Go back to previous page
Forum URL: http://www.eyrie-productions.com/Forum/dcboard.cgi
Forum Name: Undocumented Features General
Topic ID: 92
Message ID: 18
#18, RE: Standard language?
Posted by Pasha on Sep-01-01 at 04:22 PM
In response to message #15
>(Although, it's worth noting the widespread rise of Mexican
>Spanish in the States, which means that Spanish is growing in
>prominence. I even heard one person who works as a translator say
>that Spanish will probably be the next major international language,
>and possibly even supercede English.)

As far as I have seen, no, it's not. Not unless you are going to include ebonics as well. It's a language spoken (exclusivly) mostly by the lower class, in larger cities, or some farmers, mostly close to the borders of mexico. According to the factfinder thing, most people speak some other form of spanish, (hell, 7% are from Spain). In fact, the most common is Puerto Rican Spainish. And judging from the number of people who live in this counrty that speak no english at all, and yet there children speak at least passing english. Maybe not perfect, and it's got an accent, but no harder to get through then USsouthern.

>>speak almost as well as I speak english. I know one guy who grew up
>>in Paris. And couldn't speak with the locals when he went elsewhere
>>in the country.
>
>My French is rather rusty, but my accent is solid, and I've been told
>by Quebecois that I sound like a native Parisian.

*shrug* Didn't happen to me, I don't speak french. I think that it makes you sound like a fluffer. The only time that I learned any french at all was when I memorized "Would the lady like to attend the dance with me?" To try and get into the skirts of a cute girl, who took french.

>> So that kinda flubs that. I don't speak esperanto,
>>just because, well, I don't see a use for it.
>
>I find it an entertaining diversion, and I like the idea of being able
>to go to most industrialized countries and find locals who wear a
>green star, thus obviating the need to learn the local language.
>(Esperanto is partially successful in that goal.) And it's amazingly
>easy to learn, far more so than any natural language (or, for that
>matter, any other artificial language I've come across). And there's
>a number of online communities in which the only common language is
>Esperanto -- no English, no French, no natural languages, just
>Esperanto.

And I like the idea of being able to go to a Crack in the Box, and get my order right, 'cause the server and I speak a languge in common. For what it's worth, I've never known anyone who spoke Esperanto IRL. And I've never seen one of those green stars. And I've never had trouble in my day to day life. Or in my not so day to day life. However, I did manage to keep from being thrown into jail in mexico because I was able to explain to the barkeep that what my freind had said wasn't a mortal insult, and that what we really
wanted was another round of beer and tequila...while drunk...

>>I speak languages that
>>are useful to me in everyday life. 'MerkinGen and USmex. I'd like to
>>learn japanese, but I doubt that happening unless I decide to take in
>>Uni.
>
>I plan to learn enough Japanese to be able to read it and comprehend
>it spoken. I know words here and there -- mostly, the kind I've
>learned to pick up when watching subbed anime and want to find words
>that don't translate (like sempai). (For instance, it adds a whole
>'nother layer to Asuka and Kaji's relationship in NGE when you know
>that she calls him Kaji-sempai.)

ok, I speak no japanese, and it's untranslatable...but you learned it, so it must have some explainable meaning in english. (Please explain?)

>>So? I think that Hawiian is painful to learn and speak...It's still
>>used frequently in hawaii...If you grew up speaking it, it wouldn't be
>>painful to learn, you'd just pick it up. And speaking it, well, same
>>thing. You would have nothing to compare to.
>
>Well, yeah. English is also painful to learn. Most people don't
>think it about their native language; to native English speakers, it
>feels like the most natural thing in the world. But it's a wildly
>inconsistent language, and well on its way to having all meaning
>derived strictly from word placement, which is a headache to learn for
>speakers of languages where meaning is based more on inflection. (One
>of the things I like about German and Esperanto both is noun
>declension -- lets me play around with noun placement to alter
>emphasis without changing objective meaning, something I have to mess
>around with passive vs. active voice in English to do, but doing that
>in English has side effects I may not want. For instance, "_Min_ amas
>^si" in Esperanto is far more dynamic and succinct than anything
>English can produce.)

Yeah, I see line noise. ;-) No offense (and we've gone *way* off topic) so, why don't we just agree that esperanto, (while a good idea) will probably never be a true international language.
Que sera, sera, and all that.

>>That's why I said basterdized. Not only that, but the main reason
>>that perl is so nasty is that you can do some really screwy things
>>with it, and it's just sort of given that you will do screwy
>>things with it, if at all possible.
>
>Which is one of the things I like about it. I like seeing Perl
>constructs dropped into net.conversations, same thing as seeing C
>constructs in net.conversations, and while I find the idea of an
>artificial language based on a programming or scripting language
>interesting purely as an intellectual exercise, it seems impractical
>as something useful from day to day.

Yeah, but wouldn't it be cool! ;-)

--
-Pasha
Vaya abajo a la esquina y vea si estoy allí