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Minority Languages

124

Posts

  • JohannenJohannen Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    FCD wrote: »
    Johannen wrote: »
    FCD wrote: »
    Rhan9 wrote: »
    On a tangent, why the fuck did the Japanese develop two, nearly identical systems (Hiragana and Katakana), and then add Kanji on top of that? Madness!

    Well, Katakana are used mostly to spell foreign words(like, for example, writing the name of a foreign exchange student), whereas Hiragana is more for native parts of speech, like 'I' or 'You'. As for why they still use Kanji when they could just write everything out with their dual sylabaries, I think they associate specific, discrete word definitions with individual kanji, and so that's why they keep it. Though I agree that a writing system that requires the rote memorization of, at a bare minimum, a few hundred characters is less than ideal.
    Isn't it true that no one single Japanese person knows the whole Japanese language because of this?

    And I don't mean that in the way of "well no Brit/American knows every single word in the english dictionary" (which someone probably does), I mean that they don't know some of the more simple things that differ due to these three styles?

    How do you mean?

    Someone told me that no single Japanese person can speak the entirety of the Japanese language.

    That was pretty much how they put it. I think they meant that no one person could memorize every character or something.

    Johannen on
  • ScalfinScalfin __BANNED USERS regular
    edited December 2008
    They don't need kanji.

    they just keep it because tradition and japan are like, british and lager.

    Well, there is apparently a concern that many older people would be rendered illiterate during the turnover period.

    Scalfin on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    The rest of you, I fucking hate you for the fact that I now have a blue dot on this god awful thread.
  • Rhan9Rhan9 Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Oh, I know how that Hiragana Katakana stuff works. I did study Japanese until I would've had to start learning Kanji, and realized how idiotic the system is. Also, I didn't have the time for it. This is too bad, as I actually quite liked the language otherwise, it was funny.

    And what does knowing where the name for America comes from have to do with anything?

    Rhan9 on
  • Rhan9Rhan9 Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Scalfin wrote: »
    They don't need kanji.

    they just keep it because tradition and japan are like, british and lager.

    Well, there is apparently a concern that many older people would be rendered illiterate during the turnover period.

    Well, sacrifices have to be made. Besides, it's not like the change has to be complete and sudden. Slowly change the system over the years, inch by inch, let people get used to it. Even old people adapt, surprisingly.

    Rhan9 on
  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Scalfin wrote: »
    They don't need kanji.

    they just keep it because tradition and japan are like, british and lager.

    Well, there is apparently a concern that many older people would be rendered illiterate during the turnover period.

    And this is a reason to cripple your countries written language?

    Fuck em.

    (Not really, but couldn't they just print both for a while)

    Morninglord on
    (PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
  • wyrlsswyrlss Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Johannen wrote: »
    FCD wrote: »
    Johannen wrote: »
    FCD wrote: »
    Rhan9 wrote: »
    On a tangent, why the fuck did the Japanese develop two, nearly identical systems (Hiragana and Katakana), and then add Kanji on top of that? Madness!

    Well, Katakana are used mostly to spell foreign words(like, for example, writing the name of a foreign exchange student), whereas Hiragana is more for native parts of speech, like 'I' or 'You'. As for why they still use Kanji when they could just write everything out with their dual sylabaries, I think they associate specific, discrete word definitions with individual kanji, and so that's why they keep it. Though I agree that a writing system that requires the rote memorization of, at a bare minimum, a few hundred characters is less than ideal.
    Isn't it true that no one single Japanese person knows the whole Japanese language because of this?

    And I don't mean that in the way of "well no Brit/American knows every single word in the english dictionary" (which someone probably does), I mean that they don't know some of the more simple things that differ due to these three styles?

    How do you mean?

    Someone told me that no single Japanese person can speak the entirety of the Japanese language.

    That was pretty much how they put it. I think they meant that no one person could memorize every character or something.

    That's true. No one person knows every kanji.

