What Should Be the World Auxiliary Language?

[Jackalgirl]

Over in this thread (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=111340), Nationalcosmopolitan argues that the world Auxiliary language should be Hebrew, on the basis that he/she believes it's the oldest written language (it's not), or that it's particularly holy because it's been reconstructed to serve as the national language of Israel, or maybe for some other reasons we can't understand because his/her command of English is Not So Good (and perhaps proof that the current World Auxiliary Language is not English, but Bad English). Anyway, he/she suggests a vote:

Ok, let us try not to strand a baby together with dirty water.
Let us try to find the common language from all national languages, artifact ones, so called dead languages.
Let us use the voting method.
The language that will get the most votes will be the common one in future national – common languages bilingual model of new man.
Just one condition – this language has not be your natively known monolingual language.

Now, obviously, NC is suggesting a global vote (or, rather, I think he or she is), which is well-nigh impossible, but for stuff & giggles, let's give it a go. What do you think should be the global auxiliary language? Remember to chose something that isn't your native language. Please feel free to post why, too. But if you want to discuss the (de)merits of NC's arguments & conclusions, please come on over here (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=111340) for some nutty linguistic fun!

Note: I've set the poll to close after 14 days.

[gtc]

Why not our native language?

[JoeEllison]

Esperanto, obviously.

[Wolfman]

Well, Esperanto has the advantage of not being tied to any particular nationality, religion, race, etc. It is fairly 'neutral'. However, practically speaking, almost nobody actually speaks Esperanto. Teaching Esperanto to enough people in every country in the world so that it would actually be practical to use it for communication would be a task of at least a century, I'd say.

More practically speaking, English is currently pretty much the standard...more people learn English as a second language than any other language in the world.

So from an ideological perspective, I'd vote for Esperanto. From a practical perspective, I'd vote for English.

[Jackalgirl]

Why not our native language?

You'd have to ask NC over in the other thread. My guess? So he can swing the vote away from English. But that's just my guess.

[malbui]

From the perspective of personal taste and facility, I'd vote for Irish, as it's pretty and I'd have a head start on most of the rest of the world when it comes to using it.

From a practical point of view, it'd have to be English as it's already the standard second language across great swathes of the world.

[Complexity]

English it is for at least another forty years.

After that, some dialect of Chinese, I suspect.

I'd be willing to learn Esperanto - have some books on it somewhere around here.

Can't think of a single good reason to learn Hebrew. It will never fly.

[Jackalgirl]

Well, Esperanto has the advantage of not being tied to any particular nationality, religion, race, etc. It is fairly 'neutral'. However, practically speaking, almost nobody actually speaks Esperanto. Teaching Esperanto to enough people in every country in the world so that it would actually be practical to use it for communication would be a task of at least a century, I'd say.

More practically speaking, English is currently pretty much the standard...more people learn English as a second language than any other language in the world.

So from an ideological perspective, I'd vote for Esperanto. From a practical perspective, I'd vote for English.

I agree with you completely. There are actually a fair number of people who speak Esperanto, but they're mostly all people who are, well, interested in Esperanto. A couple of international agencies use Esperanto (as described by Wikipedia, tho, so take it with a grain of salt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto)), and there's a religion, Oomoto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oomoto), which promotes Esperanto (it's based in Shinto). So far, though, I don't see Esperanto being used as a common language for commerce or intergovernmental interchange, and I think that's what it's going to take to get it to take off. In other words, we Esperantists will have to infiltrate key governmental and business entities and start using Esperanto with one another, and thereby demonstrate that it's practical. I'm not sure that's going to happen.

It's a shame. 'Cause really, the international language (as I've pointed out elsewhere) is actually bad English. Many of the people with whom I've interacted here in Japan are fine in English -- as long as you keep to "the script". If you deviate from the script in any way, you're done. I don't blame them -- my Japanese is fine, as long as you stick to the vocabulary and conversational situations in my textbooks, too. Otherwise, I'm a goner.

Most people can't live in an immersion environment, so we're all relegated to our textbook, classroom, frustratingly-limited version of each other's languages. It is really frustrating to be talking to someone who I know is completely intelligent and in total possession of information and opinions in which I am very, very interested, and know that I won't be able to interface.

Edited to add: Oops, forgot to put German in there. Darn those 20 poll option limits. Not that people couldn't make their case for it, of course! : )

[ddt]

So from an ideological perspective, I'd vote for Esperanto. From a practical perspective, I'd vote for English.

I, too, agree completely with Wolfman.


It's a shame. 'Cause really, the international language (as I've pointed out elsewhere) is actually bad English.
Agree. Though I see that in, e.g., EU circles people's knowledge of English is actually quite good, even from traditional anti-English-language countries like France.

