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Minority Languages

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Posts

  • FCDFCD Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Goddamn Romance languages. Pluarlizing singular objects and giving gender to genderless objects. I am shaking my head in disapproval at you.

    FCD on
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  • wyrlsswyrlss Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Don't you sometimes wish they'd gone the other route, and rather than dropping the neutral gender, dropped the male and female gender?

    wyrlss on
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  • CorbiusCorbius Shepard Registered User regular
    edited December 2008


    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?

    Yes, this is apparently true. At least, according to several Korean friends of mine.

    Corbius on
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  • FCDFCD Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    wyrlss wrote: »
    Don't you sometimes wish they'd gone the other route, and rather than dropping the neutral gender, dropped the male and female gender?

    Yep, that I do.

    FCD on
    Gridman! Baby DAN DAN! Baby DAN DAN!
  • oldmankenoldmanken Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Not just the mouth as in the lips, but the tongue as well. I'm not sure if these will show up...

    ㄴ and ㄱ show how the tongue are supposed to lie in the mouth (first being the tip of the tongue at the roof of the mouth, the other the opposite (n and k/g sounds, respectively))
    ㅁ this is supposed to represent the formation of your mouth/lips (m sound)

    It's brilliant, until you get to the w-vowels... they are just bloody confusing sometimes.

    oldmanken on
  • CervetusCervetus Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Quid wrote: »
    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.

    At least boxers have some amount of leg to them, while the silhouette of panties is one convex mass, although briefs have this same problem. But who wears briefs?

    Cervetus on
  • FCDFCD Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    This is why I prefer to use the term underwear. At least that is accepted as the singular item term that it actually is.

    FCD on
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  • oldmankenoldmanken Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Well, some people say 'a pair of underwear'... :) (aka me)

    oldmanken on
  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Cervetus wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    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.

    At least boxers have some amount of leg to them, while the silhouette of panties is one convex mass, although briefs have this same problem. But who wears briefs?
    While I don't, I know others do because they dislike their junk flying free.

    I claim victory in the women's underwear amplification evidence thesis.

    Quid on
  • saggiosaggio Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Living in a country with two official languages, all I can say is that protecting language rights is fundamentally important to a nation's identity or culture, and the most authoritarian or despicable thing you can do to any group is take away their right or ability to use their language.

    We've done that to the natives here, and we've attempted to do that to the francophones as well, and it has never ended well. English has limitations, and it won't always be the top language - and it never hurt anybody to expand their cultural horizons a little and learn a new tongue.

    saggio on
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  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    saggio wrote: »
    Living in a country with two official languages, all I can say is that protecting language rights is fundamentally important to a nation's identity or culture, and the most authoritarian or despicable thing you can do to any group is take away their right or ability to use their language.

    We've done that to the natives here, and we've attempted to do that to the francophones as well, and it has never ended well. English has limitations, and it won't always be the top language - and it never hurt anybody to expand their cultural horizons a little and learn a new tongue.
    Fortunately no one is advocating forcefully taking away a person's right to learn and use another language.

    Quid on
  • FCDFCD Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    oldmanken wrote: »
    Well, some people say 'a pair of underwear'... :) (aka me)

    ...you are dead to me now.
    No, not really.

    FCD on
    Gridman! Baby DAN DAN! Baby DAN DAN!
  • FCDFCD Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    saggio wrote: »
    Living in a country with two official languages, all I can say is that protecting language rights is fundamentally important to a nation's identity or culture, and the most authoritarian or despicable thing you can do to any group is take away their right or ability to use their language.

    We've done that to the natives here, and we've attempted to do that to the francophones as well, and it has never ended well. English has limitations, and it won't always be the top language - and it never hurt anybody to expand their cultural horizons a little and learn a new tongue.

    A good point, though in the cases of extremely endangered minority languages, it seems there is little that can be done to keep them alive, as many of them no longer have nations and cultures to support them.

    FCD on
    Gridman! Baby DAN DAN! Baby DAN DAN!
  • oldmankenoldmanken Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    FCD wrote: »
    oldmanken wrote: »
    Well, some people say 'a pair of underwear'... :) (aka me)

    ...you are dead to me now.
    No, not really.

    So did I succeed in ruining the word for you? :)

    oldmanken on
  • FCDFCD Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    oldmanken wrote: »
    FCD wrote: »
    oldmanken wrote: »
    Well, some people say 'a pair of underwear'... :) (aka me)

    ...you are dead to me now.
    No, not really.