    I'm pretty sure the Japanese don't speak kanji though. They speak Japanese. Kanji's just one of three alphabets. I have heard that if you don't know many kanji you're looked down on (as a Japanese person) as uneducated, somewhat like people who can't reed gud in America.

    wyrlss on
    K9Violator.png
  • JohannenJohannen Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Rhan9 wrote: »
    And what does knowing where the name for America comes from have to do with anything?
    Just read the posts above it and in the quotes. It's not hard, all the bits where they're talking about the heritage and different countries (how the normans invaded the U.K and such). I merely added that for interest sake.

    Johannen on
  • FCDFCD Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Johannen wrote: »
    FCD wrote: »
    Johannen wrote: »
    FCD wrote: »
    Rhan9 wrote: »
    On a tangent, why the fuck did the Japanese develop two, nearly identical systems (Hiragana and Katakana), and then add Kanji on top of that? Madness!

    Well, Katakana are used mostly to spell foreign words(like, for example, writing the name of a foreign exchange student), whereas Hiragana is more for native parts of speech, like 'I' or 'You'. As for why they still use Kanji when they could just write everything out with their dual sylabaries, I think they associate specific, discrete word definitions with individual kanji, and so that's why they keep it. Though I agree that a writing system that requires the rote memorization of, at a bare minimum, a few hundred characters is less than ideal.
    Isn't it true that no one single Japanese person knows the whole Japanese language because of this?

    And I don't mean that in the way of "well no Brit/American knows every single word in the english dictionary" (which someone probably does), I mean that they don't know some of the more simple things that differ due to these three styles?

    How do you mean?

    Someone told me that no single Japanese person can speak the entirety of the Japanese language.

    That was pretty much how they put it. I think they meant that no one person could memorize every character or something.

    Yeah, that's my guess as well.

    FCD on
    Gridman! Baby DAN DAN! Baby DAN DAN!
  • JohannenJohannen Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Is it possible to home learn Japanese? Like could I buy one of these and gain a good understanding and be able to hold a conversation as well as if I tried to learn spanish this way say?

    (even though I know Japanese would be much much harder)

    Johannen on
  • FCDFCD Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    wyrlss wrote: »
    Johannen wrote: »
    FCD wrote: »
    Johannen wrote: »
    FCD wrote: »
    Rhan9 wrote: »
    On a tangent, why the fuck did the Japanese develop two, nearly identical systems (Hiragana and Katakana), and then add Kanji on top of that? Madness!

    Well, Katakana are used mostly to spell foreign words(like, for example, writing the name of a foreign exchange student), whereas Hiragana is more for native parts of speech, like 'I' or 'You'. As for why they still use Kanji when they could just write everything out with their dual sylabaries, I think they associate specific, discrete word definitions with individual kanji, and so that's why they keep it. Though I agree that a writing system that requires the rote memorization of, at a bare minimum, a few hundred characters is less than ideal.
    Isn't it true that no one single Japanese person knows the whole Japanese language because of this?

    And I don't mean that in the way of "well no Brit/American knows every single word in the english dictionary" (which someone probably does), I mean that they don't know some of the more simple things that differ due to these three styles?

    How do you mean?

    Someone told me that no single Japanese person can speak the entirety of the Japanese language.

    That was pretty much how they put it. I think they meant that no one person could memorize every character or something.

    That's true. No one person knows every kanji.

    I'm pretty sure the Japanese don't speak kanji though. They speak Japanese. Kanji's just one of three alphabets. I have heard that if you don't know many kanji you're looked down on (as a Japanese person) as uneducated, somewhat like people who can't reed gud in America.

    There's actually a joke about this in Sailor Moon. The other characters can tell that a letter from the future was from Usagi(the ditz of the group) because it's written entirely in hiragana. So yeah, there's some truth to that.

