Common Language
Daniel Pfeiffer
this will make it out. Sorry if some of this has meanwhile been
discussed or doesn't adress any of your questions.
Languages are intricately linked to culture. Learning English in
school wasn't about a means of international communication, rather we
read English, Irish and American authors. Maybe it is they who put
the language to it's best use, but in doing so they shaped much of
their countries cultures. Meanwhile I heard nothing about Italy or
modern Greece in school. Such an unfairness needn't exist if we all
learnt a neutral language such as Esperanto which is equally well
suited for translating English or Italian or any other literature.
Languages are about power too. France is meekly trying to blow some
life into ``la francophonie'' because they are seeing with dismay that
they are no longer ``la grande nation'' they once were. The UK and
Germany are dumping tons of (direly needed :-) English and German
schoolbooks onto the former communist countries in the hope of someday
conquering new markets. Stalin, Hitler and Ceausescu were more
interested in ``protecting their people from subvertive foreign
ideas'' when they opressed and even killed Esperantists for their
ideas about a peaceful and just world.
It is indeed often repeated that English is easy, which seems to be
sufficient reason that it be the international lingua franca. Never
mind the unfairness to non-native speakers. Many people, even after
years of English at school don't speak much. Of course the fault
partly lies with incompetent teachers and bad methods, but I believe
that there is more to it!
No doubt English is lots easier than French or German, along with
others such as spoken Mandarin, and maybe Tagalog, Pidgin and Creole.
But trying to pronounce the following words is hairraising and should
dispel any rumors about English being easy: to, ho!, who, how, low,
grog, ground, group, sew, sewage, loop, cooperate. There is one
helluva lot to learn here! And then there are the two ``th''s which
many people have so much trouble to pronounce.
Even German is easier on pronunciation, and true ease is attained by
such languages as Romanian, that have completely reinvented their
phonetics (when switching from Cyrilic to Roman letters). Of course,
in Esperanto each letter has only one pronunciation indepent of it's
neighbors, and for every pronounced word there is only one possible
spelling. Such hard things as hard (a, o, u) and soft (e, i) vowels
or their haphazard English counterparts don't exist, instead `c' is always
pronounced as in haTS and `g' as in Game. `^c' (a `c' with a circumflex)
as in CHicken and `^g' as in Ginger.
And how many little words and particles that fit nowhere must we
learn? Esperanto's inventor Zamenhof had a stroke of genius on that:
the so-called table words. Each beginning conveys a notion
(^ci- "all", i- "some", ki- "what", neni- "no", ti- "that")
and so does each end
(-a "kind", -al "reason", -am "time", -e "place", -el "manner",
-es "belonging to", -o "thing", -om "quantity", -u "person,
reference to previous subject"). Examples: neniu "nobody", kiom "how
much", ^cies "everybody's", ial "for some reason", tiam "then" and so
forth. Every combination is valid and will be understood, even if the
languages you know don't even have this word. Esperanto is indeed a
very logical language.
Compare numbers: one, two, three and so forth, with many "-teen"s and
"-ty"s that sound only vaguely similar. Ordinals again different: first,
second, third, and some fractions once more: oneth(?), half, third, quarter.
nulo dek dudek
unu dek unu dudek unu
du dek du dudek du
tri dek tri dudek tri
kvar dek kvar dudek kvar
kvin dek kvin dudek kvin
ses dek ses dudek ses
sep dek sep dudek sep
ok dek ok dudek ok
na^u dek na^u dudek na^u
unua "first", dua "second", tria "third" ...
unue "firstly", due "secondly", trie "thirdly" ...
unuono "mathematicians do write 1/1", duono "half", triono "third" ...
unuo "unit", duo "two of something", trio "three of something" ...
unuobla "singular", duobla "double", triobla "treble" ...
unuopa "distinct, individual", duopa "of two things that go together" ...
unuope "one by one", duope "pairwise", triope "three by three" ...
Couldn't be easier could it?
Romance languages put adjectives preferably and often exclusively
after the noun, Germanic ones do the opposite. Verbs, subjects and
objects take different positions, even within the same language
according to the kind of phrase. Esperanto's sentence structure is
rather free and thus adapts to anybody's feeling for language. You
may build your sentences as you feel comfortable and someone else may
have a completely different style due to his background. Both are
equally valid and understandable. That's neutrality!
