Re: OT: English and schizophrenia

Luís Henrique wrote:

> One other cause of ortographic chaos in English is its vowel system, with
> the (for non-English native speakers) weird opposition between lax and
> tense. AFAIK, none of the other widely spoken languages, or any other
> European language makes this opposition.
Actually, no.  German is spoken by some 128 million people, if you include
second language speakers.  I believe Standard German has a three-way
contrast between lax vowels, tense short vowels, and tense long vowels,
but I can't think of a good minimal triplet at the moment.  (Henrik, are you
reading this?)

I'm sure there are also other widely spoken languages with a tense/lax
distinction.  I gather that it's a fairly common distinction in Nilotic languages
of Sub-saharan Africa.

> Some other phonemes are
> difficult for most foreigners too, as both "th" pronouciations, "ng",
> sylabic "l" and "r", cacuminal "r".
Mandarin Chinese and Hindi both have "cacuminal" (by this I take it you
mean retroflex) /r/.  That accounts for about a billion people between them.
I believe Bengali has one, too, which would move that figure up to about
1.2 billion people.

> All languages [borrow words]. Portuguese is a mix of Latin, Arab, French,
> Greek, Tupi-Guarani, a bunch of other indigenous and African languges, and, of
> course, English. The difference is that Portuguese and most other languages
> change the spelling to fit their phonological/ortographic requirements
> (Italian "ciao", Portuguese "tchau"; English "football",
> Portuguese "futebol"), while English, except of dismissing diacritics,
> doesn't.
Indeed, usually the foreign diacritics are borrowed along with the
word itself, until such time as the word becomes nativized.

> >And maybe this does have something to do with mental illness. Language is
> >one of the most dear things to an individual and to a culture.
This varies vastly from one culture to another.  Some cultures (e.g. Hispanic
culture) identify very closely with language, while others care very little for it.
Yet other cultures mix these two feelings.  There is a region in the Venezuelan
Amazon whose tribes go to great efforts to learn the languages of tribes around
them, but at the same time have rigid practices for keeping use of their own
language distinct.

> > To deprive one of
> >the right to communicate in their own language (which English-speaking peoples
> >have had no trouble doing to many) is to deny one's freedom and dignity.
This expresses a naive view of the reasons why people choose to learn
other languages.  While it certainly the case that some governments identify
a multiplicity of languages on their soil as a threat to national unity, and so
repress nonprestige speakers (often by outright massacre), the vast majority
of the people who are going to give up their ancestral language in the next
century are going to do so for economic reasons, because in their communities
they believe learning of the local prestige language will help them improve their
lives materially.  This is, for example, the primary reason that the number of
Irish speakers has continued to decline during most of the 20th century, even
though Ireland became independent in 1921.

> > Most
> >countries have a national language, or maybe a few, just like they have a
> >national religion, or maybe a few.
This represents a confusion between de facto and de jure realities.  In the United
States, for example, the de facto language of the vast majority of people is English,
and the de facto religion is some form of Christianity, but neither of these two
cultural factors are enshrined in law:  there is no national religion, and there is no
national language (although recently several states have made English their state
language).

> Or mental illness in Ireland can be caused by Irish government efforts to
> reinstate Gaelic as a national language?
I don't see how one could characterize helping a dying language to be a
example of 'mental illness'.  Naive, perhaps, if they think that the State alone
can do something about it, but not mentally ill.

> >Return to Latin which Western Civilization
> >used without dispute until the Reformation? I don't know. Maybe this is
> >another paranoid ramble of mine. Or maybe I have a point here.
I don't want to be harsh, but in all honesty I believe that such fears are
just that, fear.  It is the result of a lack of perspective on the nature of
human societies, and the will of people who do not currently have power
to have more power.  All human beings want to be able to control their
environment, and when their environment is changing quickly, this arouses
in them the fear that they do not have any choice about their own personal
lifestyle.  Take the French, for example.  The French press constantly rails
against Americanization, but do they ever consider the ways in which they
are actively imposing on and repressing their own subcultures?  I count no fewer
than 18 minority languages that are spoken almost exclusively within metropolitan
France, not to mention other languages that are spoken abroad in French
colonial possessions. IIRC none of these communities has the right to be taught
in their own ancestral tongue, for all must be taught according to a nationally
imposed uniform standard (which of course means they are taught to speak
good Parisian French, to hell with their own languages).  It is clear that the
complaints about the invasiveness of American culture (and it is invasive)
have less to do with the fact that it is hegemonistic than to do with the
fact that it is American.  This shows that these supposed questions of right
and wrong are really thinly veiled arguments over who ought to have the
power to impose their will on others.

> >And I do believe one can be conditioned to be delusional with enough
> >brainwashing.
> >
> >The floor is now open. Please watch your step.
>
> Most probably we will maintain the system we are used to: some hundreds of
> different national languages and English as an international auxiliary.
And when Anglophone nations no longer dominate the world economy,
there will be pressure for the peoples of the world to learn some other
language.  It has always been thus, and there is no reason to think that that
will change.  (I suppose we could of course obliterate ourselves, but that
would be cheating.)

===================================
Thomas Wier | AIM: trwier

"Aspidi men Saiôn tis agalletai, hên para thamnôi
  entos amômêton kallipon ouk ethelôn;
autos d' exephugon thanatou telos: aspis ekeinê
  erretô; exautês ktêsomai ou kakiô" - Arkhilokhos

Reply