Languages - Parlo Italiano - What langauge should be the Official?

Palomar · 2003-02-02 13:49:28

Invented example (Yoda-speak?):
pu batci mi fa lo gerku
Bit me have a dog

*Yoda: "Bitten by a dog was I, mmmmm? Yes. Yes!"

--Cindy

KaseiII · 2003-02-02 13:51:32

I hold that since Mars is inherantly beautiful, the language it has should be. English, German, Lojban, Spanish, etc. are ugly langauges. We must find a language of beauty, in both appearance and sound for Mars.

I still say Italian, or maybe French are best. And it isn't saying a language is better than another. I hold Japanese is fantastic language, but I would never use it as oficial, it is just to complicated, it took me four years to really begin to pick it up, where as i was speaking italian fluently in 3 months.
So it is not discrimination, just some languages are easier and nicer on the ear than others. Am I not correct, I would much prefer to listen to Italian than German (though German is a very interesting language with it's own beauty.)

Every langauge has its beauty, but some are more beautiful than others.

soph · 2003-02-02 13:55:05

Eh, Spanish and Italian are so similar, i can understand a lot of italian based on my few years of spanish learning. french, too, although its less similar. i really dont like french that much ???

KaseiII · 2003-02-02 14:30:33

I always find Spanish sounds alot like Arabic at times, and it doesn't have the ncie lilt Italian does.

KaseiII · 2003-02-02 14:42:01

soph, I no this is a random question, but r u male or female? Just curious.

soph · 2003-02-02 14:52:43

male

Josh Cryer · 2003-02-04 15:40:14

Bob LeChevalier (the originator of Lojban) speaks on Lojban Aesthetics...

The first basis of comparison is aesthetic. There are a few aesthetic qualities - sound, rhythm, ease of pronunciation, simplicity, elegance, completeness - but the standards of 'good' in these qualities are cultural at best, and individual at worst. I am most irritated by people, not having made an effort to learn the language, who say that Lojban seems 'cold', 'mechanical', 'inhuman', 'complicated', 'hard to learn', or deficientany other measure of aesthetic quality; they have absolutely no knowledge basis on which to make such an evaluation!

The aesthetics of language is totally determined by knowledge. All languages have beauty, when looked at from an internal perspective. You have to see, and to understand, the sounds, the forms, the structure, and the poetry, before you can determine whether a language has properties that attract you. Michael Helsem's writings in lelojbo ciska this issue may demonstrate this to you. Whether you like his poetry or not, he clearly has found something in the language that inspires him to explore further. He couldn't have found this without trying to express his own ideas in the language. Most people make a first evaluation of Lojban based on two sentences in the brochure, and a couple more if they get the Overview. These sentences can be evaluated by a newcomer only in translation, and whatever virtue Lojban has is obviously going to be lost by translation into English. The sentences are longer than the colloquial English translation, so Lojban seems complicated (heightened by people's perception that logic is complicated).

The frequent reference to 'logic' in our introductory materials makes people think of Vulcans, where upon they presume that a logical language must inherently be cold and inhuman. Similarly, people criticize our 'Chicken McNugget' gismu - it seems like the wrong way, to them, to build a 'warm, human' language. A newcomer sees a heavy emphasis on the rules of the language, on computer applications, and on linguistic principles, in our introductory descriptions, which makes Lojban seem 'cold' and 'mechanical'. A third group of critics see Lojban words as unaesthetic because of particular sounds that they find difficult to say, or simply because the words are enough different from English that they think it will be hard to learn them.

I believe that all of these evaluations are based on misconceptions caused by the way we describe the language and by the readers' cultural prejudices. However, we can't possibly tell a casual newcomer enough about the language for him/herto aesthetically evaluate it. There are too many possible misconceptions to deal with; in this newsletter alone I've written 3 or 4 essays that try to dispel misconceptions among readers with far more information than the person who casually picks up our brochure.

Esperanto appeals aesthetically to European-family newcomers because they grasp the simplified European principles relatively easily. They can read Esperanto text and recognize dozens of cognates, giving them a feeling that they already practically know the language. Esperanto will always have this advantage over Lojban, since Lojban requires an interested person to learn a bit more before she/he can see the simplicity and the patterns.

