Hard News: A Full Sense of Nationhood
509 Responses
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3410,
Stephen's cartoon... not working... somebody's too damn wrong on the Internet...
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Nothing to do with the armies and the economic might, then?
I reckon that actually has more to do with it, but the ability of the language to adapt for the massive empire it captured is surely a strength rather than a weakness. It's a way for the language to follow the advice of Machiavelli - when you capture a nation, you should allow them to follow their own customs, speak their own language, and be led by their own people. English allows a great deal of scope for that. It's a good language for conquerors who intend to hold on to their empire.
It's lovely of you to be so considerate about other people's money. But you know, we'll keep dubbing and subtitling films into our own languages, if it's all the same to you.
It's all the same to me, that's for sure. Whether it's still a common practice in a few hundred years remains to be seen.
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3410... I'm in tears. Thank you for that.
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Okay, this is in Italian, sorry, but you'll probably get the gist of it. It's the trailer for a film about a superhero called Tutta Patata (patata means potato but in Genoese it also means... ah, but why spoil it?)
Well that's 2:26 I won't get back...
Giovanni, I suspect that lost a little in non-translation; perhaps you'd be so kind as to add a few commas and apostrophes so we can all share?
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You didn't get the general gist of what superpower Tutta Patata possesses?
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It's all the same to me, that's for sure. Whether it's still a common practice in a few hundred years remains to be seen.
are you are implying that everyone will be conversant in a single language in a few hundred years? can you offer any evidence to support that theory? i can't see any at all, but maybe i'm missing something...
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are you are implying that everyone will be conversant in a single language in a few hundred years? can you offer any evidence to support that theory?
May I be the first to coin "Chinglish" ??
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first?
ymbfjm?!
LOL -
ANd actually, now I think about it, my daughter is doing very well at school in Chinese - like something out of Firefly (which she has seen), she liberally peppers chinese words & phrases through her conversation.
Makes her the centre of attention at any chinese restaurant we visit. It's hilarious.
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All hail the comma!
Ben was right: Grammar Nazis!
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first?
ymbfjm?!
LOLBugger, pipped again. How about Englarin?
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liberally peppers chinese
you know that behaviour like that can land you on death row in some countries, don't you? i'd be pretty careful about adulteration like that if i were her...
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Should be more like Chindispanol by the numbers, or so The Great Wiki would have us believe.
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I for one welcome our new overlords.
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English is a creolised bastard language, though. That is its history. And that's always been its strength.
Can't argue with that. After all, Latin was spoken in England long before English.
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are you are implying that everyone will be conversant in a single language in a few hundred years? can you offer any evidence to support that theory? i can't see any at all, but maybe i'm missing something
Evidence from the future? No, I don't have any, I'm sorry. Not until they get that bloody Hadron collider going anyway.
And no, I'm not saying anything about the chances. Just the possibility. It is supremely and totally possible, and it would also be a bloody good thing. It could happen entirely naturally, all by itself, or governments could band together and make it happen. I think the latter is less likely, but the former seems to be actually happening today. English has crept out to phenomenal numbers of people, and it's likely that even today, there are more people speaking it as an auxiliary second language than as a native tongue. Naturally the non-natives don't speak it just the way the natives do, but I, for one, am tolerant of that because I want to hear what these hundreds of millions of people have to say. I want to be able to communicate with them, easily and effectively, without needing a translator, or running around holding a piss in, looking for the second door on the left.
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How about Englarin?
the prize is yours!
you win a free trip for two-weeks of glorious decontamination work at a luxurious former Japanese biological weapons site in northeastern china!!! please hold the line and give all your details to Jenny, our producer! -
It is supremely and totally possible
that's good. but then so is my being kidnapped by aliens from klingon, or some people from Emma's RPG club. but i just don't see it as very likely...
and it would also be a bloody good thing
of course it would! it would make everuthing so much easier ! all these people not understanding each other is just so silly and so unnecessary.
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btw,
Evidence from the future?
eh?
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it would make everuthing so much easier ! all these people not understanding each other is just so silly and so unnecessary.
He might have a point though. In the future we mostly seem to be wearing one piece silver suits and speak English.
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The most ironic thing about this discussion for me is that whilst I'm having it, I'm simultaneously writing a conversion to my product that enables internationalization of the front end, to save our foreign customers from the annoyance of having to read English. In the next few weeks it's entirely likely to have 20 different front ends, and teams of people maintaining each one, peppered all around the world. I'm perfectly aware of how much effort goes into this now, and doing all I can to reduce the work they are required to do.
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It's not a rally computer, is it?
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wearing one piece silver suits and speak English
you've already forgotten about the Green Onion Slave Girls?
tsk, tsk. -
of course it would! it would make everuthing so much easier ! all these people not understanding each other is just so silly and so unnecessary.
Hey, someone's finally catching on!
He might have a point though. In the future we mostly seem to be wearing one piece silver suits and speak English.
Even aliens! Except bad aliens.
It is curious how few visions of the future have humans unable to understand each other.
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Anyhoo, it's been fun, folks. Over and out.
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