Edited to add: Oops, forgot to put German in there.
And you forgot to put in Dutch! :) Simon Stevin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Stevin), who invented Dutch words for mathematics, physics and the like, argued that Dutch was the best language for scientific discourse :).

[drkitten]

Now, obviously, NC is suggesting a global vote (or, rather, I think he or she is), which is well-nigh impossible, but for stuff & giggles, let's give it a go. What do you think should be the global auxiliary language?

Why do we need to choose a global auxilliary language?

We have survived well for millenia using regional auxilliary languages, and it appears that some languages are simply better suited for some regions and purposes than others.

Chinese, in particular, simply has too large a character set --- if you think "bad English" is a problem, wait until you see thousands of half-trained Germans trying to remember which of the 60,000 characters they need to write down. It's a great spoken language, though, since the syntax and morphology are relatively simple.

English has a related problem -- the character set is fine, but the spelling is hellish.

If I had to pick, I'd go with German or Spanish. But I also wonder why we need a "global" auxilliary language at all. The needs of a Peruvian bean farmer, who can't even read Spanish, are different from the needs of an Israeli surgeon, and the languages that they will bother to study will be different for that reason.

[Darth Rotor]

Why do we need to choose a global auxilliary language?

We have survived well for millenia using regional auxilliary languages, and it appears that some languages are simply better suited for some regions and purposes than others.

Chinese, in particular, simply has too large a character set --- if you think "bad English" is a problem, wait until you see thousands of half-trained Germans trying to remember which of the 60,000 characters they need to write down. It's a great spoken language, though, since the syntax and morphology are relatively simple.

English has a related problem -- the character set is fine, but the spelling is hellish.

If I had to pick, I'd go with German or Spanish. But I also wonder why we need a "global" auxilliary language at all. The needs of a Peruvian bean farmer, who can't even read Spanish, are different from the needs of an Israeli surgeon, and the languages that they will bother to study will be different for that reason.
Ah, but what if you were to start, on date X, a program that all children, once born, will be raised with the same language? (Yes, I'm getting a bit utopian/dystopian here) In two generations, the Tower of Babel would be overcome. (Obviously, there are non trivial obstacles to such a program, likely insurmountable.)

DR

[Gagglegnash]

Hi

One of the things that's needed in a lingua franca is ease in introducing new concepts and incorporating them rapidly into the language.

As such, I nominate Japanese.

The Japanese system of language has three separate means of representing thought.

The classical Chinese characters, or kanji, for writing about both the philosophical and the mundane, the philosophical written without a pronunciation guide at the side, called shirobun (white writing), and the mundane written with the guides, called furigana.

ぶん| がく|Hiragana
文 | 学|Kanji
Bun gaku
Literature

The two phonetic representations, or kana, are hiragana and katakana, both of which cover the same set of sounds, but in use, the hiragana represents native Japanese words, and the katakana represents foreign, or, "borrowed," words.

You tend to wind up with sentences like this:
私は ホトドグ を食べました。

私: Common kanji, "Watakushi," meaning, "this one," or, "I."
は: Hiragana, "wa," topic marker. 私は is frequently translated as, "as for me..."
ホトドグ: Katakana, "hotodogu." English borrowed word, "hotdog."
を: Hiragana, "wo," direct object marker.
食べ: Mixed kanji and hiragana, "tabe," the root word, "eat."
ました: Hiragana, "mashita," past-tense marker for, "tabe"'s verb.

"As for me, the hotdog, eat-ed." I ate the hotdog.

As an inherently portmanteau language, it is ideal for incorporating and expressing portmanteau concepts.

[Pope130]

I can't believe you didn't include Gaelic.

[drkitten]

Ah, but what if you were to start, on date X, a program that all children, once born, will be raised with the same language?

I'd simply wait for date X+50 at which point the Babel problem would reinvent itself as languages drift apart. Hell, I can't understand my 11 year old neice, and she lives in the neighboring state....

[Darth Rotor]

I'd simply wait for date X+50 at which point the Babel problem would reinvent itself as languages drift apart. Hell, I can't understand my 11 year old neice, and she lives in the neighboring state....
Ah, yes, dialects. Don't you think the current globalized community model would mitigate this somewhat?

The era of mass communication seems to blend language more than the previous model of isolated pockets driving language diverson.

(IIRC, you are a specialist in linguistics/language. I'm groping a bit here.)

DR

[Darat]

You didn't have "English spoken slowly and very loudly" as an option.

