h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

true. However so far every 'simplified' version is seriously flawed one way or another, so we're stuck with it.
as for grammar, though, sod that... illogical nonsense mostly.
(you post English really well tho Izzybelle.)

Where have they all gone (those who appeared to confuse Socialism with Communism)? To war?

I live in Sweden, so swedish is my native language. It is spoken by approximately 9 million - lot more than a few hundred- but in a perspective of getting understood by people outside the Scaninavian countries it´s useless. People speaking swedish, norse and danish can understand each other but it´s not the same language. There is an enlish word that originates from the Vikings -window-(not used in swedish anymore though)
Analiese, a native language only spoken by a few hundred? From reading your postings I understand that you are a native american. What is your language called? Do you belong to a tribe?
I have apreciated your postings -remember that anger can be power!

thank you flattering me for my enlish, makes me happy!
The only spelling reformation I´ve know of is the spanish.
English is sometimes complicated to spell, but swedish is not easy either. These days you can get help from the computer, though.
But there seem to be a connection between dyslexia and languages with spellings that differs a lot from it´s prenounciation. English and french for example.

Daneel,
We do not really have a choice if we want to communicate with people from around the world. Swedish is no option.
It is hard. But we start early, most kids start studying english at the age of 9. And we are totally flushed by american(mostly)and british culture -for better and worse- we get better at english from hearing it in song lyrics and on the telly all the time, but there is a lot of commersial crap we could do with out

I think most people recognise socialism as a democratic version of the principles of communism. Neither group would admit the other is *the answer* but both would have common ground.

The problem is that US capitalism sees socialism as a bad idea, no matter what form it takes- mild or rabid. Not to mention that US socialism seems to be nothing more than a welfare state, devoid of principles and direction.

There's actually four I could call native for me and three are what linguists would call Shoshonean, so they're probably related much like the Scandinavian languages you referred to. However, one, Western Apache, is quite different, what linguists call Athabascan.

The proper names are Newe, Ningwi, Weenuche and Inde. The reason these names differ from the English terms like Western Shoshone, Southern Paiute, Southern Ute and Western Apache is because those terms often derive from what other people called these people, not from what they called themselves. But if you examine the proper names you can maybe see the relationships.

Newe and Ningwi are sort of the same word, just different pronounciation. Weenuche is a version of Nuche which is a general term for the people the Spaniards called Yutas and the Anglos called Utes. So you could surmise that Newe and Ningwi are more closely related than either is to Nuche and you'd be right.

Also, you could surmise that all three are not very closely related to Inde and you'd be right again.

What you might not appreciate is that Inde and Dineh (Navaho or some other Apaches) are closely related but they are.

This illustrates something that's maybe different about how the terms are constructed out of elements in ways that aren't maybe understood by speakers of Germanic languages for example.

I think most Americans don't like the idea of having constraints placed on their greed, Zoomer. That's why they don't like socialism. It presumes too much social responsibility for them.

They also don't apparently like the idea of land held in common. Even though they accept the notion of public domain to some extent, many try to find ways to make it private or exclusive.

I think they have a problem with "godless Communists" because maybe the Communists rightly concluded that religion was among things a way of alienating common lands from the people. This was because the kings would often claim all the land based on divine right and parcel it out along with titles. So you owned land only at the pleasure of the sovereign.

When the king was overthrown in America, the sovereignty was assumed by the Congress and President so the divine right was still recognized but resided in a little different person or persons. That's why there's always this dispute about "Under God" and "In God we trust". That's something the Communists threatened by accounting themselves atheists.

Interesting. Thank you Analiese. Did you know that your nickname "Analiese" could well be a Scandinavian female name?

Actually, Izzybelle, I wouldn't doubt it's Scandinavian.

I think we got it from white ranchers so that would account for the connection. Most of my people go by names they picked up from the immigrants they had to work for to make a living after most of the land and resources they depended on to make a living was taken from them, "encroached" as they say.

Farthing is another name we use that's supposedly a form of "farthegn" which I believe could be a synonym for a Viking warrior chief, although, it's also supposed to refer to money changers who lived in the Daneslaw, so who knows?

