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Behemoth, bully, thief: how the English language is taking over the planet

theguardian.com

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Re: Behemoth, bully, thief: how the English language is taking over the planet

#221

Post by rumianteolor »

tbrock wrote: post #116
geff82 wrote: post #99

I love the English language. It is expressive, it is the language of great literature, and it is in no way „bullying“, no, it brings people all over the world together. There would be no way to talk to a Chinese for me (German) if he had only learned Japanese because Japan is the neighbour and if I had only learned French or Polish because those are our big neighbours. No, English brings us all together, it makes me…

It’s also the lingua franca of tech. There isn’t any way to say “Linux Kernel Networking Subsystem” or “8-Way associative cache” in French or any other language without severe lingual contortions.

Translation of "Linux Kernel Networking Subsystem" = Subsistema de red del núcleo de Linux. Translation of "8-way associative cache" = caché asociativa de 8-vías. I don't see severe lingual cortortions here.

Re: Behemoth, bully, thief: how the English language is taking over the planet

#222

Post by omosubi »

dorchadas wrote: post #187
always_good wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not as hard as you think. Compare all the tenses in Spanish to English, for example. I live in Mexico and my peers usually think English is relatively easy. Also, the US exports so many quality tv shows and movies that it's easy to find good English-native material for learning. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't know Disney movies. Meanwhile, try finding good Mexican television.

> Also, the US exports so many quality tv shows and movies that it's easy to find good English-native material for learning. This is the most underrated factor when it comes to language learning in my opinion. It really does make a difference how much native material is available, and how interesting it is to the person learning the language. Not because it makes the learning itself easier, but because it makes expos…

yes - so much this. I was just learning some European Portuguese before going to portugal and had great difficulty finding any "real" non-brazilian european portuguese to even get a feel for it. perhaps if people put together something along the lines of those 'awesome-' github repos for language learning everyone could benefit :)

Re: Behemoth, bully, thief: how the English language is taking over the planet

#223

Post by chrisseaton »

NihilumExNil wrote: post #85
saget wrote: post #21

English is also nice in that there is no "baked in" formal or informal use of the language. I think it breaks down barriers in conversations with a superior or a random stranger. I wonder if this has any larger scale effects...

With all due respect, madams and sirs, I beg to differ.

Those are terms of address, and in English you can just avoid them entirely. In other languages you can't say some quite basic things, such as articles, without explicitly choosing a level of formality, which can be awkward.

Re: Behemoth, bully, thief: how the English language is taking over the planet

#224

Post by mbroncano »

ythn wrote: post #210
dorchadas wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the rate at which languages convey information is roughly the same [1]. So Spanish speakers just speak faster. [1] http://ohll.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/fulltext/pellegrino/Pellegrino_... The PDF linked is a draft of the paper, freely available; it's been removed from Academia, so here's the JSTOR link of the final release: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23011654

For speaking, sure, but if you are writing then Spanish will take longer because you have to physically type out more characters.

As a fluent speaker of both languages I couldn’t say. In general Spanish requires less mental effort as you write what you say, whereas in English there’s always that particular randomness that’s otherwise arbitrary between how to write a word and how it sounds.

Re: Behemoth, bully, thief: how the English language is taking over the planet

#225

Post by smogcutter »

nneonneo wrote: post #179
acchow wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Linux Kernel Networking Subsystem” How do they say this in Japanese? In Chinese (Mandarin/Cantonese)?

In Chinese, "Linux内核网络系统", literally "Linux Kernel Network System". Unlike Japanese and Korean, the Chinese language generally uses full meaning-to-meaning translations of technical terms as much as possible, and only occasionally uses phonetic nouns (e.g. 安卓 "Anzhuo" for Android) or English words (e.g. "Linux"). Chinese does, however, use phonetic transcriptions for proper names of people and places. This leads to s…

Sounds like this won't be news for you, but for others in the thread, the Chinese sometimes play around a lot with puns and rhymes in transliterated names.

Here's a terrific twitter thread about Chinese nicknames for NBA players: https://twitter.com/i/moments/993587263283048449?lang=en

An example from the thread[1]:

Stephon Marbury - 马政委 "Marburyist Political Commissar"

This is a pun on "Marxist Political Commissar," since in Chinese both "Marbury" and "Marx" are spelled with the same first character "ma" ("horse").