We need to make introductory Lojban materials good enough that a newcomer feels compelled to learn enough about the language to properly evaluate aesthetic features. WHEN PEOPLE LEARN ABOUT LOJBAN, THEY STAY WITH US. Our dropout rate among such people is only a couple of percent per year.

Several people have tried to write aone-or-two pagehand out on Lojban, but it's awfully hard to describe something as complex as a human language in just a couple of paragraphs. On the other hand, at Worldcon, we saw numerous 1-page Esperanto handouts that showed great advertising sophistication, reducing all of Esperanto to some graphics and a catchy slogan that plays to the emotions. I would feel dishonest trying to do the same. Our handouts give information, quite dense informationat that. Our only catchy slogan so faris ".e'osai ko sarji la lojban.", which of course also loses something in the translation.

Perhaps Lojban promoters can learn from Esperanto in other ways. Esperanto has a correspondence course for newcomers, which Lojban doesn't. It isn't even on our priority list yet, although Athelstan's mini-lesson may eventually serve much the same basic purpose - to give people the warm, fuzzy, feeling that they can indeed learn the language, and that it is aesthetically pleasing - then they will bewilling to start the hard work necessary to actually learn it. Only the people who move beyond such introductory lessons actually learnand use the language.

On a more practical note, it will be impossible to evaluate the aesthetics of Lojban until it is spoken by reasonably fluent speakers. Only the first tidbits of Lojban poetry have now been written, by one poet, so the enormous power of the language to convey ideas has hardly been tapped. The aesthetics of Lojban are being evaluated on such trivial grounds as whether one likes the apostrophe as a representation for the vowel buffer (pronounced like an h - but NOT an h), or whether the consonant clusters at the beginning of "cfari" and "mrilu" seem pronounceable. Esperantists have a similar problem, with four alphabetic lettersnot found on any typewriter or computer keyboard. But Esperanto has speakers, poetry, novels - a community of people using the language - to give it the aura of 'humanity'. It did not have these 100 years ago, when people first made the choice to learn the language. Lojban will have these things, too, and in a very shortwhile.

RobS · 2003-02-04 16:45:51

My thoughts on this subject are somewhat random. I know Esperanto (or I once did, at least) and have heard all the praises and complaints about it. I am inclined to think there is no such thing as a pretty or an ugly language, because one has to find some sort of universal set of criteria to define these terms, and they don't exist.

I also have my doubts that some languages are good for science or commerce, and bad for something else. Languages exist to communicate ideas. If words are needed, they are invented. English started out with a few thousand words and now has a few million because of the process.

If the people on Mars decided they will use Navajo as their common language, there would quickly be words for airlock and "Kasei Vallis" in Navajo. They are now broadcasting baseball and football games over the radio in Navajo, and the necessary vocabulary has been coined. How could it not be?

I'm not sure any language in inherently too easy or too hard to use as an official language, either. Someone commented that several hundred million Chinese can't learn English. Why not? Several hundred million people in India already have. If you call some toll-free numbers at night, the person answering your product questions may be in India.

So as far as I'm concerned, Finnish, with its 18 case endings for nouns, can be the official Mars language, if there ever is one. Maybe the Eskimo languages, with their multiple words for snow, will be good for the Martian polar regions.

Mars will have some sort of common tongue even if many are spoken in the bedroom or around the table in the cafeteria. Even with instant computer translators, something will be needed.

The choice will be dictated by practical matters. If NASA spearheads the exploration of Mars and everyone else rides along, English will be the language. If the Chinese spearhead the effort, Chinese will be. If both go there, English will dominate in the short term, because there will be more Chinese graduates of Stanford than American graduates of the University of Beijing.

But no one can predict what will happen over a century or two, because no one can predict geopolitics on Earth. Terrestrial politics will dictate developments on Mars for a long time. Right now the US has the largest economy, followed by China, Japan, Germany, Italy, France, the U.K. In 2100 the order may be: China, India, the US, the European Union, Indonesia, Brazil (which is closing in on the U.K. already). The EU may be bigger than the US, depending on demography especially (Europe's population will decline without extensive immigration; the US population will continue to rise). Don't underestimate the possible role of Indonesian, Hindi, and Portuguese on Mars.

