Hard News: A Full Sense of Nationhood
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Ah but you can punctuate, Danielle! And who knew it was the most important talent in the whole wide world?
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David, I don't want to wipe out languages, nor would that be a consequence of learning a new language. My learning German did not wipe out my English. In fact, it enhanced it considerably.
If, however, after such a thing happening (the whole world somehow managing to agree on universal language), the usage of the old ones started to decline, I would not be particularly heartbroken, any more than I am heartbroken that Latin is not still spoken by all learned people. I wouldn't see it as monstrous, I'd see it as the dawn of a new age. That doesn't frighten me. It excites me.
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Right now, languages are dying out at a scarily high rate - one every two weeks. It's estimated that almost half of the 7000 languages spoken today are in danger of extinction.
So, in 270 years we will wake up and say "mmmm mm mmm nn m mm nn"
Ok, I deliberately misunderstood. Or did I? -
I'm suggesting that we could all speak at least one language that everyone could understand in general
And that wouldn't happen to put native English speakers at a significant advantage in a globalised world, wouldn't it?
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Yes, they're not mutually exclusive - unless you seek to universally apply rules that only work for one of them. Get it?
Yup. That would be bad, and I'm not suggesting it.
The only language that I see needing such reform is English, and only if people would like it to become the universal language. It would be a gesture of enormous good faith to all other language speakers that we were prepared to change the way we spoke to make it easier for them, and it would be to our advantage to do so, because we would get to be the first native speakers of the universal language.
My hope is that this will actually spontaneously happen, without needing any political body whatsoever, that English will gradually morph into a language that everyone finds easy through introduction of foreign words, structures, ideas, and the widespread tolerance of the simpler ways of speaking as, far from being uncouth, both polite and normal.
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So we try to find all kinds of ways to convey our meaning more clearly without all the non-verbal clues we absolutely rely on in face to face communication.
Well yes. But that's the ambiguity of written conversation, the opposite of the ambiguity of oral conversation, which was my... original thing.
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And that wouldn't happen to put native English speakers at a significant advantage in a globalised world, wouldn't it?
It sure would, which has got to be one of the very best reasons for English speakers to actually try to do it. It is an advantage that would dissipate rapidly, though. Then it would just be advantageous for everyone.
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I can only see addition.
And that's the problem right there. For an entirely referential meaning, you want to be able to combine elements of meaning to get a total. That may work -- but only if you and your audience can both agree to discard any social element, and then stick to that agreement. Which is far harder than it seems, because cultural assumptions have a way of sneaking in when you're not looking.
For social meaning, however, you need to compare the utterance with all the other possibilities of language and of response that weren't used. It's not just about the language that you can see. This is what makes social signals so subtle in human language.
Let's take the role of compliments in society.
In American culture, people can be complimented on appearance or ability, and (because the culture places high value on individual self-esteem; also favoured politeness devices tend to mark solidarity, thus assume equality of status) the appropriate response is to accept the compliment at face value and thank the complimenter (or give a compliment in return). Refusing the compliment sends the social message "I am a deeply troubled, negative individual", and/or "I don't much like you". (You will hardly ever see that happen.)
In Japanese culture, compliments are much more of a face threat to the complimentee (because the culture places more value on the participants sharing an event, and the compliment introduces an imbalance; also favoured politeness devices tend to mark status, thus focus on belittling your own status, while also raising that of your addressee). As a result, compliments are more often on trivial surface details (the classic example to a foreigner being skill with using chopsticks) -- and the expected response is to deflect the compliment, by denying it, or ignoring it completely. Accepting the compliment at face value sends the social message "I am an insensitive egotistical wanker".
(And so you will hardly ever see that happen -- unless the complimentee is an American...) -
Then it would just be advantageous for everyone.
Ah, the benign face of neocolonialism! Where would we be without it.
I suspect you might be underestimating the kind of investment (cultural, human, monetary) that introducing a second native language into a country represents.
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widespread tolerance of the simpler ways of speaking as, far from being uncouth, both polite and normal
Now I'm confused - isn't this what you have been arguing against, Ben?
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to sail around the whole world you need maps
But you don't need literacy.
In fact stick charts are mnemonic aids for an oral culture that work very well for navigating long distances.
How ironic to hear someone presumaly educated in NZ, at one of the vertices of the Polynesian triangle, bang on about the inadequacy of oral culture mnemonic techniques for navigation.
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put native English speakers at a significant advantage in a globalised world
Yes, but speaking only English - like many New Zealanders - might also be a disadvantage compared with those who are able to triangulate the complex social implications from several languages/cultures.