You may not realise this, since this wasn't presented in form of a
course, but if you have attentively read this and my previous posting
<PFEIFFER.9...@cix.cict.fr>, you already know most of the
notions that make up Esperanto!
Hope to hear from you soon!
--
-- Daniel Pfeiffer <pfei...@cix.cict.fr>
-- Tolosa (Toulouse), Midi-Pyrenees, Europe <pfei...@irit.fr>
-- "Beware - polyglot esperantist" <pfei...@frcict81.bitnet>
--
N
_---_
/ \ NEWS, it goes around the world.
W (-------) E (sorry, my bitmap doesn't have a world-class resolution)
\_ _/
---
S
Richard L. Goerwitz
languages and ease of language learning, I just want to say two things:
1) How easy a language is to learn depends a great deal on who is
doing the learning. German is easy for the Dutch. Spanish is
easy for someone who knows Latin or French. Everyone from W.
Europe has trouble with Arabic, etc. The point is that you can't
make pat generizations about what languages are "easy" and what
languages are "hard," except perhaps in the case of artificial
languages (which brings me to my next point)...:
2) I predict that no artificial language will ever, ever make it big
on the international scene. People don't change languages unless
they perceive it to be in their immediate economic or social in-
terest, or else are forced to. The AL movement will never, ever
attract a large and economically important following. Nor will it
every merge into a single, unified force (splinter groups will be
forever fighting).
Please direct followups to some group other than sci.lang, as this is
really not about the scientific study of language. It's basically
just about politics and economics. We could have the same argument
about any number of sociopolitical issues.
--
-Richard L. Goerwitz goer%sop...@uchicago.bitnet
go...@sophist.uchicago.edu rutgers!oddjob!gide!sophist!goer
Dragan Curcija
>...
>Even German is easier on pronunciation, and true ease is attained by
>such languages as Romanian, that have completely reinvented their
>phonetics (when switching from Cyrilic to Roman letters). Of course,
>in Esperanto each letter has only one pronunciation indepent of it's
>neighbors, and for every pronounced word there is only one possible
>spelling. Such hard things as hard (a, o, u) and soft (e, i) vowels
>or their haphazard English counterparts don't exist, instead `c' is always
>pronounced as in haTS and `g' as in Game. `^c' (a `c' with a circumflex)
>as in CHicken and `^g' as in Ginger.
>
rules from there? Serbo-Croatian phonetics was modified to the
above rules sometimes in mid 1800's, and I must say that it is
really easy to spell (or better say you just don't need any
spelling) and pronounce things. Kids in elementary school learn
to write and read just after several months! compare that to the
nightmare through which average kid in U.S. has to go through to became
litterate (my daughter, after a year spent in the school, which
BTW belongs to one of the leading U.S. public school systems, is
still away from beiing able to read and write).
If everything is so easy and logical as this, there will be
one more Esperantist in the world.
Regards,
Dragan ^Cur^cija
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Historia Magistra Vitae Est
___________________________________________________________________________
Kutluk Ozguven
>this will make it out. Sorry if some of this has meanwhile been
>discussed or doesn't adress any of your questions.
>
>Languages are intricately linked to culture. Learning English in
>school wasn't about a means of international communication, rather we
>read English, Irish and American authors. Maybe it is they who put
>the language to it's best use, but in doing so they shaped much of
>their countries cultures. Meanwhile I heard nothing about Italy or
>modern Greece in school. Such an unfairness needn't exist if we all
>learnt a neutral language such as Esperanto which is equally well
>suited for translating English or Italian or any other literature.
>
>Languages are about power too. France is meekly trying to blow some
>life into ``la francophonie'' because they are seeing with dismay that
>they are no longer ``la grande nation'' they once were. The UK and
>Germany are dumping tons of (direly needed :-) English and German
>schoolbooks onto the former communist countries in the hope of someday
>conquering new markets. Stalin, Hitler and Ceausescu were more
>interested in ``protecting their people from subvertive foreign
>ideas'' when they opressed and even killed Esperantists for their
>ideas about a peaceful and just world.
