
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| Posted on Tue Oct 24, 2006 7:50 am | |||||||||
mattz1010
Joined: 14 Jan 2006 |
Yar, my grandparents are chinese, I just realized now why they keep correcting me. I'm probably saying something like "I chicken table." instead of "I'm home" >_> then there's, like, the two major sections: Mandarin and Cantonese (yay! i am cant.) Then there's dialects for each of the major sections :\ which just adds to the general GAH. ness. |
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