It didn't completely fail. Esperanto has made some major increases in speakers in the past 10 to 15 years thanks to the internet. If it continues to climb, we may see Esperanto appear in more mainstream things. |
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| Esperanto is so silly. |
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Cowabunga said: Esperanto is so silly. Explain. |
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| Would be utter boring, and also as users above pointed, it would simply trash the originality of some countries. |
Working_Designs said: Cowabunga said: Esperanto is so silly. Explain. 99% of its vocabulary is of Romance and Germanic origin. Mostly of Romance. At most, it could become a lingua franca in southern Europe, but not in the whole world. If you want to create an artificial lingua franca for the whole world then don't make 99% of its vocabulary based on Romance and Germanic languages. Not to mention creating a single language to replace all the others will never work, since languages are part of a people's identity. Oh and it's ugly too. If my country ever changed its official language, it better not be to Esperanto. Force me to speak something cool like German, Dutch or Japanese, per example. |
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Cowabunga said: Working_Designs said: Explain. 99% of its vocabulary is of Romance and Germanic origin. Mostly of Romance. At most, it could become a lingua franca in southern Europe, but not in the whole world. If you want to create an artificial lingua franca for the whole world then don't make 99% of its vocabulary based on Romance and Germanic languages. Not to mention creating a single language to replace all the others will never work, since languages are part of a people's identity. Oh and it's ugly too. If my country ever changed its official language, it better not be to Esperanto. Force me to speak something cool like German, Dutch or Japanese, per example. How exactly is German, Dutch, and Japanese "Cooler?" That makes no sense, and is not the point. Esperanto isn't owned by any one culture, and that's the best thing about it. I live in Canada, but I'm certainly NOT going to learn French as a second language. There is nothing about Esperanto to "hate" upon, making it easier for people to embrace. |
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Working_Designs said: Cowabunga said: 99% of its vocabulary is of Romance and Germanic origin. Mostly of Romance. At most, it could become a lingua franca in southern Europe, but not in the whole world. If you want to create an artificial lingua franca for the whole world then don't make 99% of its vocabulary based on Romance and Germanic languages. Not to mention creating a single language to replace all the others will never work, since languages are part of a people's identity. Oh and it's ugly too. If my country ever changed its official language, it better not be to Esperanto. Force me to speak something cool like German, Dutch or Japanese, per example. How exactly is German, Dutch, and Japanese "Cooler?" That makes no sense, and is not the point. Esperanto isn't owned by any one culture, and that's the best thing about it. I live in Canada, but I'm certainly NOT going to learn French as a second language. There is nothing about Esperanto to "hate" upon, making it easier for people to embrace. Of course, it isn't. I was just stating my personal opinion on the language. And I had already given valid points above that paragraph. It's not owned by a culture... but might as well be a Romance language with some Germanic words thrown into it. So it might as well belong to Romance speaking Europe. Humanity will never settle on an artificial lingua franca, since you can't just create one using an equal amount of words of every language out there. |
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| No, would be bland as fuck. And there are languages i like more than other. |
| Signature removed. Please follow the signature rules, as defined in the Site & Forum Guidelines. |
| There's two viewpoints, yes and no. Yes because it would help break the language barrier. And no because it would encourage people to neglect their roots, culture, and perhaps even their own identity. I'd go with no. The world would be better off without one single common language. Just learn another language, it's not that hard. |
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| Tower of Babel 2.0 |
| countless culture and art lost but id be glad to have an unifying language for the financial gain and countless misunderstandings avoided |
| I'm not sure. My cop out response is that it would be very different; better in some ways, worse in others, just different in still others. Interestingly, the OP's premise can be interpreted differently than how most people seem to have interpreted it. The existence of a common global language does not require that no other languages exist. It could just be that all "international conversation" is conducted in one language—such as conversation facilitated by international business, government interaction, or internet communities. In that kind of world, it might be reasonable to assume that most "cultured" and/or "educated" people end up speaking the common global language. Since the common language would not be the only language, some of the culture that is inseparable from other languages could be preserved. Personally, I am very skeptical that such a world will emerge any time soon, if ever. It would require a major culture war, in addition to hyper-globalization far beyond the current extent of globalization*. *One thing we would require is regular interaction between global citizens, to prevent dialects from evolving into distinct languages—the more physical the interaction, the better. Ideally, most people in the world would be able to afford (in regards to money and time) to travel to most places in the world—and global transportation would be safe, efficient, and sustainable. |
JoshJan 3, 2015 8:13 PM
LoneWolf said: @Josh makes me sad to call myself Canadian. |
Immahnoob said: i was exagerating for wost case senario of outcome not saying war is the likely outcome. Its not unlikely for someone to hack a translator to mess with people or for it to be glitchy peice of shit to improperly translate as we already have that.traed said: That's the fucking point, your example is highly unlikely and so is mine. It's also a retarded argument from the future. Thats only if they are extremely smart. So that does not really compare same way. So the analogy fits. |
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| As a person who's really fond of languages, no. Learning languages' so great, and discovering how varied all of them are is so interesting. |
