-Conversation quote: "We're going to stick it in with your rock, so weight doesn't matter."-
Fittingly enough, my dream last night involved the Olympics. Granted, I have yet to see an opening ceremony in which the entire U.S. Olympic team leaped off a tall building into a trampoline... but it WAS interesting, that's for sure. Especially since my tiniest aunt was somehow on the team, and staying in the tall building. Her room had this awesome tidepool-thing spanning the floor, and she was also supposed to jump off with me, my brother, and an elephant.
Since I was doubly reminded of the Olympics this morning (aside: oh no, that means I am soon to get THAT TUNE stuck in my HEAD!!!!!), I got to thinking back to the Athens games. I remember being fascinated that all the announcements were made in Greek, English, and... French?
Wait. Rewind. I thought we were over the whole "French is the universal language" thing. I thought that if it were anything but English, today's hot UNIVERSAL LANGUAGETM was Mandarin Chinese.
And then this train of thought worked around to Why do people make up "universal languages"? There are already enough real-world contenders for the spot without some linguistic intern developing one that no one speaks.
I mean, sorry to bust your language-idealism bubble, but no matter how sane and beautiful and grammatically tidy and logical a made-up language is, if you want it to become the international language, you have an insurmountable barrier -- no one speaks it, as compared to the jillion that speak Mandarin and the gazillion who speak English.
And unfortunately for linguistic tidiness, people learn languages they think will advance them NOW. Not in some future world of language perfection. NOW.
Reality check. Was that a rant? No, not quite I suppose.
6 years ago
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Hello, is your comment on languages a veiled attack on Esperanto? I'd be interested to know.
ReplyDeleteHaha, not very veiled, I would say. But not just Esperanto -- people have made numerous attempts at a world language and, actually, Esperanto is the least culpable because it was the first. The others saw it (and others) obviously fail at their goals, then STILL tried. Trying the same thing expecting different results is called an extinction burst.
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ReplyDeleteI remember doing a quick study of Esperanto at school in a weekly economics class and, even though I was at the pubescent age of 14 when almost everything went into the "whatever" bucket, I still don't get the idea of a universal language.
ReplyDeleteBuisness use? Oh spare me.
Although I have little grasp of my own language, I do understand and enjoy how languages are part of the culture of different peoples.
A cold standardised language with no real history, feeling, inconsistencies, jumbled meaning etc... would be the darkest thing to grace a persons vocal box.
Esperanto is the sort of idea that belongs in Logan's Run or similar utopian nightmares!