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

On the radio today, I heard that there are some 200+ Arabic satellite TV channels.

Educated Arabic speakers use two variants of Arabic, their local dialect (these differ markedly between regions) and Classical Arabic which is the dialect of newspapers, TV news and educated discourse. Recently a third species has emerged. As more and more channels have encouraged audience participation - eg phone-ins - contributors have started to bend their dialect towards a readily comprehensible middle ground. Thus, 'Satellite Arabic.'

>To say all languages are equally easy to learn has a grain of truth.<

OK, so Ed already owned up to playing devil's advocaat on that one (some people think it sounds really clever not to pronounce the 't' ), but just to labour the point, Interlingua is to triangle as Chinese is to sitar

>> How do spelling reformers cope with the fact...<<

I don't think they do. I mean I don't think they can. By definition a reformer is someone unable to cope with or unwilling to accept the status quo. Mere facts never get in the way of those who would impose their subjective and (again by definition) limited versions of reality upon others.

~jwf~

>> ...if not contrapuntally then expressively, or speedily, or gloriously well-roundedly or whatever. <<


What a gloriously well-rounded idea!

~jwf~

>>Interlingua is to triangle as Chinese is to sitar

Empirical evidence, please. Amongst native speakers, do children learn Chinese more slowly than they learn Interlingua?

Myself...I speak Esperanto like a native.

>I don't think they do. I mean I don't think they can. By definition a reformer is someone unable to cope with or unwilling to accept the status quo. Mere facts never get in the way of those who would impose their subjective and (again by definition) limited versions of reality upon others.<

Over the course of time, there have fortunately been some narrow-minded, truth-butchering reality fascists who have bullied the rest of us into endeavours of self-improvement.Otherwise we'd all be sitting around unconcernedly, relaxing in our completely unobjectionable caves picking fleas off eachother and smelling of mammoth dung

>>a reformer is someone unable to cope with or unwilling to accept the status quo.<<


Time for more Shaw! Lots of good quotes at http://wisdom.revjone.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=3&search=George%20Bernard%20Shaw

[Including:]
Some men see things as they are and say, "Why?" I dream of things that never were and say, "Why not?"

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing....

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

[But not including the one I was looking for, which is:]

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
--George Bernard Shaw

>Empirical evidence, please.<

You want me to think - on a Friday

I'll get back to you...

GBS...The last quote is from The Chocolate Soldier, isn't it?

'Shavian'. A strange word. I can understand the w being changed to a v, because 'Shawian' would be tricky to say. But there's surely no need to pronounce him as in the act of removing facial hair.

"Man & Superman" (1903)

"The Chocolate Soldier" was Oscar Strauss's name for "Arms and the Man" when he turned it into an operetta.

I'm sure Shaw would have hated "Shavian". But it makes sense, the w being a double v, and requiring a more consonant pronumciation in the longer word.

Anyway, what do the denizens of Glasgow think of "Glaswegian"? Wouldn't they greatly prefer to be Glasgovites, like the Muscovites?

Ah! Of course. I confused the leading character with the title.

Glasgovian? The term used by Edinbuggers is 'Weegies'.

Does this get us onto the topic of chocoholic and readathon?

>>Myself...I speak Esperanto like a native.<<

There are native Esperanto speakers, you know.

Ah now, Finnish...I guess that comes in the category of 'How on earth do people communicate like that?'. To me, all those multiple vowels seem even more alien than Czech strings of consonants. But I'm sure that Finnish children manage fine.

Come to think of it - Children being raised in Esperanto does ring a bell. A joke ruined!

That's just because they're unfamiliar. But Finnish learners are completely unburdened by orthographic problems, as Finnish is quite literally almost 100% phonetic: what you see is what you get. So, Finnish orthography, triangle; Finnish case system, cue Ravi Shankar...

So...I'm wondering...do all languages balance out? Over-complex in some areas, starkly efficient in others. I have a feeling that humans, clever apes that we are, will not wilfully settle on a difficult language just for the hell of it. Just evolution yields seemingly elegant animal 'designs', seemingly complex languages will tend towards the sensible.

On the other hand...Stephen Pinker talks about the natural human tendency towards linguistic embellishment. We just can't help taking language off on rococo swoops and turns.

The late DNA said something similar about human inventiveness in general: We seemingly can't hold ourselves back from inventing yet another new, 'improved' tap. Think about it - how many different designs for turning water off and on does one encounter over the course of an average week?

I haven't done a tap all day!

They do say however that different languages are easier than others to learn *as a second language*; that English despite its curious spellings is one of the easiest, having ditched nearly all cases and genders.

Czech however has numerous ways of ending a word, and Japanese has such varieties of modes of address to deal with people whose status relates to each other's in any of a large numebr of differnt strata . . . I've been told that two Japanese strangers can't address a word to each other until they have exchanged business cards.

>>I haven't done a tap all day!

Miles of the Little Ponies, if I'm not mistaken. Henceforth I shall refer to Gnomon and Recumbentman as 'The Plain People of Ireland'. (this will be over the heads of those unfortunates who have not read Flann O'Brien).

Cases...Czech...I learnt about cases initially from Latin - as did many. I have long maintained that if you want to teach children about Grammar, you should have them learn Czech.

Everything I learned formally about grammar came from German. It's not a bad way to pick it up either.