    FCD on
    Gridman! Baby DAN DAN! Baby DAN DAN!
  • Rhan9Rhan9 Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Johannen wrote: »
    Rhan9 wrote: »
    And what does knowing where the name for America comes from have to do with anything?
    Just read the posts above it and in the quotes. It's not hard, all the bits where they're talking about the heritage and different countries (how the normans invaded the U.K and such). I merely added that for interest sake.

    I meant to say, that it just felt like it came slightly out of the blue.

    Rhan9 on
  • SarcastroSarcastro Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Rhan9 wrote: »
    Scalfin wrote: »
    They don't need kanji.

    they just keep it because tradition and japan are like, british and lager.

    Well, there is apparently a concern that many older people would be rendered illiterate during the turnover period.

    Well, sacrifices have to be made. Besides, it's not like the change has to be complete and sudden. Slowly change the system over the years, centimeter by centimeter, let people get used to it. Even old people adapt, surprisingly.

    Fix'd.

    Egnlsih rdeundnacy is aewosme, you dnot eevn need to hvae yuor ltteers in teh rihgt oredr!

    Sarcastro on
  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Sarcastro wrote: »
    Rhan9 wrote: »
    Scalfin wrote: »
    They don't need kanji.

    they just keep it because tradition and japan are like, british and lager.

    Well, there is apparently a concern that many older people would be rendered illiterate during the turnover period.

    Well, sacrifices have to be made. Besides, it's not like the change has to be complete and sudden. Slowly change the system over the years, centimeter by centimeter, let people get used to it. Even old people adapt, surprisingly.

    Fix'd.

    Egnlsih rdeundnacy is aewosme, you dnot eevn need to hvae yuor ltteers in teh rihgt oredr!

    :^:

    Morninglord on
    (PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
  • ScalfinScalfin __BANNED USERS regular
    edited December 2008
    Sarcastro wrote: »
    Rhan9 wrote: »
    Scalfin wrote: »
    They don't need kanji.

    they just keep it because tradition and japan are like, british and lager.

    Well, there is apparently a concern that many older people would be rendered illiterate during the turnover period.

    Well, sacrifices have to be made. Besides, it's not like the change has to be complete and sudden. Slowly change the system over the years, centimeter by centimeter, let people get used to it. Even old people adapt, surprisingly.

    Fix'd.

    Egnlsih rdeundnacy is aewosme, you dnot eevn need to hvae yuor ltteers in teh rihgt oredr!

    :^:

    In the English system's defense, though, it makes a lot more sense then the European AC frequency, which is objectively inefficient.

    Scalfin on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    The rest of you, I fucking hate you for the fact that I now have a blue dot on this god awful thread.
  • CouscousCouscous Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Sarcastro wrote: »
    Rhan9 wrote: »
    Scalfin wrote: »
    They don't need kanji.

    they just keep it because tradition and japan are like, british and lager.

    Well, there is apparently a concern that many older people would be rendered illiterate during the turnover period.

    Well, sacrifices have to be made. Besides, it's not like the change has to be complete and sudden. Slowly change the system over the years, centimeter by centimeter, let people get used to it. Even old people adapt, surprisingly.

    Fix'd.

    Egnlsih rdeundnacy is aewosme, you dnot eevn need to hvae yuor ltteers in teh rihgt oredr!

    That is just because you have seen those specific words enough that you can reorder the letters quickly in your mind.

    Couscous on
  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Couscous wrote: »
    Sarcastro wrote: »
    Rhan9 wrote: »
    Scalfin wrote: »
    They don't need kanji.

    they just keep it because tradition and japan are like, british and lager.

    Well, there is apparently a concern that many older people would be rendered illiterate during the turnover period.

    Well, sacrifices have to be made. Besides, it's not like the change has to be complete and sudden. Slowly change the system over the years, centimeter by centimeter, let people get used to it. Even old people adapt, surprisingly.

    Fix'd.

    Egnlsih rdeundnacy is aewosme, you dnot eevn need to hvae yuor ltteers in teh rihgt oredr!