-- RobS

KaseiII · 2003-02-05 15:10:37

??? How incorrect you are robs. UK is nowhere near Brazilian economy. We are fourth best in the world (in the order Japan, USA, Germany, UK, France, Canada, Italy.)

Just thought you should have the correct info.

soph · 2003-02-05 15:16:08

he was talking about growth. but i dont think anyone will surpass the US for a long time, the economy is still growing by a large amount, and the chinese and indian economies, while expanding, arent expanding by enough to meet us anytime soon.

china may become a rival yes, but not bigger-and india will still be far behind until they can solve their societal issues.

RobS · 2003-02-05 16:31:32

I was comparing Brazil to the UK, not the UK to Brazil. here is a chart of Gross Domestic Products, found at http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/donstat....ng.pdf:

USA $10.082 trillion
China $5.019
Japan $3.359
India $2.396
Germany $2.184
France $1.538
Italy

RobS · 2003-02-05 16:39:31

I was comparing Brazil to the UK, not the UK to Brazil. here is a chart of Gross Domestic Products, found at http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/donstat....ng.pdf:

USA $10.082 trillion
China $5.019
Japan $3.359
India $2.396
Germany $2.184
France $1.538
U.K. $1.524
Italy $1.509
Brazil $1.295
Russia $1.219

According to this chart, Brazil's GDP is 85% of the U.K.'s. My point simply was that the gap will continue to close. (Let's "mind the gap"?)

China's GDP is about half the USA's. If the American economy grows at 3% and China's at 8%--which is the trend over the last decade--China closes the gap by about 5% per year. I think that means the Chinese economy surpasses the US economy in 14.4 years. The growth rate in China can't continue, but even if it remains quite a bit above 3%, China does surpass the US economy. Probably in this century.

-- RobS

soph · 2003-02-05 16:47:16

well, not necessarily. 3% of 10 trillion is $300 billion. 8% of 5 trillion is $400 billion, which is 4% of the US budget. So, relative to the US budget, China is closing the gap at 1% per year.

and china hasnt been as affected by the current economic period as america. Growth rates were far greater in the US than they are now, and we can expect growth to increase once the recession lives itself out.

KaseiII · 2003-02-06 12:09:50

Sorry, I was on about strongest economies, not GDP. Sorry bout the mix up.

soph · 2003-02-06 14:09:15

GDP is a strong, if the not the strongest, indicator of economic strength.

Josh Cryer · 2003-02-06 14:48:01

Foreign investment in China rose some 20% last year doubling the rise of 10% in 2001, one can only expect another rise this year. I expect China to take the place of the US as a technology leader in the coming decades. China has already become the top exporter to Japan...

Now can we get back on topic?

I think that, as Bob LeChevalier eloquently argues (in English nonetheless), langauges are all beautiful, so such an argument against one language or another is not inherently relevent.

Also, the argument that learning English wasn't practical for Chinese (can't remember if that's what I said exactly, but it's the gist), was more or less trying to imply that if Chinese people were the majority on Mars, they would have absolutely no reason to learn English. English speakers would actually have more reason to learn Chinese!

Indeed, whoever is the majority will have the ?offical? language whether we like it or not. Simply because everything will be in that language!

This is why I argue and continue to argue that a simple transistion langauge is much better, and easier to officiate because it'd be simple to learn.

KaseiII · 2003-02-09 09:09:57

Nothin to say - Just wanna see if my signature works.

Shaun Barrett · 2003-02-10 19:11:23

Hi Cindy!
I was almost relieved to see that you wrote "bitten" as in 'I was bitten by a dog'.

I've noticed that in 'American' these days, the word 'fitted' has been dropped as the past tense and/or the past participle of 'to fit'. I'm not sure how new this is - maybe Americans have never used 'fitted' (?).

In English, as used in Britain and Australia at least, you have sentences such as: 'I fitted new brakes to my car' or 'The naval recruit was fitted out with a new uniform'.
I believe, from watching American TV programs, that 'fitted' would be replaced by 'fit' in both these cases in the US.
Whenever I hear such sentences used by Americans, it really sounds bizarre! It sounds as though the past participle and the past historic are being replaced by the a more simplistic present tense - which is what you would expect of illiterates who don't know any better.