It is an irony that early Esperantists including Zamenhof,
were supporters of political internationalism.
However the Chinese did support Esperanto.
>It is indeed often repeated that English is easy, which seems to be
>sufficient reason that it be the international lingua franca. Never
>mind the unfairness to non-native speakers. Many people, even after
>years of English at school don't speak much. Of course the fault
>partly lies with incompetent teachers and bad methods, but I believe
>that there is more to it!
>
>No doubt English is lots easier than French or German, along with
>others such as spoken Mandarin, and maybe Tagalog, Pidgin and Creole.
>But trying to pronounce the following words is hairraising and should
>dispel any rumors about English being easy: to, ho!, who, how, low,
>grog, ground, group, sew, sewage, loop, cooperate. There is one
>helluva lot to learn here! And then there are the two ``th''s which
>many people have so much trouble to pronounce.
>
English is hard to learn completely. It
is simply because of incoherent linguistic and semantic history
of words and expressions.
Kutluk
Roger M. Wilcox
>others such as spoken Mandarin, and maybe Tagalog, Pidgin and Creole.
Actually, according to one source I came across, the two most difficult
languages in the world to learn are Korean and English. Considering
English's complete lack of spelling rules, I believe it.
(Nun, Esperante:)
>Sen dubo, la Angla lingvo estas multe pli facila [lerni] ol la Franca aw
>la Germana, kune kun aliaj tiel, kiel la parolanta Mandarena, kaj eble la
>Tagaloga, la "Pidgin" Angla, kaj la Kreola.
Aktuale, law unu fonton mi trafis, la du plej malfacilaj lingvoj lerni en
la mondo estas la Korea kaj la Angla. Konsiderante la kompleta manko de
reguloj por literanto en la Angla, mi kredas g^in.
--
Jeff Boeing / Roger M. Wilcox cbcsc063@ma
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"Mondo tubuloso, dude!" -- Michaelangelo
Kyoungkuhn Park
cbcs...@ms.secs.csun.edu (Roger M. Wilcox) writes:
>In article <PFEIFFER.91...@cix.cict.fr> pfei...@cix.cict.fr (Daniel Pfeiffer) writes:
>>
>>No doubt English is lots easier than French or German, along with
>>others such as spoken Mandarin, and maybe Tagalog, Pidgin and Creole.
>
>Actually, according to one source I came across, the two most difficult
>languages in the world to learn are Korean and English. Considering
>English's complete lack of spelling rules, I believe it.
>...
Could you give the source? Both may be the most difficult languages.
But I guess the reason must be different.
--KP
Kam-Wing Pang
I have read in a MA magazine, that TKD is practised in all schools in Korea.
It says it's treated just like Rugby in UK schools, and Football in schools in
the USA.
I was wondering if this is the case. Does every school kid have to do this, or
are there other sports? Is it compulsory? And is it the same for the girls?
Are there any other Martial Arts practised in Korea?
Any Info will be appreciated,
Kam. :-)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
K.W.PANG | Usually resides at the University of Kent at Canterbury :-)
============ "Who Watches the Watchmen...?" - A.Moore "Watchmen"==============
Cindy Kandolf
english is difficult in one superficial characteristic: spelling. on the
other hand, english has no real cases outside of pronouns (and you could argue
it has a genetive case but let's not make this any more complicated than we
have to), while a native finnish speaker told me his language has 16 cases,
all with endings for three genders, and adjectives must always agree in case,
number and gender with the noun they are subscribing.
more importantly, children learn their first language (if exposed to only one
language; again let's not complicate this with bilingual children and such) at
approximately the same rate no matter what language they are exposed to.
the perception that a language is "difficult" is just that, a perception. it
is colored by the language(s) we speak ourselves, and our experience with
learning other languages as an older child or adult.
-cindy kandolf
ci...@solan.unit.no
trondheim, norway
Craig Cockburn
|>From: ci...@solan.unit.no (Cindy Kandolf)
|>Newsgroups: sci.lang
|>Subject: "Most Difficult" language, was: Re: Common Language
|>
|>more importantly, children learn their first language (if exposed to only one
|>language; again let's not complicate this with bilingual children and such) at
|>approximately the same rate no matter what language they are exposed to.
|>
But one child in 6 in the EC does learn more than one native language.