    That is just because you have seen those specific words enough that you can reorder the letters quickly in your mind.

    No, it's because proficient readers just take word shape not letter order.

    Reorganising happens when you try to work out whats going on consciously, if you just scan the whole sentence quickly so there's no time for reordering you will absorb it just as fast.

    An example: "teh rihgt oredr" vs "eht thgir redro"

    If it was reordering, you would see the second one just as fast. But you don't, because the shape is different. If you look at the first example, other than "the", "right" and "order" have the same letter at beginning and end, and a similar shape to the middle.

    Morninglord on
    (PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
  • CokebotleCokebotle 穴掘りの 電車内Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    And to be fair, trying to read Japanese without kanji is pretty hard. Yes, they can write it all in just hiragana and katakana, but at least for me as a foreigner learning Japanese, if there isn't kanji, it's hard to understand exactly what's being said.

    Also, I'm kinda jumping in on page 6 here, so apologies if this has already been answered. Hiragana and Katakana were created as a simpler writing system from imported Chinese kanji. Men wrote in Katakana, and women wrote in Hiragana as the former is more "bold" and the latter is more "pretty". But kanji itself works well because each character has inherent meaning, so even if you don't know how to read the kanji you can understand it from the individual parts of the kanji itself.

    Also, I might be full of shit on the Hiragana and Katakana stuff. I learned it a long time ago in some history class, and history isn't exactly my forte. But it was something along those lines, I'm almost positive.

    Edit: The thing the boggles the fuck out of me is that one kanji in Japanese can have MANY different readings, depending on what other kanji it's paired with, or if it's by itself. That's goddamn annoying.

    Cokebotle on
    工事中
  • CouscousCouscous Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    And tihs is a raosen to crilppe yuor counierts wirtten lnaaguge?
    Wlel, Kaankata are uesd moslty to slpel frogien wrdos(lkie, for expmale, wtiinrg the nmae of a frogien ecgxahne snudett), wraeehs Hnaargia is mroe for nvtiae ptras of scepeh, lkie 'I' or 'You'. As for why tehy sitll use Knjai wehn tehy cloud jsut wtrie evtenrihyg out with thier dual siaelybras, I tnhik tehy asoisacte spfcieic, dctsiere word diinifntoes with idivauidnl knaji, and so taht's why tehy keep it. Thguoh I aerge taht a wtiinrg stseym taht rrqeeius the rtoe meoiormtzian of, at a bare miiunmm, a few hrenudd cacearhtrs is lses than iadel.
    I can't read this. They all have the same first and last letters but the word order in the middle is fucked up.

    Couscous on
  • SarcastroSarcastro Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Couscous wrote: »
    And tihs is a raosen to crilppe yuor counierts wirtten lnaaguge?
    Wlel, Kaankata are uesd moslty to slpel frogien wrdos(lkie, for expmale, wtiinrg the nmae of a frogien ecgxahne snudett), wraeehs Hnaargia is mroe for nvtiae ptras of scepeh, lkie 'I' or 'You'. As for why tehy sitll use Knjai wehn tehy cloud jsut wtrie evtenrihyg out with thier dual siaelybras, I tnhik tehy asoisacte spfcieic, dctsiere word diinifntoes with idivauidnl knaji, and so taht's why tehy keep it. Thguoh I aerge taht a wtiinrg stseym taht rrqeeius the rtoe meoiormtzian of, at a bare miiunmm, a few hrenudd cacearhtrs is lses than iadel.
    I can't read this. They all have the same first and last letters but the word order in the middle is fucked up.

    Interesting that the first sentence is a piece of cake, but the sprinkling of foreign words in the second ups the challenge a bit. From what I recall, there is a small percentage of people, less than five percent, who cant make sense of the words when the middle characters are out of order.