    So did I succeed in ruining the word for you? :)

    There are still people who use it in the singular sense. So let's just call it a draw.

    FCD on
    Gridman! Baby DAN DAN! Baby DAN DAN!
  • ScalfinScalfin __BANNED USERS regular
    edited December 2008
    Quid wrote: »
    saggio wrote: »
    Living in a country with two official languages, all I can say is that protecting language rights is fundamentally important to a nation's identity or culture, and the most authoritarian or despicable thing you can do to any group is take away their right or ability to use their language.

    We've done that to the natives here, and we've attempted to do that to the francophones as well, and it has never ended well. English has limitations, and it won't always be the top language - and it never hurt anybody to expand their cultural horizons a little and learn a new tongue.
    Fortunately no one is advocating forcefully taking away a person's right to learn and use another language.

    Nobody is taking away their right to try, but it is depriving them of a community of people who were tought at a feasible age.


    The French word for "vagina" is masculine. For that reason alone, the language must be obliterated.

    Scalfin on
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    The rest of you, I fucking hate you for the fact that I now have a blue dot on this god awful thread.
  • CervetusCervetus Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Quid wrote: »
    saggio wrote: »
    Living in a country with two official languages, all I can say is that protecting language rights is fundamentally important to a nation's identity or culture, and the most authoritarian or despicable thing you can do to any group is take away their right or ability to use their language.

    We've done that to the natives here, and we've attempted to do that to the francophones as well, and it has never ended well. English has limitations, and it won't always be the top language - and it never hurt anybody to expand their cultural horizons a little and learn a new tongue.
    Fortunately no one is advocating forcefully taking away a person's right to learn and use another language.

    Well *some* people are, but mostly this is about putting extra effort into keeping a language alive.

    Cervetus on
  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Scalfin wrote: »
    Nobody is taking away their right to try, but it is depriving them of a community of people who were tought at a feasible age.
    Abloo? Abloo. If the kid wants to learn an obscure language, let them. If they'd rather learn Russian, let them. Or take it upon themselves to teach them at home. Children don't exist to be vessels for past cultural knowledge and it shouldn't be mandated that they be so.

    Quid on
  • FCDFCD Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Scalfin wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    saggio wrote: »
    Living in a country with two official languages, all I can say is that protecting language rights is fundamentally important to a nation's identity or culture, and the most authoritarian or despicable thing you can do to any group is take away their right or ability to use their language.

    We've done that to the natives here, and we've attempted to do that to the francophones as well, and it has never ended well. English has limitations, and it won't always be the top language - and it never hurt anybody to expand their cultural horizons a little and learn a new tongue.
    Fortunately no one is advocating forcefully taking away a person's right to learn and use another language.

    Nobody is taking away their right to try, but it is depriving them of a community of people who were tought at a feasible age.


    The French word for "vagina" is masculine. For that reason alone, the language must be obliterated.

    For the sheer number of silent letters alone, French will be the first language against the wall come the Syntax Revolution.

    FCD on
    Gridman! Baby DAN DAN! Baby DAN DAN!
  • saggiosaggio Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Cervetus wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    saggio wrote: »
    Living in a country with two official languages, all I can say is that protecting language rights is fundamentally important to a nation's identity or culture, and the most authoritarian or despicable thing you can do to any group is take away their right or ability to use their language.

    We've done that to the natives here, and we've attempted to do that to the francophones as well, and it has never ended well. English has limitations, and it won't always be the top language - and it never hurt anybody to expand their cultural horizons a little and learn a new tongue.
    Fortunately no one is advocating forcefully taking away a person's right to learn and use another language.

    Well *some* people are, but mostly this is about putting extra effort into keeping a language alive.

    I guess you are drawing to draw a distinction between a fast and a slow death, Quid. Being flush and overrun with media and cultural exports from a language or nation that is not your own can seriously hinder and damage the viability of one's language, and, thus, one's culture from surviving - not to mention legislative or systemic discrimination that is very present in many nations today.

    French in Canada was lucky enough to have been protected from the get-go by the Quebec Act, but at other times in Canadian history, there have been concerted efforts to eliminate the language entirely, such as removing the bilingual requirement for government service in both Ontario and Manitoba at various times - essentially, making it impossible for monoglots of French to receive government services, or debate in the legislature, or take part meaningfully in the mechanisms of state.