[linusrichard]

I think the good thing about a lingua franca is that it is not imposed by any official decision. It is not chosen. It is organic, it becomes the lingua franca based on the needs and the abilities of the people using it. To officially designate one language as the World Auxiliary Language would defeat much of the purpose of such a language - it would make it more difficult to change languages when the chosen language no longer makes sense.

The invisible hand of the marketplace (in concert with the very visible hands of imperialism, etc.) has made English the lingua franca in most of the world. This hasn't always been so, and it won't always be so, and that's the way it should be.

I feel the same way within the United States. The US has no official language, which is what makes it so great - it promotes efficiency, because it allows people to use whatever language makes the most sense to communicate. To me, this seems like a very laissez-faire idea: don't bring in the government by designating an official language - instead, let the market determine what the de facto national language is, and allow that to change as the market changes to promote efficiency. Which is why it's so weird to me that Republicans are the ones who are the most strongly behind English-only. Those lousy big government Republicans...


But to answer the question: if you have to pick one, pick English. 1. It's already the lingua franca in much of the world, so there's minimal adjustment required. 2. It's not tonal. 3. It uses a small alphabet, rather than a large set of ideograms. 4. It has, through its history, proven itself extremely amenable to change due to influence by foreign languages.




The classical Chinese characters, or kanji, for writing about both the philosophical and the mundane, the philosophical written without a pronunciation guide at the side, called shirobun (white writing), and the mundane written with the guides, called furigana.

If I'm understanding you correctly, this is not correct. Furigana is not used or not used based on whether the kanji represent something philosophical or mundane. Furigana is used or not used depending on the expected literacy level of the audience. I guess a more precise way of saying it is that furigana is used when it is either very likely that a reader will not be able to understand the kanji without it, or it is very important that all readers understand what is written. Advertisements routinely use it (but not always), materials for students of Japanese, materials for children, public notices, and any writing that uses a very obscure kanji, or a common kanji with an uncommon reading. Newspapers generally do not use it, nor do books written for a general adult audience.

I don't think Japanese would make a great lingua franca, because anyone hoping to become literate has to learn ~2000 characters. Anyone hoping to become literate in English has to learn 52 characters. Much easier.

[drkitten]

Ah, yes, dialects. Don't you think the current globalized community model would mitigate this somewhat?

No.

Given that the current globalized community model doesn't mitigate it at all currently, I see no reason why that would change.


The era of mass communication seems to blend language more than the previous model of isolated pockets driving language diverson.

That's a common layman's opinion, yes. To my knowledge, no dialectological studies have actually confirmed it. What we seem to get instead is language fragmentation happening marginally faster even, as local groups are able to take local control of their linguistic environment.

Think of it as YouTube vs. CNN. CNN pushes a particular variety of English on everyone. YouTube lets me push back.

[Almo]

What? No Lojban?

e'osai ko sarji la lojban.

[Hokulele]

Na 'olelo o Hawai'i!

Few characters (fewer than English!), reasonably simple grammar, standardized pronunciation, well-established rules for adding new/borrowed words, and it sounds pretty. :)

[Darth Rotor]

That's a common layman's opinion, yes. To my knowledge, no dialectological studies have actually confirmed it. What we seem to get instead is language fragmentation happening marginally faster even, as local groups are able to take local control of their linguistic environment.

Think of it as YouTube vs. CNN. CNN pushes a particular variety of English on everyone. YouTube lets me push back.
Thanks for the analogy.

Spread of words/vocabulary commonality in limited categories is not a blending of language.

Am I on the right track?

What is it? Old school language evolution?

DR

[geni]

No.

Given that the current globalized community model doesn't mitigate it at all currently, I see no reason why that would change.


US and british english are still mutaly comprihensible after a couple of centeries. Other than a nepalese dialect I think the only non comprihendable versions of english around are a couple of Creole languages



That's a common layman's opinion, yes. To my knowledge, no dialectological studies have actually confirmed it. What we seem to get instead is language fragmentation happening marginally faster even, as local groups are able to take local control of their linguistic environment.

However that is somewhat countered by increaseing levels of interaction with people outside that group. Loseing the ability to be comprihendable by other english speakers will hurt you.


Think of it as YouTube vs. CNN. CNN pushes a particular variety of English on everyone. YouTube lets me push back.

Your youtube audence however is rather smaller than CNNs and if you are looking for a larger audence you will end up speaking standard english. Rick Astley may not be part of your group but the odds are you are going to runn across his version of english.

[Civilized Worm]

I can speak Esperanto like a native - Spike Milligan

[geni]

so much scientific, engineering and cultural information exists only in english that any other choice would be problematical.