It's not such a minor complication!
|>the perception that a language is "difficult" is just that, a perception. it
|>is colored by the language(s) we speak ourselves, and our experience with
|>learning other languages as an older child or adult.
|>
My sister's kids were learning English, Arabic and French when they were
7 years old. Although they are native English speakers, they found the
Arabic easier to learn than French!
Craig
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Craig Cockburn, Digital Equipment Co. Ltd, Reading, England.
Airson
ARPAnet: cock...@system.enet.dec.com Alba
UUCP:..!decwrl!system.enet.dec.com!cockburn Ur !
Views expressed here are my own, and are not necessarily those of Digital
N.O. Monaghan
>actually, i think it's safe to say there is no "most difficult" language.
english is difficult in one superficial characteristic: spelling. on the
other hand, english has no real cases outside of pronouns (and you could argue
it has a genetive case but let's not make this any more complicated than we
have to), while a native finnish speaker told me his language has 16 cases,
all with endings for three genders, and adjectives must always agree in case,
number and gender with the noun they are subscribing.
Not exactly. There is no gender in Finnish whatsoever - even the
English words `he' and `she' translate into the same Finnish
word `h"an'. This is something which makes a pleasant change from
most other European languages.
Nils.
Cindy Kandolf
to me. in fact, since i am a native english speaker and my husband is a native
norwegian speaker, it is a major concern to us, and we're always interested in
getting more information. when we have kids, we want them to learn both
languages. also, we have made friends with several bilingual couples, many of
whom either have or will have children, and also want them to be bilingual.
but the learning process that bilingual children go through is different than
the process of monolingual children, and is not really the issue here. the
issue is if one language is fundamentally more difficult than the other.
unless someone has evidence that, say, children learning language x and any
other language ALWAYS learn language x slower (or faster), the discussion of
bilingual children will not be much help in resolving the issue.
Stephen Tice
ci...@solan.unit.no (Cindy Kandolf) writes...
>the perception that a language is "difficult" is just that, a perception. it
>is colored by the language(s) we speak ourselves, and our experience with
>learning other languages as an older child or adult.
Gosh, I so luv common sense ... no vain erudition here.
Learning any language completely or fluently is a many year task
(as discussed before in this group).
Perhaps a better approach is to streamline a subset of * all *
languages so that the subsets may be mapped well onto each other.
These modules could then serve as a bridge into learning other
languages.
Spelling reform, simplified grammar, and reduced ambiguity aren't
such bug-a-boo's when limited to a * learning module *.
The question is what is a sufficient size to be expresses, and what
features of grammar should it contain?
{vain erudite conjecture on}
Hypothetically I could master the learning modules for latin, german,
japanese, english, russian, etc. in a much quicker time than
acheiving fluency in a particular language.
So much for an auxiallary language.
Travellers would master the module of the country desired.
etc. ad nauseum
{vain erudition off}
OK, please tell me what I'm overlooking here. It sounds too pratical
to be valid.
__ Stephen Tice __ (b64...@utarlg.uta.edu) | The Net is the
| New World Order.
Tom Slone
>
>language; again let's not complicate this with bilingual children and such) at
>approximately the same rate no matter what language they are exposed to.
I heard a lecture by an anthropologist who works in the upper Sepik
region of Papua New Guinea. She described the language of the people
she studies as being extremely complicated gramatically. Eloquence is
highly prized in the society as well as debating skills. Children and
women only attain a basic mastery of the language since it's the men
who sit around and talk most of the day (women do most of the physical
work). The way that an argument is generally won however is by
creating a statement that no one is able to negate gramatically!
--
pot...@violet.berkeley.edu
{decvax|hplabs|ihnp4|decwrl|nbires| \
sdcsvax|tektronix|ulysses}!ucbvax!violet!potency
house ron
>My sister's kids were learning English, Arabic and French when they were
>7 years old. Although they are native English speakers, they found the
>Arabic easier to learn than French!
That is exactly my experience. I have always found German very
difficult (as a native English speaker) yet Hindi is just lightyears
easier, in spite of being far further from English. Similarly my
Persian friends who were in India found Hindi harder than English.