My proper family name is Wing though so I'm usually called Analiese Farthing Wing or something like that although my friends usually call me Rusty, if I manage to have any friends.

I almost forgot to mention that my good friend, Kyaa, sometimes calls me RAF Wing which is sort of a joke when taken in a British context I think and I also think he knows about that context, which is why he writes the name that way. It sounds like an air force squadron or something.

I agree, but we need to keep trying to make a better one.

Still, I think that the US, Britan, Canada, NZ, Australia, ect. ought to work on producing a logical, smplified version of Englsh spellingand grammer for worldwide use. Teaching kids English from a young age is great in developed countries like sweeden, but what about poor people from Africa or Asia who may not even go to school. A simplified version of English for some purposes might allow them to learn a languafge other than their native (and often rare) languages as adults. For that matter, if English was easier to learn, people from Latin America and other regions that speak major languages might be more likely to learn it as a second language.

Now, if someone could figure out a way to get us Americans to learn another language. I'm learning Spanish in school, but its hard and it would amke sence to start before 7th grade.

Daneel,
you need to let yourselves get culturally invaded. Thats really what´s happened here. We are surrounded by english, even if we don´t speak it on a regular basis, we hear it, all the time.
You need movies and television programmes with subtitles. Song lyrics etc.
Couldn´t we just invent babel-fish?

Analiese, Marx said this about private property:
"You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society private property is already done away for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its nonexistence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the nonexistence of property for the immense majority of society."
But in your case a suppose it is the other way around

The problem is that:
a) The US produces such a large number of movies and TV shws and other entertainment that I suspect many Americans aren't even aware that other countries produce any form of entertainment.

b) No-one knows how to invent a babel-fish. There are translator programs, but they may not be very good for years.

Babel-fish sounds like more fun than translator programmes. But consider yourself lucky to be able to talk to so many in your native tongue.
From your choice of nickname I understand that you like Isaac Asimov. So do I. Especially Daneel.
I´m signing off now, it´s past midnight here. I got to get some sleep. See you around

The only way (in my humble[?] opinion) for an English speaker to ever gain a true understanding and respect for his or her own language is to learn a few other languages and, most importantly, to spend a good deal of time learning to read Middle English and learning a good deal about Anglo-Saxon. If you do that, suddenly the language, with all of its "rules" and "exceptions" and apparently senseless spelling makes absolutely perfect sense. Many people would argue that this is an unrealistic goal, but I (of course) disagree. In my grandfather's day if you graduated from High School you already had made a good start on this goal. In the schools around me today I see elementary school kids spending (wasting) huge amounts of time on computers learning (already knowing) how to manipulate out of date software and they literally don't know how to read. They graduate from High School unable to read. My father studied Beowulf in the first year of High School. I lament the disaster in North American school systems, and I dread the future when this generation and the next is pushed out to become teachers, for example. The decay of Education is the slipperiest of slopes.

I agree about the babel fish. But I don't think there are any on Earth. Maybe on Europa...

I see your point, and it may be that that goal is possible, but I doubt I will ever succeed at it.

Frankly, I am not good at languages. I am strugling to learn spanish and I doubt thaat I will ever be anything approaching fluent in it. Even if English grammer makes sence, I still protest the spelling. It divirives from too many other languages and it is rediculous that certain sounds have so many spellings and vise versa. YOu would probably be horrified if you saw the high school that I attend. THe English teachers do't even speak English well, no grammer is taught, and my English teacher it teaching the oddyssey by having us read 5/24ths of it. And, even though I go to a science magnet school, many of the science teachers don't even know that fish are animals.

Public school systems, at least in the US, are rediculously bad at teaching.

I agree with learning other languages. However there is not a total dearth of language history in schools (UK ones at least); although only A-level English Language discussed it in depth we had already learned a bit. Maybe because it is our own country's history so you are bound to come across olde-speake anyway.
However I would say it is best to have some knowledge of *all* the influences rather than Anglo-Saxon/Middle English in particular. I could read a piece of either and there would still be plenty that is lost or irrelevent; Latin (esp. grammar, hence stupid rules) and French are also important inclusions.

I lament more the idea that the language itself is somehow decaying because it changes. Rules like no split infinitives are daft irrelevencies forced randomly upon us.