[geni]

so much scientific, engineering and cultural information exists only in english that any other choice would be problematical.

[Gagglegnash]

Hi

... clip ...

If I'm understanding you correctly, this is not correct. Furigana is not used or not used based on whether the kanji represent something philosophical or mundane. Furigana is used or not used depending on the expected literacy level of the audience. I guess a more precise way of saying it is that furigana is used when it is either very likely that a reader will not be able to understand the kanji without it, or it is very important that all readers understand what is written. Advertisements routinely use it (but not always), materials for students of Japanese, materials for children, public notices, and any writing that uses a very obscure kanji, or a common kanji with an uncommon reading. Newspapers generally do not use it, nor do books written for a general adult audience.


That's probably a better way to look at it, actually.

I was sidetracked by the lack of furigana in classical studies and its presence in... well... for instance... mundane advertising.

I don't think Japanese would make a great lingua franca, because anyone hoping to become literate has to learn ~2000 characters. Anyone hoping to become literate in English has to learn 52 characters. Much easier.


Lol - if I can do it, anyone should be able to. I was taking notes in college in all my classes in kanji half way through first-semester Japanese.

You don't learn spellings. You learn words.

Of course, I AM kind of nuts....

[linusrichard]

Lol - if I can do it, anyone should be able to. I was taking notes in college in all my classes in kanji half way through first-semester Japanese.
You either spent a lot of time studying kanji, are an utter genius, or are some kind of crazy kanji savant. This is impressive! And not at all typical!

You don't learn spellings. You learn words.
That's a good point - the major strike against English. English truly deserves its reputation as having extremely illogical and difficult spelling. The good news is that, unlike Japanese, it is comprehensible even if very misspelled.

[Ladewig]

Remember to chose something that isn't your native language. P

Many people vote before reading the first post, so your results may be a bit skewed.

. . . . . . . . .

I vote esperanto because William Shatner already speaks (http://www.videosift.com/video/Incubus-filmed-completely-in-Esperanto-starring-William-Shatner) it.

[Jackalgirl]

Why do we need to choose a global auxilliary language?

We have survived well for millenia using regional auxilliary languages, and it appears that some languages are simply better suited for some regions and purposes than others.

Well, with globalization, I personally feel that it'll help matters to have one global auxiliary language (working language, if you will). This is, mind you, to be in addition to, not replacing national languages. NC also postulates that this auxiliary language will be just that -- auxiliary, not replacing anyone's native tongue (only he thinks it should be Hebrew). I agree with you that regionally, one's regional language (if there is said to be one, of course) is optimal.

At some point, though, your bean farmers might want to expand their operations on an international or transglobal scale. Having a global auxiliary language -- and one that is easy to learn, so it requires a relatively small investment in time -- allows those farmers to approach the matter on their own terms, rather than having to rely on interpreters.

. . . . .

Someone else pointed out, why vote at all? Logically speaking, people aren't going to 'vote' for a global language -- it's going to happen, arising out of the pressures placed by commerce and international communication (and has been happening, so far, with English).

I agree. It's just that after faced with a wall of people saying "your idea isn't going to work, and here's why" NC postulated (in the other thread) that if the world were to vote, the world would choose Hebrew (an assumed appeal to authority, as if that negated any of our arguments, sigh). So here I am with my poll. Granted, the population of this forum isn't a good representation of the world's vast diversity at large, but heck, ya gotta start somewhere, eh?

And notice that, so far, NO ONE has chosen Hebrew. It's a battle between Esperanto and English, so far.

Why didn't you list <insert language here?>

'Cause I only had 20 options. If you want more, pester Darat. Wait a minute, Darat, didn't you pester me for a "loud and slow English" option? ; )

[vIQleS]

I voted for klingon (of course - can't let the side down), but like most people here i'd say English, not because it makes sense, but because we're already halfway there.

And of course it doesn't matter what we think or vote, a lingua franca can't be imposed - it'll just happen.

It turns out the linga franca isn't english - it's rock and roll...

[Damien Evans]

Elvish, of course.

[Pope130]

Elvish, of course.

Sorry, Elvish has left the building.

[linusrichard]

And notice that, so far, NO ONE has chosen Hebrew. It's a battle between Esperanto and English, so far.
The practical versus the idealists.

I'm not sure why, but your comment reminded me of an anecdote.

One day back in college, my instructor gave an ungraded pop quiz (mostly to settle an argument between me and him) to the class, asking such basic civics questions as "How many states are there?" "How many senators are there?" and "How many Supreme Court justices are there?" One of the questions was "What is the official language of the U.S.?"

A large minority answered correctly. A majority answered English. More than one answered Latin.

