At 17:06 13/10/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Robert J. Petry wrote:
>
>> Tom Wier wrote:
>> > Is English ignored? On the contrary, it is very well known what it can
and does do.
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
participants, versus
>> a language that required lots of study and could only cross one language
barrier
>> at a time and only to someone who had studied that AIL in particular,
then do we
>> not have here a criteria for "better"?
>
>(a) considering the extent to which English lexical items are being=
borrowed
>wholesale by a great many languages in the world today, much of the newly
>developed international culture has more or less similar vocabulary, based=
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 either
language,
>many of terms they use will be the same, or similar, and so we already have=
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 think your estimation is not totally right. If you're speaking of
people on average literate, then you get only 9% of the world population
speaks English (to know how to say 'hello' or 'good bye' is not to know
English), that's to say just 500 million people (so more than 5 billion
don't understand English, not very good for an auxiliary language). Also,
did you ever heard how the Japanese turn upside down English loanwords?
Their prononciation is so much changed that an English person would find it
very difficult to understand a Japanese talking only with English loanwords.
>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 was=
a
>comment on Auxlang recently about World English :
>
>=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
>>From the Globe and Mail (Toronto), Fri. 2 Oct 98:
>
>World o' languages
>
>In Shanghai, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin has told Chinese students
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."
>=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
>
>While not very "linguistically enlightened", as it were, it certainly
indicates the
>general acceptance that English is _de facto_ being used most everywhere.
>
>
Acceptance exists only in politics and economy, which are not the
main part of life. Also, I don't think that English is the better language
to choose as an international language. I remember a discussion we had where
many of you said you had difficulties to understand each other (Australians,
North Americans from here to there, Britons, etc...) because of differencies
of dialects. If English natives find it difficult to understand each other,
do you think that people speaking English as their second language can
understand an English person? There will be too many inequities.
>=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
>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
>=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
>
>
>
>
Christophe Grandsire
|Sela Jemufan Atlinan C.G.
homepage: http://www.bde.espci.fr/homepage/Christophe.Grandsire/index.html