> "there is no such English word as costlily;" There isn't? I've certainly used it as such.
I read that and thought "there is now"
Why English sucks as the language for international and scientific communication
11–20 of 57 posts
Re: Why English sucks as the language for international and scientific communication
#12One and two are not a problem; three is. German, Italian, and Korean might have been better choices in that regard. French has some frustrating silent letters and horrifying irregular verbs (although not to the scale of English)
It's even more annoying when you learn new words mostly through a text channel (like, say, most of the Web).
For instance: I've read elsewhere that no common word rhymes with "orange". But what about "range"? If it doesn't rhyme, then I'm pronouncing one of them (or both) wrong, but how would I know if it weren't for that "nothing rhymes with this" tidbit?
Re: Why English sucks as the language for international and scientific communication
#13"I am not trying to argue that we should now give up English for international or scientific communication, or try to replace it with this or that other language (except possibly in a limited way, e.g., see below on Basic English). I am not proposing to use Interlingua, Esperanto, Latin, Italian, Chinese, Russian, or anything else: I am maybe saying that we should have used Interlingua, Esperanto, Latin, Italian, Chinese, Russian, or something of the sort (probably any of the above would have been better than English) "
He really lost me when he suggested that Chinese would be a better scientific language than English. First, he didn't say which Chinese language or dialect. It's truly remarkable how many Chinese people cannot understand each other even though they speak the same language. Second, all Chinese languages are far harder than English to master speaking. Finally, writing is yet another steep learning curve.
Re: Why English sucks as the language for international and scientific communication
#14For me it seems a global language strength lies, in fact, in this ambiguity, loose standards and acceptance of errors (in pronunciation, for example) - I'm thinking like HTML - it really can be buggy and still render text fine. French, German or Polish, on the other hand, are like XML - sure, it's strict and there are all these rules - but boy, try to make a mistake and it will blow in your face ;)
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Re: Why English sucks as the language for international and scientific communication
#15The thing is, there are no perfect language, just like programming languages. You will always find advantages and disadvantages of them at some point.
Yes, I agree with the author on the points that he is making, but comparing to other languages, I think that English is one of the easiest languages that can be learned and understood easily.
"Ease" is an important aspect in the context of languages, since people all around the world are not using latin alphabet and to get them using the language as fast as possible requires to eliminate some parts of the language like the meaning of the words for instance.
"Like" can be used for several different categories such as liking somebody/food/something. It is not the same for other languages, there are different words for liking somebody and liking something. Which puts more learning curve to get going with the language. Sure, you can express yourself better if you have time learn everything.
I guess this was one of the important reasons why English took off as well. (I might be totally wrong on this)
Interestingly I find this topic kind of similar to programming languages. Most of our interns in the company prefers Ruby over Java when they are learning web development. Because they can get something working during the day. On the other side, ones that choose java are spending time with configuring their libraries to compile the project. They will both eventually find out the advantages and disadvantages of both over the time.
Re: Why English sucks as the language for international and scientific communication
#16The thing is, there are no perfect language, just like programming languages. You will always find advantages and disadvantages of them at some point. Yes, I agree with the author on the points that he is making, but comparing to other languages, I think that English is one of the easiest languages that can be learned and understood easily. "Ease" is an important aspect in the context of languages, since people all a…
> The thing is, there are no perfect language, just like programming languages.
There has got to be some name for this argument tactic. It's so trite and useless.
Re: Why English sucks as the language for international and scientific communication
#17Once I read that German is the language of science. I'm sorry HN people for not remembering exactly where, but it easy to find a ton of results about this on Google: http://bit.ly/1CewLMB
Study of German was mandatory for undergraduate chemists intending to do postgraduate work at University of St. Andrews in the 1960s. Not sure about other institutions.
Re: Why English sucks as the language for international and scientific communication
#18My, what a collection of old chestnuts. * All his bugs are features: malleability and adaptability are English's strengths. * Most languages proliferate their vocabulary to express all the needed shades of meaning, English uses Norman/German vocab to distinguish formality just as Japanese uses wago/kanji compounds. * Basic English's claim to a limited vocabulary only makes sense if you ignore the many implicit phrasa…
Your words are profound and spot on. This is excellent insight. Thank you.
Re: Why English sucks as the language for international and scientific communication
#19The thing is, there are no perfect language, just like programming languages. You will always find advantages and disadvantages of them at some point. Yes, I agree with the author on the points that he is making, but comparing to other languages, I think that English is one of the easiest languages that can be learned and understood easily. "Ease" is an important aspect in the context of languages, since people all a…
> The thing is, there are no perfect language, just like programming languages. There has got to be some name for this argument tactic. It's so trite and useless. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9259764
I am not sure what you did not like about the argument. What is really useless of relating languages to programming languages?
Re: Why English sucks as the language for international and scientific communication
#20For me it seems a global language strength lies, in fact, in this ambiguity, loose standards and acceptance of errors (in pronunciation, for example) - I'm thinking like HTML - it really can be buggy and still render text fine. French, German or Polish, on the other hand, are like XML - sure, it's strict and there are all these rules - but boy, try to make a mistake and it will blow in your face ;)
The spelling leaves lots to be desired though. Luckily it is among the easiest things to change in a language.