[Glice]

Cultural imperialism at work? I read recently that 2/3rds of the world speaks a second language, or at least a lingua franca. Those who contribute to this board from non-English speaking nations are included in this.

Anyone read the Whorf/ Sapir hypothesis? I got very excited about that when I was in college. It's not what it purports to be, but I do think in a great many cases concepts are certainly limited by the language in which they're expressed. Those of you who've come across Heidegger or Hegel, regardless of your opinions on them, will probably have struggled with some of the language. The most satisfactory answer with a word like geist from a German means whatever you think it means within the context of the statement.

Tangent: Is it the strength of the stories that ensures the omni-presence of Grecian myth? I say no, it's the power of the written language, the reification of a culture in words. See also the Vedas, Upinishads, the tragic histories of Lao Tsu, Mo Tsu and the spread of Indian philosophy to East Asia.

Does tradition, cultural history, cultural memory die if it's not written down? Well, yes, if all those who spread their history cease to be able to speak. Language is, faceless nobodies of the internet, empowerment, is it not? If the genocide of the Jews (to pick probably the best known contemporary genocide) were successful, would the Old Testament be called only that? If the English were successful in their aims, there would be no Welsh music. The history of Africa is the history of language destruction. For every tribal language there is 20 lost, I've read that before. What exactly is the history of Africa is we can't speak, even pidgen-style, to those people who are historical Africa?

This matter is something important, whether you care or not, faceless internet nobodies.

[Glice]

Sapir Whorff hypothesis. This may be of interest. Obviously, I'd be better off posting a link to Davey Crystal or Derrida or Lacan or any of the stucturalists, but I'll let you do your own fishing.

[HaydenAsche]

I hope the next language is french.

[Rob Instigator]

french is dying

it will all be repaced by english because english has not yet become static, and it can absorb words from any and all languages and make them it's own.

[Glice]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

I'm an American. Everywhere abides by the same rules and standards as my country, don't they?

No Rob, no they don't. What a strange and ill-informed post you just made. Still, it is the internet.

[Rob Instigator]

huh? that was not me, man.

[Glice]

I took the liberty of paraphrasing you, hope you don't mind.

[cryptowonderdruginvogue]

IT'S A TRAP!!!

[Rob Instigator]

why [paraphrase? I said english, not american. english is spoken by more people every day, and it is the new international language of business (used to be french) and it DOES absorb any words from any language. this is all true man. half the words in the english language are lifted straight from french, german, spanish, chinese, whatever...
who said anything about rules and standards?

[floatingslowly]

Originally Posted by cryptowonderdruginvogue

IT'S A TRAP!!!

thank gawd somebody speaks a language that I can understand!

the rest of what I assume are clicks and grunts just come across as square boxes on my screen (my browser does not support pygmy).

[Glice]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

why [paraphrase? I said english, not american. english is spoken by more people every day, and it is the new international language of business (used to be french) and it DOES absorb any words from any language. this is all true man. half the words in the english language are lifted straight from french, german, spanish, chinese, whatever...
who said anything about rules and standards?

French, as a language, is far from dying. French falls into the category of languages which, thanks to cultural imperialism/ imperialism proper, is pretty secure in its position. If you know French French culture, there is no way they would give up their beautiful language, or at least, no way they'd switch to English. The various points of contact with French imperialism (large slews of Africa, mostly) are unlikely to abandon one imposed language in favour of another, not without (yet more) bloodshed which, thankfully, is currently out of vogue (the regimes the west imposed have done a fine job of letting African countries kill themselves).

It's the same with German. There's no point reverting to English. You're right insofar as English is the language of trade, and, latterly, the language of the internet. Before anyone hops in to say that other language exists on the internet - yes, thanks, I am aware of that. English is the dominant language of the internet, and is the dominant language of international trade.

The point isn't about languages that are secure in their status. French may not have the fluidity of input that English has, but French is far from some ossified museum piece - the main distinction is that the OED (or Websters for the USA) is an independent, academic enterprise. The dictionary of France is (or possibly was - I haven't read about this this century) controlled by the government. A word, in France, doesn't require the legitimation of the dictionary to be used and understood by its speakers. No word requires official legitimation to be considered an 'orthodox' word of its language. It just so happens that the OED is a descriptive and analytical measure of English-users; the French dictionary is slightly more towards being prescriptive, but this is by no means the same prescriptive as the one that is neccessary for dead languages like coptic or heiroglyphics.

I'd like to talk more about re-constructive languages like Hebrew, but I don't really know enough, unfortunately.