- Henrik Martenzon
- Canberra Act
- Australia
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Choosing the scientifically best language for international use?
This is not meant to be on a individual basis. I encourage everyone to explore their linguistic capabilities.
I have heard several people talking about the greatness of languages and the awe of human language capacity. I agree on language as a great phenomenon and it should be widely studied. However Im certain there are better languages than others (English is as a fact, better than Swedish). How do I know this? English has a more words, more descriptive language, and its spreading like a virus while the native swedish words are replaced progressively with better words such as "Cash, team, topic, share, community, etc.
I have tried to learn Polish and realize that Polish has one fierce enemy: vowels. The polish languages make little use of vowels and therefore it is much harder to learn how to pronounce words when the platform of vowels is to tell the reader which sound to put where. Clearly Polish is not the superior language in this sense.
Some languages such as Greek has been said to be the perfect start for learning all other languages. Mainly because its components matches those of a wide variety of sounds we humans can produce. Its a very rich, sounding, language Ive been told.
My question is, for the sake of uniting mankind, should we perhaps strive to narrow are languages to assert the best ones for international use? I mean English is dominating followed be Spanish. Perhaps we should learn Greek and then English? I am bit disturbed by the use of all nordic languages on warning sign and similar when traveling in northern region. Use english and no confusion will emerge.
Brandon Righi
What I'm saying is the "best" language––the most descriptive and adaptable language––is the tongue with the most speakers. English, through accidents of history, is that language. I know Mandarin has more speakers, but they're learning English too. Mandarin is different in that it is spoken by a more or less static group of people of one culture in one place in the world. It can't compare with English in the number of places and number of cultures that use it and influence it as a native language.
So we have the best language, it's here. Thank the imperialist English of the 16th-19th centuries. I don't think we should stop learning other languages; I find picking up foreign tongues to be incredibly rewarding and enriching. And, for what it's worth, I think Spanish is the far easier language being spoken by many people throughout the world. Pronunciation is easy (compared to English), as is learning to spell and write it.
Henrik Martenzon
Sharon McCann 10+
Henrik Martenzon
Starting with an alphabet creates to problems; one is the sound before the symbol is the exact opposite of nature, might work, but it sounds contra productive. Two is the separation of associated sound with associated symbol. And A in swedish and A in english gives to different sounds, somewhat similar though. Think of this thought experiment: Look through all languages that contains the sound of A and then all the alphabets that contains a symbol that matches this sound. We will likely match more than two symbols for the same sound. The symbol itself should bear little importance to the sound except for softer softer or more open symbols for vocals.
However I don't mind stealing from todays all languages and produce a better=)
Andres Aullet 10+
However, I find myself writing in english most of the time, because it is the language that will reach the broadest audience on the internet. I have come to greatly enjoy poetry in english, idioms, humor and sarcasm, things that usually make you fond of a new language and test how deep you have learned it.
I have to disagree with the proposal of using a single language internationally as a means to unite the world. Maybe because in my view united does not mean homogeneous. A lot would be lost if we start erasing the wonderful diversity in human culture, and a lot of this cultural diversity is supported by using different languages.
I would instead encourage people to learn several foreign languages. I was lucky to visit China through my job, and while my mandarin is extremely limited, I learned the powerful effect of making the effort to communicate with somebody in their own language. It creates a much closer bond than the one created by only expressing ideas in a language foreign to them.
Besides, how to define a "better" language? does science really provide a way to determine if there is a "better" one? I think that a language's "superiority" is a very subjective judgement, so i doubt that science can provide any guidance here
Henrik Martenzon
I wouldn't wanna call this subjective because its not a matter of personal preference. Its a matter of distorted experience.
To answer your question fully we need to define "superior". I laid out some questions in my reply to Shauna, which you can find further down.
Andres Aullet 10+
My point was that "superiority" must be defined in the context of a particular language usage. It is true that proto-language (or "mentalese", like Steven Pinker calls it) might be shared between all humans, but we do not use mentalese when we communicate to other humans.
So we must define the context for "superiority" and maybe we can pick languages that best fit that specific purpose (english for computer programming, italian for opera, portuguese for songs, spanish for poetry, or whatever other combination we can come up with). Even taking this approach we might have a hard time agreeing, but a method (can we really call it scientific?) could be followed to rank them. and the resulting rank will be valid only for that context.
But if the purpose of calling it a "scientific selection" of a specific language is to try to impose the resulting selection on others, then i think we would be on the wrong track.
In my view, speaking a different language is not the principal barrier against uniting humankind. Xenophobia follows an innate drive in humans to avoid members of groups that can be identified as "others". It is a very strong drive and only when we are conscious of it we can force ourselves to control and work around it. Popularity of a 4 chord song does not imply that there is a gene for "liking 4 chord songs", i would argue that this is much more likely for our innate xenophobia. And part of the process of figthing it is to be humble and try to approach other humans on their own terms
Henrik Martenzon
These chords are more than popular. They are like drugs to us. But back to topic.