    Sarcastro on
  • CygnusZCygnusZ Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Spaces are only used after commas in Japanese, so the different alphabets are used as a way of telling when one word ends and another begins. To those of you familiar with the grammatical concept, particles also blend in with other words if an entire passage is written in Hiragana/Katakana, which means that it's difficult to make out where a word starts and ends.

    A long time ago during the NES/Early SNES era when memory was very limited on carts, games were written with only Hiragana and Katakana. One of the big improvements for the GBA re-release of FFIV was the inclusion of Kanji into the script. Really, I avoided playing the Japanese release of FFIV for years just because it was annoying to read. Mother games don't use kanji partly out of tradition, but mostly because there's a lot of word play that is based on the ambiguity of the language.

    Johannen, you could learn to read Japanese without a problem on your own. The problem is that you need someone to speak to gain fluency and you need to actually listen to Japanese a lot to be able to understand it without conscious thought. Writing is very difficult, not only because of Kanji but because the thought process and structure behind essay and story writing is so different.

    CygnusZ on
  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Sarcastro wrote: »
    Couscous wrote: »
    And tihs is a raosen to crilppe yuor counierts wirtten lnaaguge?
    Wlel, Kaankata are uesd moslty to slpel frogien wrdos(lkie, for expmale, wtiinrg the nmae of a frogien ecgxahne snudett), wraeehs Hnaargia is mroe for nvtiae ptras of scepeh, lkie 'I' or 'You'. As for why tehy sitll use Knjai wehn tehy cloud jsut wtrie evtenrihyg out with thier dual siaelybras, I tnhik tehy asoisacte spfcieic, dctsiere word diinifntoes with idivauidnl knaji, and so taht's why tehy keep it. Thguoh I aerge taht a wtiinrg stseym taht rrqeeius the rtoe meoiormtzian of, at a bare miiunmm, a few hrenudd cacearhtrs is lses than iadel.
    I can't read this. They all have the same first and last letters but the word order in the middle is fucked up.

    Interesting that the first sentence is a piece of cake, but the sprinkling of foreign words in the second ups the challenge a bit. From what I recall, there is a small percentage of people, less than five percent, who cant make sense of the words when the middle characters are out of order.

    Yes, you broke the shape of the words, that's why.

    The middle can't just be a mumble jumbly, it has to have a familiar shape.

    Morninglord on
    (PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
  • Loren MichaelLoren Michael Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Chinese needs to die. So does Japanese, Gaelic, French... really, just get rid of them all so we can all just speak English.
    Also, everyone here should read The Language Instinct and The Stuff of Thought by Steven Pinker.

    Die.

    Seriously.

    Chinese from my gf's mouth is so goddam cute.

    Die, you soulless heathen.

    I do want to ask though.

    Aside from ethnocentrism and current popularity, so basically practicality concerns.

    Why should everybody speak English over any other language?

    For example thinking in english is quite slow in comparison to chinese, which has shorter words. Chinese people can say, eg, 1-20, in a rapid fire stocatto while an english person get's to seven and starts slowing right the fuck down. This affects thought as well. In general, people need to vocalise what they read, and what they think to themselves, and they do it in their primary language. If that language is faster to vocalise, then thoughts are faster.

    From a real, honest to god, practicality perspective, where speed is valued in terms of thought, people should learn the fastest language. (Although not necesserily chinese)

    Chinese from my GF's mouth is cute too, but that doesn't mean it't not an abortion of a language.

    I'm going purely on current popularity and the use of the alphabet, which is strictly superior to Chinese hanzi (and ergo, better than Japanese as well, though they also have an alphabet).

    Also, Pinker has indicated that there is an internal language that we think in. We don't really think in English or Chinese except when we are explicitly doing so. This is how we can get the gist of someone's meaning, or how there can be a gist at all.

    Chinese speakers, when speaking to each other, are notoriously bad at understanding each other (and this is exacerbated when they are from different regions), and phrases need to be repeated or rephrased to put words in other contexts so that their meaning becomes clear.

