Re: Language superiority, improvement, etc.

Robert J. Petry wrote:

> Tom Wier wrote:
> > Is English ignored? On the contrary, it is very well known what it ca=
n and does do.
> >
> > Cf.  <http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,27013,00.html?st.ne.fd.mdh>
>
> I was not referring to English but an AIL that can reach more people th=
an English can under
> the criteria I mentioned above.
I realized what you were talking about.  Note several things:

(1) By being the present day de facto world standard, English is
already an international auxiliary language (you will please note that
they need not be artificial languages).

(2)  Thus, I was referring to just such a language as you described.  You
described several things:

you wrote:
> Certainly if a certain language could communicate across, let's say, a =
half dozen or
> more language barriers with virtually no previous study by the particip=
ants, versus
> a language that required lots of study and could only cross one languag=
e barrier
> at a time and only to someone who had studied that AIL in particular, t=
hen do we
> not have here a criteria for "better"?
(a) considering the extent to which English lexical items are being borro=
wed
wholesale by a great many languages in the world today, much of the newly
developed international culture has more or less similar vocabulary, base=
d to
a large extent on English.  Thus, when a Japanese person and a German
want to talk about popculture, they will find that whether they use eithe=
r language,
many of terms they use will be the same, or similar, and so we already ha=
ve a
language which spans across multiple linguistic barriers.

(Interestingly, as a side note, I read recently that the modern influx of=
 English
words and phrases into Japanese, in a little more than a hundred years of=
 being
open to the West, has already begun to rival the influx of Chinese during=
 a
period of several hundred years longer during the first millennium.)

you wrote:
> One, let's say, that could right now reach upwards of a billion people =
with
> written and spoken messages, would be better in that category over one =
that
> could reach maybe 10-50,000 people who are students only of that AIL.
(b) current estimates for the number of speakers of English (of whatever
variety) range normally somewhere between 500 million and 1 billion
people (though some go even higher).  These speakers are on average
literate (though varying in ability).

I was responding, then, to your comment that such a language was being
ignored.  I would certainly agree with you that any _artificial_ language=
 is
being more or less ignored, but certainly World English is not.  There wa=
s a
comment on Auxlang recently about World English :

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>From the Globe and Mail (Toronto), Fri. 2 Oct 98:
World o' languages

In Shanghai, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin has told Chinese student=
s of the French
language: "We need a world language, and since it won't be Esperanto, it =
will probably be
English. Let's take comfort. Being used by all, English will get a rough =
ride and lose its
original beauty, while Chinese and French will retain their purity."
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While not very "linguistically enlightened", as it were, it certainly ind=
icates the
general acceptance that English is _de facto_ being used most everywhere.


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Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: Deuterotom
Website: <http://www.angelfire.com/tx/eclectorium/>
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."

"Schlie=DFt den heil'gen Zirkel dichter,
  Schw=F6rt bei diesem goldnen Wein,
Dem Gel=FCbde treu zu sein,
  Schw=F6rt es bei dem Sternenrichter!"
   - _Ode an die Freude_, J. F. von Schiller
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