--
Regards,
Ron House. (s64...@zeus.usq.edu.au)
(By post: Info Tech, U.C.S.Q. Toowoomba. Australia. 4350)
Paul Amblard
>
>I heard a lecture by an anthropologist who works in the upper Sepik
>region of Papua New Guinea.
>women only attain a basic mastery of the language since it's the men
>who sit around and talk most of the day (women do most of the physical
>work).
When I was young , I wanted to become a teacher.
I entered in University.
I would like now to become a "Sepik" !
Is it possible ?
Where must we register ?
In women's lib mov ????
--
Paul AMBLARD L.G.I. I.M.A.G. BP 53X F 38041 GRENOBLE Cedex
Tel (33) 76514600 ext 5144 amb...@imag.fr
Loren Petrich
::actually, i think it's safe to say there is no "most difficult" language.
::
::more importantly, children learn their first language (if exposed to only one
::language; again let's not complicate this with bilingual children and such) at
::approximately the same rate no matter what language they are exposed to.
:I heard a lecture by an anthropologist who works in the upper Sepik
:region of Papua New Guinea. She described the language of the people
:she studies as being extremely complicated gramatically. Eloquence is
:highly prized in the society as well as debating skills. Children and
:women only attain a basic mastery of the language since it's the men
:who sit around and talk most of the day (women do most of the physical
:work). The way that an argument is generally won however is by
:creating a statement that no one is able to negate gramatically!
It looks like some of the complexity here was created on
purpose. Might that not be the case elsewhere?
The main cases of such complexity I can think of is some of
the fancier vocabulary and some of the more arcane syntax.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster: lo...@sunlight.llnl.gov
Since this nodename is not widely known, you may have to try:
Ellen M. McDonald
Although there is probably no "hardest language", has anyone rated languages
on various features--sort of like Consumer's Reports? If a language scored
"complex" or "inconsistent" in several categories, then maybe it could
advertise itself as The World's Most Difficult Language.
I'm thinking of things like:
- spelling/pronounciation match.
- predicable word order
- number of verb tenses
- are there verb conjugations and are they consistent?
- noun declensions and are they consistent?
- adjective declensions and are they consistent?
- number of words in daily use
- number of phonemes
There's probably lots more than I listed here, but you get the idea.
Ellen McDonald
Natalie Maynor
that some of the universals he had discovered in examining pidgins and
creoles might indicate that not all languages are equally easy to acquire
by native speakers? In other words, languages that included the grammatical
features he found universal in pidgins and creoles might be easier than
those that deviated from what appeared to be a natural language tendency.
I apologize if I'm misremembering. And I apologize for not having the
reference.
--
--Natalie (n...@ra.msstate.edu)
Cameron Laird
.
.
>I heard a lecture by an anthropologist who works in the upper Sepik
>region of Papua New Guinea. She described the language of the people
>she studies as being extremely complicated gramatically. Eloquence is
>highly prized in the society as well as debating skills. Children and
>women only attain a basic mastery of the language since it's the men
>who sit around and talk most of the day (women do most of the physical
>work). The way that an argument is generally won however is by
>creating a statement that no one is able to negate gramatically!
.
.
Hmmmmmm. I'm fond of anthropology. I sure do think it's
worth trying to track down whether some languages are more
difficult than others. I also know that there are a lot
of ways of reporting reality, and that, in particular,
there have been cases where ethnographers have reported
some novel linguistic behavior which evaporated on in-
vestigation by specialists. Does this story about men's
eloquence and verbal sparring make you think of the
Houses of Parliament, the lecture hall in which you
heard the anthropologist speak, or the corner bakery
where the guys hang out to decide whether soccer truly
is a better game than bowling?
I advise skeptical reserve about any story which involves
"... women [who] only attain a basic mastery ..." of ANY-
thing.
--
Cameron Laird +1 713-579-4613
c...@lgc.com (cl%lgc...@uunet.uu.net) +1 713-996-8546
Richard L. Goerwitz
Did you read David Stampe's long and excellent posting of about two weeks
ago in which he touched on this subject? People shouldn't be held respon-
sible for every word that passes through this group, so let me quote him.
