August 30, 2004

• Paging Alnedra, innit?
• Yes, yes? Well, I agree. English is a killer language. But even worse are people stuck in the limbo between languages. Many people are no longer proficient in their native language - I know friends whose Chinese (Mandarin or other dialects) are just about non-existent - yet do not speak proper English.
• Yeah, I used to be one of those people. I grew up with five languages (though literate in only three), and never quite felt fluent in any of them in isolation. People are always surprised at my code-switching when I talk to my family over the phone or something.
• Wow, Alnedra, that must be an uncomfortable place for them to find themselves. Any thoughts on why English is so good at getting a foothold? It seems to me that the economic (wealthy countries speak English) and prestige arguments (demonstrates an expensive education) explain most of why it is popular to study English, but don't really address why it manages to gradually find its way into day to day use.
• don't really address why it manages to gradually find its way into day to day use Have you ever heard anyone speak Chinese? I think that is explanation enough. I kid, I kid; it's Monday morning here, I'm allowed.
• yes chinese is an extraordinarily difficult language from the point of simply making the necessary sounds. (at least for this western mouth.) while i was there i was always petrified that the least incorrect movement of tongue or palate would result in hideous insults spewing forth by accident. hey! where's languagehat!?
• Do _native_ speakers find Chinese difficult though?
• I would expect not
• Errr... not really. Reading Chinese is tough, because just about every single word has to be memorised. But I don't find it more difficult to speak Mandarin or Teochew than English. In fact, I can speak a great deal faster in Mandarin than in English, which gives the false impression that I'm more proficient in it. English has become a day-to-day language out of necessity I believe. So many transactions take place internationally, and especially when dealing with Europe and USA, English is the language of choice. Moreover, with so many different languages in Asia alone, English becomes an easy bridge, since learning it means that you can effectively communicate with people from almost all developed nations and many of the developing ones.
• Eight, sir; seven, sir; Six, sir; five, sir; Four, sir; three, sir; Two, sir; one! Tenser, said the Tensor. Tenser, said the Tensor. Tension, apprehension, And dissension have begun. Sorry Tensor, had to get my Bester fix in. Interesting post. I also believe that English is the international language for airline/pilot communication and then you have at least 50% (in some sub-disciplines, higher) of all scientific literature and papers being first authored in English and you have some tremendous pressure from this one language. Tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun, indeed!
• Languagehat is on hiatus, but he linked to the article nine months ago; perhaps comments from then are still relevant.
• English has certainly become the overwhelmingly preferred second language of the world. But its status as a first language is less clear . Isn't it giving way to Spanish in parts of the USA? Who knows: instead of becoming the universal language, it could end up the way Latin used to be: universal, but dead.
• ZombieMonkeyFilter: Universal, but dead.
• I wonder if English will ever go the way of Latin/Roman, and spawn languages which are unintelligible to the original. Asia may be the place where this will happen.
• I'd also like to point out that ZombieMonkeyFilter is unintelligible to the original MonkeyFilter. Bananas! Banaaaaaaaanaas!
• Not everyone is happy about English, of course...
• ...not by any means...
• I think the situation of Singlish in Singapore is probably unique, but it isn't the only case of a hybrid.
• I'm fluent on both spanish and english, so there's this whole "spanglish" movement... Honestly, at the rate that latin american culture is spreading, I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes the language of the America's in the next 20-30 years. The interest is def. there, and so is the availability.
• As long as there are people in groups, there will never be a universal language. Language is used to keep people out as much as it is used to invite outsiders in. Even if some giant cosmic language vacuum sucked up the knowledge of any language other than English from the planet, in a hundred years the Uber-language will have divided into dialects and accents, and slang of all sorts will merrily confuse and annoy the populace as it always has. In another 1000 years or so, these variations will be unintelligible to outsiders, and so it begins again. As to why English? If you are looking for a word to describe something, odds are you'll find it in an English dictionary - they're bloody huge! This makes it a very flexible and adaptive way of expressing yourself. English has, historically, had no qualms about adopting useful words from other languages and adding them to the lexicon. Perhaps that is a form of language imperialism - I prefer to think it's simply inclusive. My favourite Spanglish? the reflexive verb "freakearse", meaning "to freak out", as in "No te freakes" = "Don't freak out!"
• Actually, historically English wasn't much into borrowing - at least Old English wasn't. It's really interesting to see how the Lord's Prayer was translated at the time - many of the words we use today which come from Latin were instead translated by meaning into Germanic equivalents, and words were generally only borrowed when there really was no equivalent (whereas modern English just happily has a million synonyms, each with slightly different connotations). But yeah, ever since 1066, English has gone really borrow-happy.
• I lumbered about for twenty years or so knowing only English and a small amount of Spanish. Every person in my hometown pretty much fits that profile. When I started dating my now-wife, I was amazed at her family's ability to speak both French and English fluently, and by the fact that her siblings' kids were learning third languages in school. One of the nephews is fluent in five languages, and he's apparently studying Russian now, with plans of travelling to Moscow. After years of study, I can grunt out some rudimentary French, but my inlaws all speak much better English, so my learning is handicapped,
• Backlash in Karnataka?