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I suspect you might be underestimating the kind of investment (cultural, human, monetary) that introducing a second native language into a country represents.
I think you're underestimating the advantages.
Now I'm confused - isn't this what you have been arguing against, Ben?
No. I've been advocating using simple English with highly tolerant structure right from the start. I've been advocating clarity through simplicity, repetition, dialogue and tolerance the entire time. If you haven't got something about that, please ask. I don't know why you are confused until you tell me.
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Insisting on meandering does, however, harm clear communication.
Well naturally, in a given situation, which is why I wonder whether you bother to mention it, unless it's something that you're advocating as some kind of general principal. In which case it comes across as 'Imagination leads to technical errors".
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How ironic to hear someone presumaly educated in NZ, at one of the vertices of the Polynesian triangle, bang on about the inadequacy of oral culture mnemonic techniques for navigation
Exactly - and those stick charts are honoured in the bright patterned carpets of the Auckland Central Library.
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I think you're underestimating the advantages.
You might have to try to convince me, a native speaker of a different language, of the advantages of learning yours. If possible by using an argument other than the current one, which goes more or less: "Do you want to have a job or starve and die?".
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That does sound uncannily like our immigration policy..
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Yes, but speaking only English - like many New Zealanders - might also be a disadvantage compared with those who are able to triangulate the complex social implications from several languages/cultures.
Not if you understand communication as the means of getting information across, at the service of business or the military. Social implications have no place in Shannon's theory.
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That does sound uncannily like our immigration policy.
I don't know how the immigration department rolls these days, but at the time when I immigrated, there was an English speaking requirement to get the visa. that is, unless you were willing to pay the sum of (from memory) 20 thousand dollars, in which case you might as well speak exclusively Klingon for all the state cared. So yes, if you're rich you don't need to learn the language apparently.
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But you don't need literacy.
You do if you're reading a rutter, or a captain's log. Sure you can do without, and rely entirely upon meeting someone who happens to have committed to memory the entire path and is prepared to take the time to disseminate that information for you to memorize, and are also prepared to take the gigantic risk of forgetting something and being lost at sea. But I would rather not, and I'm sure the Polynesian voyagers would have agreed 100% with me if they'd been lucky enough to have the idea presented to them.
How ironic to hear someone presumaly educated in NZ, at one of the vertices of the Polynesian triangle, bang on about the inadequacy of oral culture mnemonic techniques for navigation.
How diversionary to point it out. The subtle hint, conveyed by signals that I can appreciate, is that somehow makes me a racist. The other signal from that being that I must also be wrong. None of which is said plainly because that would violate the rules of politeness this forum is famous in it's own mind for.
You might have to try to convince me, a native speaker of a different language, of the advantages of learning yours.
Yup. How about "So you can understand, and be understood by, everyone". That is to me a powerful argument. If it isn't to you, then sure, you'll never be convinced.
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Gio, as you know, money talks.
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Good lord, I don't think you're a racist, and I wasn't trying to suggest that for a second. I do think your arguments aren't very considered, though. Wrong, even.
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How about "So you can understand, and be understood by, everyone"
But I can already. I read books in translation, I watch films with subtitles, I learn bits of other languages. If I'm in Spain or France, I can speak my language, and the locals can speak theirs, and we'll get by. We don't need homogenisation to understand one another. And then how do you lpan to organise this universal language thing. Will it replace all local ones? That would be horrendous. Will it run alongside, and if so how? And since English would always be the weakest language for all the countries that at present don't speak English, wouldn't that mean that the 'true', strongest Englsh speakers would express themselves more incisively, and everybody else speak like children?
People periodically remark here on my ability with teh English, and I thank them. But it took me twenty years, ten of which I spent in the country where the language is spoken pretty much exclusively. And even so, I'll never be as good as a native speaker. And even so, in spite of working with Italian texts every day, I am worried about losing my language and working hard to keep it alive. It's not easy, you know.
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Good lord, I don't think you're a racist, and I wasn't trying to suggest that for a second. I do think your arguments aren't very considered, though. Wrong, even.
Go for it. Say why. You might convince me. I'll take your word for it that you don't think I'm a racist.
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But I can already.
Dude, you speak English.
And then how do you lpan to organise this universal language thing. Will it replace all local ones? That would be horrendous. Will it run alongside, and if so how? And since English would always be the weakest language for all the countries that at present don't speak English, wouldn't that mean that the 'true', strongest Englsh speakers would express themselves more incisively, and everybody else speak like children?
I've already answered all these questions. I can do so again, if you like, but I'll direct all criticisms for repeating myself to you.
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