This comes in the context of a discussion of his "rising" vs. "falling"
language classes, and about how languages drift in and out of these basic
categories:
------
Although these opposite evolutions occur at millenial rates, their
asymmetry can be seen in the fact, noted by Bickerton et al., that any
newly devised language -- a pidgin or creole -- is analytic. Lexical
items can be invented. An inflectional system can only be learned or
borrowed: it develops the morphologization of lexical items over many
generations. Lacking an inflectional morphology, a new language must
depend purely on syntax, and pure syntax means head-modifier order.
------
The point is that pidgins and creoles arise in situations where people
are not able to learn (or effectively use) a lot of complex morphology.
Where complex morphology is lacking, languages naturally tend to what
DS has called the "rising" type. It's not so much a question of which
language type is easier to learn, therefore, as which type is most likely
to arise under the sorts of conditions that produce pidgins and creoles.
If your news history goes back that far, it's worth retrieving the ar-
ticle this was quoted from. I kind of figured it would raise a storm
of protests from various quarters. It was one of the more provocative
postings I've ever seen here.
Matthew Huntbach
>many people have so much trouble to pronounce.
>
Having been brought up speaking this accent it was a long time
till I realised there was any other way of pronouncing these
sounds, and the distinction still seems to me completely
artificial. I think foreigners would do much better copying
Cockneys and other southerners rather than do whatever it is
they do that makes these sounds so difficult for them.
Matthew Huntbach
Natalie Maynor
>The following is taken from an article by Dorothy James which appeared in
>the ADFL Bulletin of Jan, 1985.
>"We looked at the levels of proficiency aimed at in a 'real' language
>school--the School of Language Studies of the Foreign Service Institute:
Wasn't the original question about FIRST language acquisition? Things
are different when talking about acquisition of a second langauge.
--
--Natalie (n...@ra.msstate.edu)
Alan Lacy
the ADFL Bulletin of Jan, 1985.
"We looked at the levels of proficiency aimed at in a 'real' language
school--the School of Language Studies of the Foreign Service Institute:
to bring a motivated student with superior aptitude for language learning
to the level where in speaking he or she can satisfy most survival needs
and limited social demands in the spoken language; if that language is
French, Spanish, Italian or Portuguese, the FSI expects to train the
students in classes of one to eight students for five hours a day for five
days a week for eight weeks--a total of 240 hours. German and Urdu take
longer; Hebrew, Russian and Polish twice as long, to get not quite as far;
Chinese takes three times as long."
This is pretty much in accord with other studies I have seen mentioned.
The students involved here are naturally native speakers of English.
Alan F. Lacy
Marquette University
6160...@vms.csd.mu.edu
Margaret Mikulska
Agreed.
>english is difficult in one superficial characteristic: spelling.
This is very subjective; for me, English spelling is quite easy. In fact,
I think I would be lost :-) if any spelling reform was carried out. As it is
now, you can tell a lot about the etymology of a word from its spelling.
Spelling like "nite" or "lite" tells me nothing; "night" and "light" are very
informative - just to give an example. Your mileage may vary, but in very many
cases I find the seemingly crazy English spelling very helpful.
>more importantly, children learn their first language (if exposed to only one
>language; again let's not complicate this with bilingual children and such) at
>approximately the same rate no matter what language they are exposed to.
I read it in several publications that this is not true: that the same level
of proficiency in the native language is achieved after a diffrent time for
children from different language environments.
Margaret Mikulska
Rich Alderson
You're right about the original question, and about the difference.
I wanted to stay from this one, but I keep remembering a comment from my first
phonetics course: We were told that children learning Hungarian learn the
palatal stops last.
These are the stops that are orthographically represented "ty" and "gy"/"dy";
they are produced with the middle of the tongue against the roof of the mouth.
Unfortunately, we weren't given a reference for the information. (Not that I
remember, anyway. What's a couple of decades among friends?) Anybody else
know?
--
Rich Alderson 'I wish life was not so short,' he thought. 'Languages take
Tops-20 Mgr. such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.'
AIR, Stanford --J. R. R. Tolkien,
alde...@alderson.stanford.edu _The Lost Road_