    It used to be that the formation of regional dialects and splitting of languages was inevitable. Distance and physical barriers prevented easy and frequent communication between regions.

    Telecommunications and the internet has made this not so any more. The world is more thoroughly connected in terms of communication than ever before. There was never a real "need" for regional dialects, per se. Languages merely evolved as they are wont to do.

    If the purpose of language is communication, I'm pretty sure we'd be better off being able to communicate. If people want to waste their time learning a second dead and dying language, so be it, but it would be best if we all got to the same playing field.

    Loren Michael on
    a7iea7nzewtq.jpg
  • Loren MichaelLoren Michael Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    And I have like six Chinese girlfriends. And one Korean.

    Loren Michael on
    a7iea7nzewtq.jpg
  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Chinese needs to die. So does Japanese, Gaelic, French... really, just get rid of them all so we can all just speak English.
    Also, everyone here should read The Language Instinct and The Stuff of Thought by Steven Pinker.

    Die.

    Seriously.

    Chinese from my gf's mouth is so goddam cute.

    Die, you soulless heathen.

    I do want to ask though.

    Aside from ethnocentrism and current popularity, so basically practicality concerns.

    Why should everybody speak English over any other language?

    For example thinking in english is quite slow in comparison to chinese, which has shorter words. Chinese people can say, eg, 1-20, in a rapid fire stocatto while an english person get's to seven and starts slowing right the fuck down. This affects thought as well. In general, people need to vocalise what they read, and what they think to themselves, and they do it in their primary language. If that language is faster to vocalise, then thoughts are faster.

    From a real, honest to god, practicality perspective, where speed is valued in terms of thought, people should learn the fastest language. (Although not necesserily chinese)

    Chinese from my GF's mouth is cute too, but that doesn't mean it't not an abortion of a language.

    I'm going purely on current popularity and the use of the alphabet, which is strictly superior to Chinese hanzi (and ergo, better than Japanese as well, though they also have an alphabet).

    Also, Pinker has indicated that there is an internal language that we think in. We don't really think in English or Chinese except when we are explicitly doing so. This is how we can get the gist of someone's meaning, or how there can be a gist at all.

    Chinese speakers, when speaking to each other, are notoriously bad at understanding each other (and this is exacerbated when they are from different regions), and phrases need to be repeated or rephrased to put words in other contexts so that their meaning becomes clear.

    It used to be that the formation of regional dialects and splitting of languages was inevitable. Distance and physical barriers prevented easy and frequent communication between regions.

    Telecommunications and the internet has made this not so any more. The world is more thoroughly connected in terms of communication than ever before. There was never a real "need" for regional dialects, per se. Languages merely evolved as they are wont to do.

    If the purpose of language is communication, I'm pretty sure we'd be better off being able to communicate. If people want to waste their time learning a second dead and dying language, so be it, but it would be best if we all got to the same playing field.

    I was only talking about math. Then I moved on. (And I was kidding in the first half of the post)

    Btw who is Pinker.

    Morninglord on
    (PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
  • Mortal SkyMortal Sky queer punk hedge witchRegistered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Rhan9 wrote: »
    Proponents of minority languages also try to pull the culture-card, and how these languages somehow magically enable people to think in entirely different ways, and this is beneficial because... it allows for a marginally different culture or something? It's not like only those people who speak Swahili are rocket scientists.
    As a person who knows a fair bit of Swahili (it's a rather important language in East Africa, really. And,as Civ4 can attest, is a glorious little tongue), I can actually attest that it is a very simple language because of the culture built to define it. The only part that I had any trouble with was the rather offbeat verbal structure, involving prefixes and suffixes to the root verbal. It would be a magnificent language to serve as the central language of the world if it weren't for the fact that Swahili's vocabulary is rather limited. But you could just use Arabic and English to fill in the gaps.