[drkitten]

One of the questions was "What is the official language of the U.S.?"

A large minority answered correctly. A majority answered English.

Well, this may simply be semantics.

Relatively few nation-states have "official" languages in the sense that there is a piece of paper to which one can point that says "the official language of Lower Ruritania is Sindarin." I don't believe that there is any such piece of paper in Japan, for example; I've seen estimates that fewer than half of the nation-states have any official language at all.

On the other hand, every nation-state has at least one language of administration in which government policy is written and in which affairs are conducted. For example, laws in Japan are written in Japanese, while laws in the States are written in English. The point of the official English movement is not to install English as the language of administration (it already is), but to prevent other languages from being installed as joint languages of administration.

[drkitten]

US and british english are still mutaly comprihensible after a couple of centeries. Other than a nepalese dialect I think the only non comprihendable versions of english around are a couple of Creole languages

You've obviously never spoken to a Glaswegian. :)


However that is somewhat countered by increaseing levels of interaction with people outside that group. Loseing the ability to be comprihendable by other english speakers will hurt you.

The first clause above is definitely true, but the second is situation-dependent. Many people simply don't need to speak or write to a wider audience. My partner works with a local education authority where a number of the "clients" not only hav never been further than ten miles from where they were born, but do not even have such well-travelled people among their friends. When "the other side of the river" is a major expedition, the idea of talking to someone in a foreign country is almost unthinkable.

And yet they still use Facebook and TM their friends. In dialect, as you would expect. The Internet has gotten accessible enough that literally anyone can -- and often does -- use it.


Your youtube audence however is rather smaller than CNNs and if you are looking for a larger audence you will end up speaking standard english.

The problem is that the number of people looking for a larger audience is surprisingly small, and there is a surprisingly large benefit to be obtained from the social cohension of using the local dialect, even to the exclusion of the higher-status "standard" forms.

[I Ratant]

You've obviously never spoken to a Glaswegian. :)
...
The problem is that the number of people looking for a larger audience is surprisingly small, and there is a surprisingly large benefit to be obtained from the social cohension of using the local dialect, even to the exclusion of the higher-status "standard" forms.
.
At the Mall, one kid yelled something to another, and everyone around them paused.. and commented "What did he say?".
It was some manner of ghetto speech which was comprehensible in their narrow world, but just noise in everyone else's.
Reading, or at least attempting to read many of the inputs on some forums devoted to higher level thought, the number of genuinely illiterate people posting unreadable stuff is alarming.
Spelling, grammar, syntax, even a train of thought can't be determined, yet these people are apparently able to function without needing 24/7 supervision.
Any universal/auxiliary language would probably be a third language for these.. with rudimentary English, and whatever patois they use in daily living as their first two.

[JenseitsDavon]

As someone whose major field of study is linguistics, I'm going to have to agree with drkitten here - especially on the point of language shift. Most people will find a common world language to be at best situationally useful, since the overwhelming majority of their communication will be with people who speak the same variety of the "common language" as they do, and as that group's dialect shifts, so will theirs. Even the institution of a common news network or similar would not help this much - look at America and the dialectical differences there, and we all watch the same two or three networks.

In fact, this could even be accelerated by a news network, as groups of people intentionally differentiate themselves from the common language. Young people like to do this. A lot.

So in other words, common language = good and useful to the people who need it. Mandating a common language = temporarily useful, then back to Babel.

[linusrichard]

Well, this may simply be semantics.

Could be. I would argue that a de facto official language is something different from an official language. I don't know.

More importantly, I think the people taking the quiz knew that the question was asking what the "piece of paper to which one can point" said, if it existed.

But yes, you make a good point - English is just as official in the US as many or most languages are in many or most nation states.

[geni]

You've obviously never spoken to a Glaswegian. :)


Lowland Scots is closer to being a creol than a true dialect and as time goes by the differences are reduceing. Lowland Scots a couple of centuries ago was not really comprihendable to someone from southern england. Today it is less of a problem.


The first clause above is definitely true, but the second is situation-dependent. Many people simply don't need to speak or write to a wider audience. My partner works with a local education authority where a number of the "clients" not only hav never been further than ten miles from where they were born, but do not even have such well-travelled people among their friends. When "the other side of the river" is a major expedition, the idea of talking to someone in a foreign country is almost unthinkable.

And yet they still use Facebook and TM their friends. In dialect, as you would expect. The Internet has gotten accessible enough that literally anyone can -- and often does -- use it.

And how did they sign up for their internet sevices? Pay for power and phone bills?