[1] https://twitter.com/nick_kapur/status/993571262327910400

Re: Behemoth, bully, thief: how the English language is taking over the planet

#226

Post by dorchadas »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #183
dorchadas wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we should look at their mistakes for what they are - the influence of another language - and see if we can't incorporate the ideas that caused them into English, if the ideas are good. Except it doesn't work like that. Languages change because native speakers change them, not because some grammatical body adopts things and tries to force it on everyone. > Newspeak isn't fiction, languages really do shape how you th…

>Except it doesn't work like that. Languages change because native speakers change them, not because some grammatical body adopts things and tries to force it on everyone. I'm not suggesting an institution should do this. I'm suggesting individuals do this. >Yes, it is fiction, and no, languages do not shape how you think I have anecdotal experience in thinking differently in different experiences, which doesn't say…

There are literally no mainstream linguists that support linguistic determinism, the 'strong' form of linguistic relativity. [1] That much is 100% true; sure, you see articles about it pop up from time to time, but they're often not written by linguists, and are often quickly debunked.

As to the 'unpublished studies', that one was by Boroditsky, one of the, if not the, main proponents for the weak form of linguistic relativity.

But, your anecdotal experience doesn't really count for much when comparing it to the studies that have been done on it. Anecdotally, I know someone who didn't believe General Relativity to be true; that doesn't make it any less true.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_determinism

Re: Behemoth, bully, thief: how the English language is taking over the planet

#228

Post by chrisseaton »

kharms wrote: post #146
jcranmer wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Double negatives are grammatically correct English. Consider the sentence, "I do not think that course of action would be unwise."--that is a double negative, and I know of no one who thinks there's even a hint of problem with that sentence. One facet of double negatives is that the English sense of negative + negative = positive isn't universal. In French, double negatives remain negative; consider "Je ne sais jamai…

>"I do not think that course of action would be unwise." That's a funny example, as it can be read both literally ("I like it."), and passive-aggressively ("I don't dislike it."). So while double negatives might not be grammatically incorrect, they are often ambiguous.

> That's a funny example, as it can be read both literally ("I like it."), and passive-aggressively ("I don't dislike it.").

You seem to have those backward.

"I don't dislike it" is what it literally means. That's the opposite of being passive! "I like it" is reading an implication which isn't literally there and is more passive.

There'a a really important difference here. Someone can not think that something is not unwise, but that does not mean they think it's wise. A double negative does not cancel out - you loose important literal meaning when you do that - not even just an implicit idiomatic meaning.

Re: Behemoth, bully, thief: how the English language is taking over the planet

#229

Post by [deleted] »

jcranmer wrote: post #89
louprado wrote: post #15

One complaint about English is that double negatives are not grammatically correct. The word "not" is so important it should be re-enforced in someway. Spanish supports double negatives. The French add redundancy with "ne" and "pas". It's worth noting that American gangsters often talk with double negatives and the U.S. military use the phrase "repeat NOT" since their discussions are often mission critical. But I am…

Double negatives are grammatically correct English. Consider the sentence, "I do not think that course of action would be unwise."--that is a double negative, and I know of no one who thinks there's even a hint of problem with that sentence. One facet of double negatives is that the English sense of negative + negative = positive isn't universal. In French, double negatives remain negative; consider "Je ne sais jamai…

[deleted]

Re: Behemoth, bully, thief: how the English language is taking over the planet

#230

Post by dsego »

dorchadas wrote: post #186
ythn wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every language has tradeoffs. Sure, Spanish might be easier to pronounce since the rules are more rigid, but on the other hand the information density is way lower. It takes 2-3 syllables of Spanish to communicate the same information as 1 syllable of English.

Yes, but the rate at which languages convey information is roughly the same [1]. So Spanish speakers just speak faster. [1] http://ohll.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/fulltext/pellegrino/Pellegrino_... The PDF linked is a draft of the paper, freely available; it's been removed from Academia, so here's the JSTOR link of the final release: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23011654

Hahaha, reminds me of this Itchy Feet comic http://www.itchyfeetcomic.com/2015/09/conspiracion.html#.W1u...
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