    But yeah, language is something both totally inefficient and yet so crucial to human culture that I really cannot say exactly how I feel about the loss of a language. I know a small amount of Chigogo, a tribal language from the heart of Tanzania where I spent a lot of time a few years ago, and it's a language that has been largely suppressed by the country's move to nationalized culture, rather than the split-tribal ideals behind other countries that lead to instability. Genius idea, but at the same time it unsettled the way of life and forced people to farm in the last place on the planet you would want to farm. Chigogo is a chill language, based around the standard Bantu structures of noun and verb forms like Swahili. The little Chigogo I can remember is segments of their enormous greeting, a ritual of sorts found only in this one place on Earth. To think that one day, nobody would ever speak the greeting of "Mbukwenyi?", sort of depresses me.

    EDIT: and yeah, Japanese pretty much requires kanji. It sounds retarded, but once you learn a few, it's like knowing what lol or rofl are. You pick it up so fast, especially given how Japanese is.

    Mortal Sky on
  • FCDFCD Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    CygnusZ wrote: »
    Spaces are only used after commas in Japanese, so the different alphabets are used as a way of telling when one word ends and another begins. To those of you familiar with the grammatical concept, particles also blend in with other words if an entire passage is written in Hiragana/Katakana, which means that it's difficult to make out where a word starts and ends.

    A fair point, though just incorporating more extensive use of spaces would help a lot. Which is not really that big a leap, since, as you say, they do use them after commas.

    FCD on
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  • Loren MichaelLoren Michael Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Loren Michael on
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  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    He's familiar, but I haven't done anything specifically related to language so I probably forgot. It's a relief to know his ideas spring from what I immediately thought of when you said "internalised language".

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  • oldmankenoldmanken Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    If any Asian language comes out on top, it should be Korean. So much easier to learn and speak.

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  • FCDFCD Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    I'm going purely on current popularity and the use of the alphabet, which is strictly superior to Chinese hanzi (and ergo, better than Japanese as well, though they also have an alphabet).

    Well, it's really a syllabary with two separate forms. Just sayin', is all.

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  • Loren MichaelLoren Michael Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    oldmanken wrote: »
    If any Asian language comes out on top, it should be Korean. So much easier to learn and speak.

    Yeah, but they're all learning English, like any upstanding educated folks should.

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  • L|amaL|ama Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Sarcastro wrote: »
    Couscous wrote: »
    And tihs is a raosen to crilppe yuor counierts wirtten lnaaguge?
    Wlel, Kaankata are uesd moslty to slpel frogien wrdos(lkie, for expmale, wtiinrg the nmae of a frogien ecgxahne snudett), wraeehs Hnaargia is mroe for nvtiae ptras of scepeh, lkie 'I' or 'You'. As for why tehy sitll use Knjai wehn tehy cloud jsut wtrie evtenrihyg out with thier dual siaelybras, I tnhik tehy asoisacte spfcieic, dctsiere word diinifntoes with idivauidnl knaji, and so taht's why tehy keep it. Thguoh I aerge taht a wtiinrg stseym taht rrqeeius the rtoe meoiormtzian of, at a bare miiunmm, a few hrenudd cacearhtrs is lses than iadel.
    I can't read this. They all have the same first and last letters but the word order in the middle is fucked up.

    Interesting that the first sentence is a piece of cake, but the sprinkling of foreign words in the second ups the challenge a bit. From what I recall, there is a small percentage of people, less than five percent, who cant make sense of the words when the middle characters are out of order.

    It might be because I just read the original post, or (more likely) because I've studied japanese for a while, but the only word I didn't recognise immediately there was 'siaelybras', and looking at the original post I suppose that's because I've never heard of the word 'sylabary'.




    Kanji carry some context with them, there are quite a few kanji that have the same pronunciation, but different meanings. They also have some specific meanings that you realise when they're combined with other kanji to make words, although I can't remember any examples at the moment. And to people who say 'oh kanji's easy to learn', no, just because it was for you doesn't mean it is for everyone. To know them well is more than associating a symbol with a sound like learning the other two alphabets are and then associating those sounds with meanings, it is associating a symbol directly with several meanings.