The problem is that the number of people looking for a larger audience is surprisingly small, and there is a surprisingly large benefit to be obtained from the social cohension of using the local dialect, even to the exclusion of the higher-status "standard" forms.

Countered by the decressed acessability of availible information. Just as long term bi-lingle areas tend to lose one of the languages in time the same is likely to apply to dialects.

[drkitten]

And how did they sign up for their internet sevices? Pay for power and phone bills?

There are typically "bilinguals" (more accurately bidialecticals) in the community that will help them if necessary. In fact, that's one of the jobs that my sweetie's organtization has -- to instruct people in the prestige dialect and culture so that they can take "better" control of their lives (for example, by getting better jobs that are typically reserved for people with mastery of the standard dialect.


Countered by the decressed acessability of availible information.

Which, empirically, does not seem to be a problem. Ask the sociolinguists. Dialectical variation has been increasing in the past forty years rather than the other way around.

The problem is that the "decreased accessibility of available information" is not a problem, nor is the "narrow communication." It's a capacity that most people simply don't need to avail themselves of.

Heck, I can use MYSELF as an example here; as you can tell from my writing, I have a pretty good mastery of "standard" written and spoken English, and indeed I am close to bi-dialectical (having spent a fair bit of time on both sides of the Pond). I also spend an enormous amount of time writing and speaking with people from a tremendous variety of backgrounds, including book writing to the widest possible audience.

And yet, I write something like a book every three years. I write a journal or conference paper, for publication, perhaps ten times a year, and a grant proposal half that often at most. Shall we guess 100,000 words a year? How many words do you think I address in a year to my immediate linguistic neighbors -- my colleagues, my students, my neighbors, and my personal friends? At a guess, anywhere from a half-million to a million words per year. My communications are vastly dominated by the local dialect.

Most people are not nearly as far-reaching in their communications as I am; but they still exchange a half-million words a year with their mates down at the Frog and Peach (or Moe's Bar and Grill). Even most of my "professional" acquantainces don't really care if an Australian or Indian couldn't understand them, since they don't exchange ten words a year with those groups. Most of the people with whom my partner works don't exchange ten words a year with anyone outside of their local area code.

Now, you're right. There might be SOMEONE in that ghetto, striving to get out, who will find herself denied admission to the University of London because she can't write an essay that's understandable to the admissions board. But given how few people in that ghetto bother to finish secondary school, let alone apply to the local universities, I feel comfortable stating that such people are few and far between. There aren't enough of them to create substantial pressure to homogenizing the dialects. They don't talk to their middle-class "neighbors" who live a twenty-minute bus ride away. They don't even listen to the same radio station -- and the radio station they do listen to talks in the local patois. Furthermore, it runs advertisements in the local patois. If you want to sell to them, as many companies seem to do, you need to talk to them in their language.

So that's where the bidialecticals get their jobs. If you want to sell phone service, for example, you need to hire someone who can talk to them. Because they won't bother to learn "standard" English; they'll just shop somewhere where the help can speak patois.

[Jackalgirl]

Please understand that the goal of the Esperanto movement is not to create a global primary language. Esperanto is not meant to replace anyone's national language. It's only supposed to be an auxiliary, "hip pocket" language -- you pull it out when you need it. It's so easy that it doesn't require the enormous outlay of time and effort to acquire and maintain proficiency -- even if you haven't spoken it in a while, you're going to come up to speed faster than you would if, say, you were trying to speak (any form of) English. And, because it's easy, you (theoretically) would not have to find and hire someone to help you out (well, of course, it depends on the situation -- if there's paperwork involved, I'll usually need some help just negotiating the paperwork. ; ) ).

NC, in his/her post about Hebrew, intends for Hebrew to be the same thing -- everyone speaks their own local language locally, and Hebrew is supposed to be a "hip pocket" language.

You're quite right, though, that if a company wants to do business with a group of people, it behooves the business to have someone on staff who can communicate with that group of people. This breaks down, though, for a business that works globally. How many translators would you need? You'd probably just want to hire a core group, who would interface with your biggest potential customers or clients, and not go through the expense of hiring a bunch of translators for smaller groups (though I realize that temp-work translators would be a passible solution for this). Anyone else? They'd have to hire someone to help them speak to you, or they're just stuck in whatever linguistic backwater they're in, unless they can convince you that they're worth the expense of a translator.

Hence the utility of an auxiliary language; it simplifies the interfaces, broadening opportunity. Or, at least, I think it might.