I don't mean this in any derogatory way. I'm not by any means trying to insinuate that Americans are broadly illiterate - that would be patent nonsense. But this usage, obviously accepted as standard by Americans, does grate on me a little bit. I suppose it grates because it reminds me of a trend here in Australia, by disturbingly large numbers of people it seems, to use sentences like: 'She must have went out' instead of 'She must have gone out'. (Cringe!! ) And I think I heard this form used on an American show recently, too.

Is it the case that the past participle of the verb 'to bite' i.e. 'bitten' is also gradually being replaced by the past historic, 'bit', in the US?
In other words, are we to expect:
I bite, I bit, I have bit -instead of- I bite, I bit, I have bitten
As well as:
I fit, I fit, I have fit -instead of- I fit, I fitted, I have fitted?

I know languages evolve but shouldn't they evolve to enhance nuances of meaning and become more descriptive? I think the changes I've outlined above - and there are others I can think of - are detracting from the beauty and precision of the English language in an attempt to simplify it.

Incidentally, my vote (for reasons of strong personal bias as well as my agreement with HariSeldon- welcome back Hari! ) is for English as the official Martian language.

Palomar · 2003-02-10 21:40:01

Shaun: Hi Cindy! I was almost relieved to see that you wrote "bitten" as in 'I was bitten by a dog'."

*You liked my Yoda imitation, huh? Want to hear my Mork from Ork impersonation? NANOO-NANOO!

I've noticed that in 'American' these days, the word 'fitted' has been dropped as the past tense and/or the past participle of 'to fit'. I'm not sure how new this is - maybe Americans have never used 'fitted' (?).

*I believe Americans have used the word "fitted" in that manner, quite commonly in the past.

In English, as used in Britain and Australia at least, you have sentences such as: 'I fitted new brakes to my car' or 'The naval recruit was fitted out with a new uniform'.

*Most Americans wouldn't use any form of "fit"; they'd say "I had new brakes put on my car." If using some form of "fit," it'd be, "I had new brakes fit on my car."

I believe, from watching American TV programs, that 'fitted' would be replaced by 'fit' in both these cases in the US. Whenever I hear such sentences used by Americans, it really sounds bizarre!

*Hmmmm. I'm probably one of the "last of the Mohicans" in the U.S. to still use the words "burnt" and "slept". I once made a supervisor angry for using the word "unbeknownst" (I guess she thought I was being snooty or something). I guess I have a tendency to use some forms which aren't current/modern in the U.S. because of my extensive reading of foreign material.

I don't mean this in any derogatory way. I'm not by any means trying to insinuate that Americans are broadly illiterate - that would be patent nonsense.

*The U.S. has its fair share of dingbats...trust me.

But this usage, obviously accepted as standard by Americans, does grate on me a little bit. I suppose it grates because it reminds me of a trend here in Australia, by disturbingly large numbers of people it seems, to use sentences like: 'She must have went out' instead of 'She must have gone out'. (Cringe!! ) And I think I heard this form used on an American show recently, too.

*I would say "She must have gone out."

Is it the case that the past participle of the verb 'to bite' i.e. 'bitten' is also gradually being replaced by the past historic, 'bit', in the US?

*"Bitten" isn't extremely rare here, IMO. But I think it's likely it is gradually being replaced with "bit."

--Cindy

Shaun Barrett · 2003-02-11 01:57:08

Many thanks, Cindy, for taking the time to respond to my questions in such detail!

It's a horrible thought for me that 'American' is drifting in this direction, because Australia very often tends to go along with trends started in the US.

They'll never get me to go along with it though!!! Not in a thousand years.
:angry:
I'm a linguistic traditionalist and will never yield to such barbaric mangling of my mother tongue!

(There! I'm glad I FITTED that little outburst into this post!!)
:;):

Thanks again, Cindy, for humouring me in my pedantry, and well done for standing proud as one of the last remaining bastions of linguistic purity in America.
Ma'am, you have risen even higher in my estimation!

