Languages and the future

[SueEllen]

A Pan Am 727 flight waiting for start clearance in Munich overheard the following:
Lufthansa (in German): "Ground, what is our start clearance time?"
Ground (in English): "If you want an answer you must speak in English."
Lufthansa (in English): "I am a German, flying a German airplane, in Germany. Why must I speak English?"
Unknown voice from another plane (in a beautiful British accent): "Because you lost the war."

Though the truth of the matter is the international language of aviation is English.

I use to watch all those horrible crash programs quite a few crashes where caused by the air traffic controller asking something, the pilot/co-pilot replying but not actually understanding English well enough to work out what the reply meant.

[Paddy]

English has inherited weaknesses and limitation because of the grammar and sentence structure. I would akin English Language with “Basic” programming, ie: It is easy to understand but not very efficient. If you consider a simple sentence such as: “Mother’s milk”. Does it mean she is lactating or milk that she is drinking? (Or if spoken; mothers milking cows).

Changing the word-form in nouns is far more efficient.

[threaded]

Changing the word-form in nouns is far more efficient.

Of course it is, which makes Tsez with it's 126 noun cases so wonderfully understandable...

[Paddy]

Of course it is, which makes Tsez with it's 126 noun cases so wonderfully understandable...

A minority language; off topic but interestingly the US navy in WW II used Navajo language to communicate between ships. It flummoxed the Germans.

I am told that in the Cornish language wife is the same word for sister.

[Churchill]

A minority language; off topic but interestingly the US navy in WW II used Navajo language to communicate between ships. It flummoxed the Germans.

I am told that in the Cornish language wife is the same word for sister.

What? Mother?

[threaded]

A minority language; off topic but interestingly the US navy in WW II used Navajo language to communicate between ships. It flummoxed the Germans.

I am told that in the Cornish language wife is the same word for sister.

It was a code on top of a code, so even to an untrained Navajo it sounded like gibberish. The Japanese did capture a Navajo and encouraged them to translate, but they still couldn't break the code. Which I find odd, as it is a really simple code.

I don't think that is correct for Cornish. Hawaiian however, all females in the same generation as you would be 'sister', and all females in mothers generation would be 'mother'. This is common is societies where child rearing is a communal activity.

[expat]

English has inherited weaknesses and limitation because of the grammar and sentence structure. I would akin English Language with “Basic” programming, ie: It is easy to understand but not very efficient. If you consider a simple sentence such as: “Mother’s milk”. Does it mean she is lactating or milk that she is drinking? (Or if spoken; mothers milking cows).

Changing the word-form in nouns is far more efficient.

I don't think so. If that had been true, the Anglo-Saxons would have kept it. Instead, as soon as Norman French became the language of the ruling classes, the Anglo-Saxon peasants started dropping all those fussy declension endings without delay. That's how English got rid of them.

[VectraMan]

I don't think so. If that had been true, the Anglo-Saxons would have kept it. Instead, as soon as Norman French became the language of the ruling classes, the Anglo-Saxon peasants started dropping all those fussy declension endings without delay. That's how English got rid of them.

I'm amazed that anything as complicated as German survives to the modern day. You'd think over thousands of years, simplification would win out. There seems to be no reason for all those case endings, adjective endings, noun genders or even conjugations. And you might have thought somebody would have seen the way other languages put their words in the order that they're required, and thought it was a good idea.

I can't see any of it acheives anything other than making the language harder to learn.

[The Wikir Man]

I'm amazed that anything as complicated as German survives to the modern day. You'd think over thousands of years, simplification would win out. There seems to be no reason for all those case endings, adjective endings, noun genders or even conjugations. And you might have thought somebody would have seen the way other languages put their words in the order that they're required, and thought it was a good idea.

I can't see any of it acheives anything other than making the language harder to learn.

It ensures that your audience pays attention to what you are saying / writing. If you have to wait to the end of the sentence to find the verb, you need to pay attention to the rest of the sentence

[stek]

I'm amazed that anything as complicated as German survives to the modern day. You'd think over thousands of years, simplification would win out. There seems to be no reason for all those case endings, adjective endings, noun genders or even conjugations. And you might have thought somebody would have seen the way other languages put their words in the order that they're required, and thought it was a good idea.

I can't see any of it acheives anything other than making the language harder to learn.

Russian is like that, more complex than German even - but I find it gives it a richness and power of expression - witness the large number of literary geniuses from what is still a relatively crap country...