Plus, on a personal note, it lets me have some pretty interesting conversations with people with whom I probably would never, in my whole life, been able to converse if we all didn't share Esperanto. My life would not have been touched by those people at all. Sure, it'd have been touched by other people, but I still think the contact has made my life better. For that alone, I love the idea of Esperanto. : )

[drkitten]

You're quite right, though, that if a company wants to do business with a group of people, it behooves the business to have someone on staff who can communicate with that group of people. This breaks down, though, for a business that works globally.

Most businesses that work globally also hire globally, or have a select enough clientele that they can expect their clientele to already speak the appropriate lingua franca.

But the companies that are closest to your business model -- Caterpillar is a good example -- tend to find that they do need to translate to nearly everything. Caterpillar is a US tractor manufacturer, and I believe the one with the largest global sales, and a major reason for that is because they are prepared to deal with (almost) any farmer anywhere in the world in whatever language he happens to speak. The major competitors, the ones that haven't been investing in translation capacity, are the ones that are losing.




How many translators would you need?

Translators are cheap, esp. if you're working with and through locals. If you're planning on selling tractors to the farmers in Nowhereistan, you find and hire the one Nowheristani who speaks decent English so that he can talk to HQ. If there aren't enough Nowheristani tractor-buyers to justify hiring a local, there's probably no need to open a local outlet.

The problem comes in when Nowheristani itself has seventy different local languages, and you can't hire seventy different staff members. But in that case, most of the locals are already heptadecalingual. Tribal affiliation usually works out to be a worse problem than language; while the West Nowheristani may generally speak East Nowheristani, that doesn't mean they'll buy tractors from one of That Sort of People.

[Autolite]

I'd pick French. It is grammatically a highly structured language which makes it easy to learn (easier than English actually). OTOH, I believe that Italian and Spanish share a similar structure so I suppose it's a toss-up really. Besides, Anglophones who can speak French are an annoyance to Francophones. It's kinda fun aggravating the froggies... :D

[badnewsBH]

If I had to choose one that wasn't English, I'd say Latin.

[jj]

Either ANSI 'C' or perhaps Python, I think.

[malbui]

Besides, Anglophones who can speak French are an annoyance to Francophones. It's kinda fun aggravating the froggies... :D


All depends on how they speak it. And where they speak it. :)

[Sunstealer]

I used to love deliberately mispronouncing words when learning French. I don't see why they can get away with saying "ziss an zat" for "this and that" and I'm no allowed to say "Jer voodray un kilo der pom sivoo plate". The other problem with French is they don't like to make words up and have a system to preserve the language, it's far too rigid and not fluid enough for the modern world, something that English certainly is good at.

If I had to vote for something other than English it would be Latin.

I read this article a while back which says that English is likely to fragment into many global dialects, something which I think has happened already although there is enough of the "core" remaining that allows differing English dialects to communicate. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1580745/English-will-fragment-into-'global-dialects'.html

Often it's just a case of "dialling" into the local pronunciation and colloquialisms, eg, me a southerner living in Glasgow having a bloke from the Western Isles for a room-mate at university many moons ago.

[malbui]

I used to love deliberately mispronouncing words when learning French. I don't see why they can get away with saying "ziss an zat" for "this and that" and I'm no allowed to say "Jer voodray un kilo der pom sivoo plate".


You're free to mispronounce words as much as you like. Just don't expect us to understand you if you do so. :)

The other problem with French is they don't like to make words up and have a system to preserve the language, it's far too rigid and not fluid enough for the modern world, something that English certainly is good at.


This is palpably untrue both at the elevated literary level (compare a good modern novel with, say, something by Molière) and, perhaps even more so, at the everyday level - the daily French used in the cités of the 9-3 bears only a limited resemblance to the language I speak in business in Geneva. You shouldn't conclude that because the Académie française exists the only language change we see is that which has been approved by the forty immortels.

[drkitten]

I read this article a while back which says that English is likely to fragment into many global dialects, something which I think has happened already although there is enough of the "core" remaining that allows differing English dialects to communicate. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1580745/English-will-fragment-into-'global-dialects'.html


Yeah, that's more or less what I was referring to. I should also point out that David Crystal is the expert on English linguistics --- not that that necessarily means that his word is gospel, but it does mean that I give his opinion a hell of a lot of deference. And the fact that what he's saying is more or less common knowledge among dialectologists only makes me more inclined to trust him.

[Diagoras]

Mi parolas Esperanton, sed mi ne ankoraŭ kredas ke ĝi estos ofte uzata kiel internacia lingvo ekster la malgranda Esperanto-komunumo.

It's a nice idea, but unfortunately I don't see it happening anytime soon. And even though I speak excellent Esperanto, I no longer think it's a viable international auxiliary language. Not only is it essentially a Western European language (and thus not really culturally neutral), it has certain flaws that I think a well-designed IAL would rather avoid.