Palomar · 2003-02-11 11:59:24

Shaun: Many thanks, Cindy, for taking the time to respond to my questions in such detail!

*You're welcome.

It's a horrible thought for me that 'American' is drifting in this direction, because Australia very often tends to go along with trends started in the US.

*You mentioned what makes you cringe; for me, it's when people say things like "We is going..."; it sounds so ignorant. Also, inappropriate use of the apostrophe: "Only 5 dollar's."

Thanks again, Cindy, for humouring me in my pedantry, and well done for standing proud as one of the last remaining bastions of linguistic purity in America. Ma'am, you have risen even higher in my estimation!

*I needed a compliment this morning...thank you.

--Cindy

Ranger_2833 · 2003-03-27 13:48:44

Latin or Ancient Greek. They are much more structured and elaborate (especially Greek) than most, if not all, modern languages. The more elaborate the inflections, the more delicate the syntax. It is much more difficult to be vague in these languages than in say English, which seems to pride itself on its vagueness. This allows these languages to be more accurate in the relation between ideas and in the shades of meaning and emotion. It is in their nature to be exact, subtle andd clear.

"The mind of a people is expressed perhaps more immediately in the structure of its language than in anything else it makes..." -- H.D.F. Kitto

Phobos · 2003-03-27 15:56:27

I am inclined to think there is no such thing as a pretty or an ugly language, because one has to find some sort of universal set of criteria to define these terms, and they don't exist.

Most of my college linguistics professors took this position. There is no such thing as a "superior" language since the primary goal of speech is merely the transmission of ideas. One might argue that a large vocabulary somehow makes a language superior, or the flow of its vowels, or some other arbitrary thing, but these are purely aesthetic and secondary. Languages are flexible, if they need larger vocabularies or more sounds they'll be incorporated. Unless a single cultural group becomes predominate on Mars, I don't see how you can just sit down and tell everybody "ok your going to speak this language now." Good luck! There should be no "official" language of Mars, at least in the beginning. Let the language evolve on its own. Not everything needs the help of the dictators!

dicktice · 2003-03-27 17:42:16

By the time we get to Mars, we'll all have wrist translators, so what's the beef?

Josh Cryer · 2003-03-27 19:13:11

Yep dicktice, I believe that even came up in this thread. But you'd still need an intermediate language so that ambiguity is done away with with regard to law. Assuming of course, you go for a world government type of thing. If we're just going to be seperate colonies with seperate governments, then a language in which unambigious laws are written almost seems obviously unnecessary.

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#26 2003-02-02 13:49:28

Re: Languages - Parlo Italiano - What langauge should be the Official?

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Re: Languages - Parlo Italiano - What langauge should be the Official?

#28 2003-02-02 13:55:05

Re: Languages - Parlo Italiano - What langauge should be the Official?

#29 2003-02-02 14:30:33

Re: Languages - Parlo Italiano - What langauge should be the Official?

#30 2003-02-02 14:42:01

Re: Languages - Parlo Italiano - What langauge should be the Official?

#31 2003-02-02 14:52:43

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#32 2003-02-04 15:40:14

Re: Languages - Parlo Italiano - What langauge should be the Official?

#33 2003-02-04 16:45:51

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#34 2003-02-05 15:10:37

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#35 2003-02-05 15:16:08

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#36 2003-02-05 16:31:32

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#37 2003-02-05 16:39:31

Re: Languages - Parlo Italiano - What langauge should be the Official?

#38 2003-02-05 16:47:16

Re: Languages - Parlo Italiano - What langauge should be the Official?

#39 2003-02-06 12:09:50

Re: Languages - Parlo Italiano - What langauge should be the Official?

#40 2003-02-06 14:09:15

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#41 2003-02-06 14:48:01

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#42 2003-02-09 09:09:57

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#43 2003-02-10 19:11:23

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#44 2003-02-10 21:40:01

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#45 2003-02-11 01:57:08

Re: Languages - Parlo Italiano - What langauge should be the Official?

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Re: Languages - Parlo Italiano - What langauge should be the Official?

#47 2003-03-27 13:48:44

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#48 2003-03-27 15:56:27

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