    In other areas, such as modern France, or Scotland after the 1745 Rising, it was worse. In France, currently, there is active discrimination against all minority languages, including those that have as long or longer history than Parisian French, such as Breton or Occitan. Government services are either nonexistent or limited, and there is active, institutional discrimination against speakers, including governmental programs that exist to promote the French language at the expense of these.

    In Scotland, things are not quite as bad as in France - anymore. But from the passage of the Act of Proscription 1746 until 1970, it was illegal to speak Scots Gaelic, or be educated or have your children educated in it. The Government in Westminster promoted english-only programs that served to eradicate the language, as well as a whole host of other cultural trappings - it became illegal, for instance, to play the pipes in public. My grandfather, who was born to a monoglot Gaelic family, used to tell the story of having to take the train from Inverness to York in England to find work and learn English (a bit of a common theme from where my family is from, unfortunately). My family back in Scotland who don't speak Gaelic still tell me there is significant discrimination against Gaelic speakers, similar in view to what many Canadians have against French speakers in Quebec.

    All of these things are undeniably negative, and seriously undermine cultural heritage and identity of nations and ethnic groups. Excuse me if I don't want the whole world to be English speaking, but a diversity of languages is something that should be protected, rather than fought - that being said, there is nothing wrong with there being a 'universal' language that everyone knows. Maybe English will fufill that role - maybe Esperanto (or Mandarin, or Spanish, or Arabic...)

    saggio on
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  • SarcastroSarcastro Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    saggio wrote: »
    All of these things are undeniably negative, and seriously undermine cultural heritage and identity of nations and ethnic groups. Excuse me if I don't want the whole world to be English speaking, but a diversity of languages is something that should be protected, rather than fought - that being said, there is nothing wrong with there being a 'universal' language that everyone knows. Maybe English will fufill that role - maybe Esperanto (or Mandarin, or Spanish, or Arabic...)

    Where I grew up, there were about 750 languages on the island all tolled, and everybody spoke four or five of them from birth. I think this partly has to do with the slight xenophobic tension that runs through most of those individual cultures, you aren't fully accepted unless you speak the language like a native.

    It was interesting, aside from English, I picked up the local language and a trade from about 4, and having no accent at all (or rather, having theirs) I had unlimited access to pretty much everything, very much treated as one of their own. This is in direct contrast to friends of the same age who had arrived later- from Switzerland, as it happens- but always spoke with a slight accent. They were immediately treated differently, not quite like tourists, but not like family either.

    One of the amusing differences in the local language was the how it applied to the concept of time- Melanesian (Tok Pisin) has no time markers other than before and after. There is yesterday and today, but aside from that, 'some time' before, and 'some time' after. The word for 'some time later' is bastardized from the English word 'tomorrow', and sounds very similar. Newbies inevitably run into the problem where they have asked someone if they were coming 'tomorrow', and gotten a yes, only to wait for two or three days before that person actually shows up.

    Only a westerner would be so johnny on the spot with the time; if you have no clocks and it takes a day or two to walk anywhere, things tend to happen at their own pace. Way different then the 'be here at 8 sharp' bullshit people put up with everyday. Lots of people don't realize that their own culture and language- even when shared with other cultures- can form an invisible prison around their actions and their minds.

    The tendency to underestimate the importance of such differences is staggering; as a culture gains momentum by expanding on precedence, the foundation from the past which shapes what can become of a culture in the future, the very things that allow a culture to surge forward ultimately become its own limitations. Only by reaching out, by bridging to other cultural foundations such as outside languages and their intuitively processed understanding, do we gain the ability to step outside the boundaries of our own thinking and exceed the possibilities contained within our own cultural roots.

    This ability is the only escape from the inevitable stagnation and decay that plagues all great civilizations; a panacea to the cancer of time, to which all things eventually fall.

    Sarcastro on
  • FCDFCD Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Sarcastro wrote: »
    One of the amusing differences in the local language was the how it applied to the concept of time- Melanesian (Tok Pisin) has no time markers other than before and after. There is yesterday and today, but aside from that, 'some time' before, and 'some time' after. The word for 'some time later' is bastardized from the English word 'tomorrow', and sounds very similar. Newbies inevitably run into the problem where they have asked someone if they were coming 'tomorrow', and gotten a yes, only to wait for two or three days before that person actually shows up.