| As some posters have already mentioned, language also represents and forms in its users a certain worldview. By eleminating languages we will kill a lot of potential for different perception, for philosophy and art. Also I don't think that people will be willing to learn a common artificial language, so instead that will be the language of the dominating culture, so it would be no different from linguistic and psychological conquest. Maybe it would bring peace in a way, but the diversity would be lost and there wouldl be a lot of suffering in the process. As a non-English speaker, I must say that learning English affected me greatly, but I wouldn't want to forget my native language. On the other hand language barrier creates difficulties. Maybe it could be made thinner if all people were learning foreign languages since their childhood to understand the process better, including severall major languages for international communication. I think English, Spanish, Arabic and Mandarin would be a good choice. One should be probably chosen fo African region as well. German and French were important at some point, but I am not sure about now, as well as about my native Russian. Though it would be good if at least one of the Slavic languages became pouplar again - that's a big group and it has its own unique character. |
| As someone who is learning Chinese, and plans on learning more languages in the future, yeah, it's difficult as hell and oftentimes annoying and frustrating to learn languages and to not understand and all of that, and it admittedly would be easier if there was one common language, but where would the fun be in that? It's so cool to experience a new language, to go to a new land and not understand things in the way you're used to. It's so cool to meet someone who knows multiple languages and ask them about it, to hear different accents, to learn how to communicate with excessive amounts of hand gestures. Yes, a common language would make things easier, but it would make the world a whole lot more bland. |
| "There are better places to take a nap than on the ground, you know." |
NebulaC3I said: Tower of Babel 2.0 anyone ever read Tower of Babel story? I'm not Christian (or anything) but its truly fascinating 4 And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” 5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. 6 And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. 7 Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. 9 Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth. very intersting stuffs! (above from wiki: where else?) EDIT: ck out Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash for information mixed with sci-fi/cyberpunk version |
Fierce_Deity22 said: But I love pissing dub fags offYes no more subs= More natural voice= No more language barries Comic_Sans said: B-but if I can't piss dub elitists off anymore... What am I supposed to do? Shit nobody says. |
 Nico- said: Conversations with people pinging/quoting me to argue about some old post I wrote years ago will not be entertained@Comic_Sans oh no y arnt ppl dieing i need more ppl dieing rly gud plot avansement jus liek tokyo ghoul if erbudy dies amirite |
| yes, that way people could travel around much more freely. Like in fictional worlds where the mc can just travel around without worrying about language. |
| I've been here way too long... |
emobuttercup said: I think it would certainly make things easier. But then there's the issue of "preserving culture" and "keeping a unique language". I honestly wouldn't be affected by it as I see language meerly as a means to communicate your thoughts and ideas, not as a cultural thing that should be preserved. Others might think differently though. Do you guys think there should just be one language shared among the world (even though it would probably be impossible to accomplish). Honesty it would make things easier; however, this was already attempted and fail. More importantly the different dialects from each region would just push this idea away as well. |
| Yes. We should all learn Latin and speak that. Romans should have done a better job . . . |
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| No, then all the translators will lose their jobs |
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| no, there are some words in certain languages that cannot be translated to another. only people who know more than one language can understand the struggle to find a word for another in a different language. silently cries on the inside/ |
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| I find diversity in languages really interesting, because people in different languages think about things differently on the language-level. OT: idk, hard to say. In terms of understanding others it seems to be a hindering factor, which is not good. |
| No, it wouldn't be better at all. |
| It would be better. Honestly, it's much more practical and there wouldn't be any downsides. |
| We could take every language ever and combine it to one super language. Dictionaries would be enormous. |
FGAU1912 said: RyanEnsign said: It would be better. Honestly, it's much more practical and there wouldn't be any downsides. its would kill much much culture How? |
| Yeah the English tried to give the world common education and a language but all you nations be like naw we want our freedoms to act like barbarians. Then proceeded to have civil wars with yourselves. I mean look how easy it is that we all speak the common English on this forum or hell the internet. Imagine having to siv through translators every time you were online. |
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FGAU1912 said: +1RyanEnsign said: How? language is a big part of culture |
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| I find languages and language history interesting, so I wouldn't like it, even if it would be 'easier'. I live somewhere where the signs and publications are bilingual, and even though I don't expect or want to become fluent in the other language, I encourage its use and feel happy when I learn new words or phrases. A lot of language depends on where you are in the world, and the historical relevance of certain things. If a country has lots of words for rain then it must have been very important in that country's history, for example. Slang is also always different from place to place even if we consider places only about 100 miles apart. If there were common language it would soon fall apart and break off into different ways of speaking it, at least, or one area begins to prefer a new one altogether. Really, poetry and other literature is enough reason for me to say no to a common language. Or even a vague idea that language learning improves your cognitive abilities and open-mindedness. |
 ~ join the MAL suicide pact! ~ ~ ★☭★ ~ ~ embrace nuclear annihilation! ~ |
| On the whole, yes, but there would soon be more than one language and the world would get even better for a while before getting worse again. |
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