    Aren't some korean letters supposed to look like the shape you make with your mouth when you say them? Or is that some more complete bullshit?




    Here in New Zealand there is a kind of half-assed push to teach Maori (official second language, language of the pre-european inhabitants), especially in pre-school and primary school, but all it results in is people knowing a few token terms, how to count to 10, and very little else, since they don't teach it conversationally. My sister is currently doing a sort of work experience thing for her early childhood teaching degree at a kindergarten, and she has to fill a quota of Maori terms that she says to the kids or something, just seems kind of silly to me, especially considering that there's only around 2% of the population in the south island that identify as Maori.

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  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    I've actually had very little trouble with Hanzi. It's not a perfect writing system, but neither is English, and both have their benefits. An alphabet is, inevitably, better since sooner or later you probably want to tell someone what you read, but I can't say Hanzi is objectively terrible at getting stuff across in written form. Especially since after a few months I'm starting to be able to piece together the different radicals and figure out what characters mean on their own, which isn't really as easy to do with English.

    Though I really don't have any favorites as far as languages go. Just shades of disappointment.

    Quid on
  • CervetusCervetus Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    What do people mean when they say English is "Rugged"? That it can absorb new and foreign words easily? If so, what makes that unique to English?

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  • FCDFCD Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Though I love my mother tounge greatly, there is one thing that irks me about English: a pair of pants. I hate this formating so much. It is a singular item of clothing. A shirt has two sleeves on it for my arms, but nobody calls it a pair of shirts. It is ridiculous, and I long to see the day when I can just call it a pant(or a trouser, if I'm in the UK). And yes, I realize that it started out as two separate items of clothing that you put on your legs one at a time, but it isn't like that anymore. Urghh.

    FCD on
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  • CervetusCervetus Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    FCD wrote: »
    Though I love my mother tounge greatly, there is one thing that irks me about English: a pair of pants. I hate this formating so much. It is a singular item of clothing. A shirt has two sleeves on it for my arms, but nobody calls it a pair of shirts. It is ridiculous, and I long to see the day when I can just call it a pant(or a trouser, if I'm in the UK). And yes, I realize that it started out as two separate items of clothing that you put on your legs one at a time, but it isn't like that anymore. Urghh.

    It's amplified with women's undergarments: A pair of panties, yet one bra? Yeah, okay, whatever English.

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  • FCDFCD Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    If English syntax were completely under my control, a system of objects could only be called a pair if it's individual parts were capable of being separated and used indivdualy. No Exceptions.

    FCD on
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  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Cervetus wrote: »
    FCD wrote: »
    Though I love my mother tounge greatly, there is one thing that irks me about English: a pair of pants. I hate this formating so much. It is a singular item of clothing. A shirt has two sleeves on it for my arms, but nobody calls it a pair of shirts. It is ridiculous, and I long to see the day when I can just call it a pant(or a trouser, if I'm in the UK). And yes, I realize that it started out as two separate items of clothing that you put on your legs one at a time, but it isn't like that anymore. Urghh.

    It's amplified with women's undergarments: A pair of panties, yet one bra? Yeah, okay, whatever English.
    A pair of boxers.

    Quid on
  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    FCD wrote: »
    If English syntax were completely under my control, a system of objects could only be called a pair if it's individual parts were capable of being separated and used indivdualy. No Exceptions.
    And this is where Chinese excels. Fuck awesome simple grammar.

    But then they have to go bat shit crazy with tones.

    Quid on
  • wyrlsswyrlss Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    I think the plurality of garments may be something brought over from the italic. Italian has "i pantaloni" and usually there's a French parallel.

    And yes, Hangul is supposed to represent the movements the mouth makes.

    wyrlss on
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