For instance, the personal pronouns all sound too similar to each other and can easily be confused (mi, vi, li, ŝi, ĝi, ni, ili). And there is the rule that a base stem like "patro" (father), "sinjoro" (mister) or "doktoro" (male doctor) is supposed to be inherently masculine, and a suffix needs to be added to make them feminine: "patrino" (mother), "sinjorino" (Mrs.) and "doktorino" (female doctor). It would be better if neither sex was given grammatical preference. Also, words that probably should have their own roots like "little", "bad" and "few" have to be expressed as "un-big", "un-good" and "un-many" (malgranda, malbona, malmulta). And the language contains an unnecessarily large inventory of consonants that presents difficulty for speakers of practically every major language in the world except German. The fact that the consonants are often strung together into strange hard-to-pronounce sequences doesn't help matters: "ekzemplo", "scii" (pronounced "stsee-ee"), "skvamo". For Japanese or Chinese speakers it's a tongue-twisting nightmare.

[slingblade]

Moolfoose Lalflatin.

Ilflit walfas aflail mailflade ulflup lalflanguage Iflyl learlflerned infil milfiddle schoolfool.

To this day, I can't tell you how we did it. I just can. Well, Iflyl calflan.

[slingblade]

Sorry, double post.

[Piscivore]

Meh. In less than 100 solar orbits all meaningful discourse will occur in binary. Human languages will only be tolerated within the Biological Organism Isolation camps.

[shadron]

Latin. Sounds best when spoken full voiced in echoing marble halls. Sort of like in "History of the World Part II". Besides, I memorized more Latin than any other language besides English. No that "Credo in unum Deo..." will do me much good anymore.

[jj]

Latin. Sounds best when spoken full voiced in echoing marble halls. Sort of like in "History of the World Part II". Besides, I memorized more Latin than any other language besides English. No that "Credo in unum Deo..." will do me much good anymore.


Omnia Europa in tres partes divisa est! :)

[shadron]

Omnia Europa in tres partes divisa est! :)

Hey, partes on!!

[ddt]

Omnia Europa in tres partes divisa est! :)
Caput, torso atque membra? (Europa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_%28mythology%29))

ETA: as a nitpick, feminine singular is also "omnis".

[malbui]

Caput, torso atque membra? (Europa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_%28mythology%29))


That joke is both revolting and highly educated. I congratulate you.

[Rufo]

Wabbit suggests Lapine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapine_language). ;)

[Nationalcosmopolitan]

This letter I have sent to European Union.

I propose to teach all EU children Holy Resurrected Hebrew Language together with their state language natively been known.



The EU has a problem of common language.
It is the matter of fact that English is the main world lingua franca.
But all States of EU desire the equal status of all EU States’ languages in fact and not just in formal low.

There were proposals to use Esperanto – EU one of the State language bilingual model to have the common communication language of EU.
The reason – the Esperanto is no national language, it is very easy to learn and it has no ability to displace even little national language and to become a monolingual language.
But because the history of connection Esperanto with total communist international ideology most people are oppose it to be common.

There is another way to solve the problem of common EU language and to reach real religion, culture and spirit consensus and comfort.
Let us remember about Resurrection of Jesus who was Jew.
Let us remember about Resurrection of Holy Language in Israel.
Let us remember about Resurrection of Israel after Holocaust – killing of 6000000 - almost all European Jews.
Let us remember that citizens of almost all states of today’s EU actively took part in killing of Jewish people in the time of World War Two.
Let us remember that Bible is the Holy Book for Jews, Christians and Muslims and now the Holy Language of all Abraham religious and cultures people has resurrected.

Hebrew is not only the Holy Language but it is also the artfully restored language by Ben Ihuda.
It is as Esperanto the easiest language to learn.

It will be the great paradox and the real memorial of Holocaust when the Holy Resurrected Language of total been hated and been killed Jews in Europe will become the natively known language of every citizen of European Union together with the language of his definite state.

Our God gave us: 1 Holy Book on Holy Language
2 Resurrection of Christ
3 Koran to Muhammad in Jerusalem were is written that Jewish Bible and New Testament are Holy Books
4 Holy Language Resurrection after 2500 being dead
5 Holocaust.
6 Full Resurrection of Israel after 2900 years being dead with it’s people speaking on the same language.
7 Creation of European Union after destroying fascist and communist total Soviet block as little model of future globalization with mostly monolingual citizens.

My proposal - to make EU citizens bilingual by teaching all EU children Hebrew to be natively known together with the language of their state.

[Soapy Sam]

Lets just all go on talking the historical universal language. Nonsense.