    Only a westerner would be so johnny on the spot with the time; if you have no clocks and it takes a day or two to walk anywhere, things tend to happen at their own pace. Way different then the 'be here at 8 sharp' bullshit people put up with everyday.

    I often wonder how languages with no concept of time can manage in the modern world. I mean, aside from the more advanced areas of science where discrete measurements of time are required, there's simply the everyday need for understanding when and how long to do things, like being on time for an appointment(as you yourself point out) or how long it will take to bake a reasonably complex meal.

    FCD on
    Gridman! Baby DAN DAN! Baby DAN DAN!
  • ScalfinScalfin __BANNED USERS regular
    edited December 2008
    FCD wrote: »
    Sarcastro wrote: »
    One of the amusing differences in the local language was the how it applied to the concept of time- Melanesian (Tok Pisin) has no time markers other than before and after. There is yesterday and today, but aside from that, 'some time' before, and 'some time' after. The word for 'some time later' is bastardized from the English word 'tomorrow', and sounds very similar. Newbies inevitably run into the problem where they have asked someone if they were coming 'tomorrow', and gotten a yes, only to wait for two or three days before that person actually shows up.

    Only a westerner would be so johnny on the spot with the time; if you have no clocks and it takes a day or two to walk anywhere, things tend to happen at their own pace. Way different then the 'be here at 8 sharp' bullshit people put up with everyday.

    I often wonder how languages with no concept of time can manage in the modern world. I mean, aside from the more advanced areas of science where discrete measurements of time are required, there's simply the everyday need for understanding when and how long to do things, like being on time for an appointment(as you yourself point out) or how long it will take to bake a reasonably complex meal.

    Probably some adaptation of :in such a way." "I will meet you in such a way that the sun is over there."

    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.
  • FCDFCD Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    True, when needs be, people find ways to make their languages work.

    FCD on
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  • CokebotleCokebotle 穴掘りの 電車内Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Or they bastardize another language to make a new word to do it.

    Either or.

    Cokebotle on
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  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    I wanna thank yasall for putting a big space in between yer big blocks of text its making it a lot easier to read for me right now.

    Morninglord on
    (PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
  • Premier kakosPremier kakos Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited December 2008
    May I suggest Lojban for a universal language?

    Premier kakos on
  • CervetusCervetus Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Or they don't manage in the modern world as we know it.

    Cervetus on
  • SarcastroSarcastro Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    FCD wrote: »
    Sarcastro wrote: »
    One of the amusing differences in the local language was the how it applied to the concept of time- Melanesian (Tok Pisin) has no time markers other than before and after. There is yesterday and today, but aside from that, 'some time' before, and 'some time' after. The word for 'some time later' is bastardized from the English word 'tomorrow', and sounds very similar. Newbies inevitably run into the problem where they have asked someone if they were coming 'tomorrow', and gotten a yes, only to wait for two or three days before that person actually shows up.

    Only a westerner would be so johnny on the spot with the time; if you have no clocks and it takes a day or two to walk anywhere, things tend to happen at their own pace. Way different then the 'be here at 8 sharp' bullshit people put up with everyday.

    I often wonder how languages with no concept of time can manage in the modern world. I mean, aside from the more advanced areas of science where discrete measurements of time are required, there's simply the everyday need for understanding when and how long to do things, like being on time for an appointment(as you yourself point out) or how long it will take to bake a reasonably complex meal.

    The short answer is 'not well'. It really depends on the majority a person is surrounded with. If the majority doesn't give a shit about when exactly then being an hour or two out is no big deal. 'Appointments' are a foreign concept that only happen in extremely dense or modern areas. Timing is still understood in first/then terms, where you do something, then do something else. You can't have an extremely complex meal without the trade to back it up, etc.

    Generally you just take on the language of a culture that does exist under those terms and use that instead. Where I lived, making up a word to describe the moment and then agreeing to use that between friends was a common and expected practice. Using a word already in circulation was no biggie, because it related only to that specific person to person context. Which is how a lot of common bastardizations got their start. Social meaning was far more important than imperical or arbitrary meaning, unlike here in the west.

    Sarcastro on
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