I agree with you on the allegeable innate xenophobia, very likely. But I was not saying that we should consider this language ranking as a dominating tool for uniting us. I just figured, when multiple languages are used, one of them is bound to be better than the other. You do make a good point with the context. Its created many fascinating ideas for me. Thank you!
However, I still stick to my old argument that we can assess a superior language through scientific methods. I have already considered many experiments to rank them. Put the poetry part got to me. A language could be b-ful, descriptive and vague = good for poetry (amateur opinion from me) and would it be possible to have it "direct, adequate and simple"?
I always give longer answers when Im tired for bed, so pardon me on that. I want to clarify that all my original question was referring to was "if we could choose a lang. based on scientific methods and rank them?". I´m still certain we can rank them according to sc. methods. That way I don't think the context becomes relevant. If we add the use of context to the criteria of an hypothesized ranking system, it would allow for your consideration too. I might be wrong on this, but feel free to debate my logic.
I´m not sure if you though I was using this shallow tool or you just pointed it out, but I had no intentions of arguing with low means. My apologies if so.
Ana Sibrian
Henrik Martenzon
Ana Sibrian
Henrik Martenzon
Ana Sibrian
How do you feel about Esperanto? Do you think a construct like that is useful? I think it's not. I feel like language cannot be scientifically designated, but rather it develops organically. We're at a point where English has developed to be the most useful language internationally, and it works! English is (I think) very easy to learn, at least structurally.
When learning a language what's important is not learning how to use the words, but rather who you are going to use it with. When learning a language, we also learn a vast amount of things unique to the culture the language is attributed to. So really what is important when learning a new language is how it is going to be used, and who it is going to be used for, as opposed to how easy it is to learn it. For example, if you are a French CEO trying to do business with Japan, learning their language (regardless of how hard it is) will help you connect to them culturally, and understand them better.
Rather than trying to generalize as to what languages are best to learn, this is more of a personal choice, depending on context for each person. I am, however, biased because I am a language aficionado and am fascinated by learning new ones, making connections between them and how they relate to their culture.
Tim blackburn 30+
Henrik Martenzon
I agree with your statement.
Sharon McCann 10+
Henrik Martenzon
I haven't decided the master language yet, and Im even curious if we can make a superior language. English is clearly good, but as I mentioned Greek is supposedly a better armor for speech production.
So I ask myself; what is the most rich language, with well understood, logical grammar, which is easy to learn? Grenglish? The new baby of Greek and English!!!
Seriously I have no idea, I just thought this was interesting and I would love to speak to a linguistic researcher about exploring ideas. The real question is of course whether its needed. One might explorer it just for the fun of it and we might even get clues to speech production and comprehension through a language adventure!
I think patriotism and egocentricity is an dominant enemy of such an idea. I understand learning chinese will benefit business and the connection between west and east, but I would not consider a language without "R" a superior language. Its certainly an interesting language.
Robert Gore
For example in English we have, kintergarten, primary school, college, university, teacher, pupil, master, student, undergraduate, lecturer, etc etc etc. In Esperanto the method would be like this, take a root like 'learn', then there would be, learnerplace, biglearnerplace, learner, advancedlearner, qualifiedlearner, learnerinstructor, littlelearner. Looks ugly transposed to English, but in Esperanto, where the affixes are short and apply to all other root words it looks and sounds fine. A few core root words and the standard set of add ons, gives a huge vocabulary for a small amount of memorising, When children learn Esperanto at school, it builds confidence in reading, learning other languages, and boosts intelligence, because all the randomness, speculation and uncertainty is removed because all vowel sounds are regular, all pronounciations and spellings are certain, and no plurals or tenses endings can be wrong. The fear of being wrong is removed. No more of the, 'one mouse two mice', 'one sheep two sheep', 'one cow two cows', nonsenses, or 'I am, you are, he is', 'you will be', complexities. Never was introduced for political reasons, but there is a dedicated band of about 6,000,000 speakers worldwide who carry on in hope.
Sharon McCann 10+
The way any language passes on information tells each new generation of learners what ideas underpin their world view. It tells them what parts of the culture are important and which are less important. Since the differences in cultures is an underpinning of growth - one of the reasons humans explore is to learn new things - losing the comparisons allowed in absorbing a new language would defeat the purpose.
Besides all of that, no matter what you did to secure a single language regional differences would arise in short order. Sub-culutres develop their own lingo to convey information important to them AND to exclude outsiders. You would not be able to stop that.
Henrik Martenzon
Henrik Martenzon
The people of Greenland has more than one name for snowflakes and therefore can differentiate more easily between types of snowflakes, than the general population of the world. Their language is more suitable for their environment with respect to this than many other languages.
gale kooser 20+
Henrik Martenzon
By narrowing down, I refer foremost to guides, signs, instructions etc. I would invite everyone to explore their capabilities in learning languages but as a tool for communicate direct, vital information, I believe in using the best language at hand. and everyone should use it.
Joe Guan
Britain owned their historical reason to have English all around world, and in the other hand, Babel from Bibel had proved that all human being have one language at the very beginning.
Debra Smith 200+
Like you, I desperately want us to be united but never whitewashed.
Henrik Martenzon