• archchan@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    40
    ·
    1 year ago

    A unifed global language is one of the characteristics of a type 1 civilization and right now English happens to be in a position to become that language. But whether or not English is the optimal option is a whole different can of worms. Since language and culture are so intertwined, the idea of the cultures, beliefs, and “mindsets” of entire groups of people being slowly erased, dominated, and assimilated by the anglosphere mind is a concerning long term problem. You lose out on potentially beautiful things only people of that culture and “mind” are capable of creating/conceiving or nurturing. Also America’s dominance of cultural exports is insane.

        • stockRot@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          1 year ago

          Everyone is “bad” at their first language. No one speaks in a prim and proper way all the time. Slang forms, grammar is eschewed for convenience. If you are able to get your point across such that another competent speaker is able to understand, then you are good at speaking a language.

          • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            1 year ago

            It’s pretty uncool to call them surrender monkeys when Christopher Nolan did you the favor of explaining how the French Army held the line so the English could run away.

      • calcopiritus@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        14
        ·
        1 year ago

        Computers are programmed in programming languages. They do (most of the time) have English words as keywords, but changing them is trivially easy. You could have a “Esperanto C” working in a day. And changing a C program to Esperanto C would be trivially easy. The only problem would be the new keywords being used in the old program, but that’s easy to find and replace with a new identifier.

    • Snoopy@jlai.lu
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      I disagree. When i organised an international deaf week. It was very hard because i couldn’t speak with people from different countries in international sign language.

      So if it doesn’t exist, people will either create a new one or use the dominant one. As for the culture, it depends.

    • BottleOfAlkahest@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      1 year ago

      That there should be a global language not directly tied to a culture is one of the main arguments for an artificial launague being adopted as the global lingua franca. Not to say there isn’t issues with that either since the most popular constructed languages are heavily adapted from European languages (looking at you esperanto).

      • RunawayFixer@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        1 year ago

        I would really love an international language with consistent spelling and where the spelling matches the pronunciation. For me the chosen language doesn’t have to be artificial, but the selection process should be: a scientific choice based on consistency, ease of learning, clarity in meaning, … Everyone who knows a few languages, knows English is probably the worst choice when it comes to these objective criteria.

        It’s like the system of measurement: leave it to the people and we’d all still be using wacky thumbs, feet and elbows for measuring, but smart people came together in France (a few times) and now we have an easy to understand consistent system of measurement.

      • steeznson@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        Arguably there have been languages like this such as polari which was spoken as a lingua franca amongst sailors at every port around the world.

        Controversially would also suggest Modern London English and Pidgin English could also be modern examples.

    • Naz@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      A true blended language would probably be something like Esperanto. Personally, I prefer the Latin alphabet because it’s easier to write than the Oriental alphabet, or the Cyrillic, which creates so many curves in cursive that you might as well just be writing “mmmmmmm” (the word “teacher” in Russian cursive is a great example).

      Higher K-Scale Civilizations have obviated the need for discrete languages entirely and communicate using brain waves/telepathy. No misinterpretation of any idea is possible when you literally present the exact thought form to another. The speed is also unparalleled: communication occurs at the speed of thought - no need to translate, encode, parse, decode, and conceptualize before information is transferred.

      Refrigerator.