Thread: Летс ми спик фром май харррт

Originally Posted by Eric C.

What I meant was something like

I see.

That's why I like C much more than C++. C is a direct action while C++ is some abstract derivative. Syntax. It is like real sector vs finances in economy.

So I vote against C++ as a world language. One can see that when I made a meaningful statement in C++ (criticizing Esperanto) nobody cared about the meaning, but the syntax caused a discussion. C++ is a language of fruitless sophisms and empty forms!

I propose C as a world language.

P.S. "void main" is a poetry.

Somebody asked me to record "The Internationale" song in English with a heavy Russian accent. I think it can be posted here because it's even worse than the Mutko's speech. Sorry for this awful racket, but let me sing you from my heart, in English, have fun :

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...а это, на самом деле, английский?

Originally Posted by sperk

...а это, на самом деле, английский?

I think I'm a bit overdo with my Russian accent thing. Here is the lyrics:

Arise ye workers from your slumbers
Arise ye prisoners of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
And at last ends the age of cant.
Away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise
We'll change henceforth the old tradition
And spurn the dust to win the prize.

So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale
unites the human race.
So comrades, come rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale
unites the human race.

Я думаю, что песню труднее понять, чем обычную речь. Я тоже не понял бы, что это английский.

а это, на самом деле, английский?

Мне кажется, запятые здесь не нужны.

LOL, Sung with true conviction I hope he gave you some vodka, caviar and a fur hat for that performance!!!
But you are using a slightly alternative melody, it seems like??
And you know, I remember hearing that Internationale was in fact banned by Stalin, or something like that.

Originally Posted by Hanna

But you are using a slightly alternative melody, it seems like??

Of course I am!

Памятник Чижику-Пыжику — Википедия



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Originally Posted by Basil77

Памятник Чижику-Пыжику — Википедия

" Для молодожёнов есть ещё одна традиция: жених должен опустить привязанную на верёвке наполненную рюмку к памятнику и «чокнуться» с клювом чижика, не разбив её. Это залог счастья для молодой семьи."

Хотелось бы увидеть это...

I remember hearing that Internationale was in fact banned by Stalin, or something like that.

I think it just stopped being used as the anthem of the USSR when a new anthem was accepted in 1944.

I certainly wouldn't wager any money on Chinese being the language to replace English [as a global lingua franca]!

P.S. After thinking about it some more, I would offer the following scenario. Suppose that by the end of the 21st century, the U.S. has declined to a fifth-rate power -- with a Mexican-level economy, Russian-quality highways, and the military might of Sweden. Suppose also that China has risen to become the world's leading military, industrial, and economic superpower.

Under these circumstances, I can see several possibilities for a future "international language of business, science, aviation, etc.":

1. China pragmatically decides that English is already very well established as a lingua franca, and that there's no need to "re-invent the wheel" -- instead, Chinese businesspeople and scientists continue to learn English as a second language, as they do now.
2. China decides that it hurts Chinese pride to use the language of Yankee and Limey imperialism, and begins to vigorously and massively promote Esperanto as the new "international language." For Chinese people, Esperanto is "politically neutral", and is also a little bit easier to learn than English; and for non-Chinese, Esperanto is vastly easier to learn than Mandarin! So Chinese support could be the best thing that ever happened to Esperanto.
3. An entirely new language develops -- some sort of "creolized" hybrid of Chinese and another language could actually succeed as an international lingua franca. (The other language blending with Chinese would most likely be English, but not necessarily.)
4. Standard Mandarin Chinese becomes the new international language.

Out of these possibilities, I would guess that (4) is by far the LEAST likely to happen, because of the linguistic disadvantages of Chinese that I already mentioned.

And, incidentally, one can add to the list of factors that make Chinese an unlikely candidate as a global "second language." For example, in large American cities like NYC, LA, and Chicago, there are probably more U.S. citizens who are native speakers of Chinese, than there are PRC citizens who are native speakers of English, in all of China. (I would make the same guess about Canada, the UK, and Australia, too -- they all have more native-Chinese-speaking citizens than China has native-English-speaking citizens.) The reason for this has less to do with language, and more to do with Chinese politics and culture. Of course, China could change its naturalization policies to encourage immigration of English speakers, but the cultural barriers would remain.

Somewhat related to this is the point that relatively many Russians, Arabs, Indians, and Brazilians have cousins who are naturalized citizens of the US (or Canada, or the UK, or Australia), but relatively few Russians, Arabs, Indians, and Brazilians have cousins who are naturalized citizens of China.

A final point against Chinese is that many of its nearest Asian neighbors have historic reasons to distrust China, and as much as some of them may grumble about "Anglo-American cultural imperialism", the idea of "Sino-Chinese cultural imperialism" is even MORE unattractive. In other words, the Japanese and South Koreans and Thais and Filipinos would vote (with their wallets) for ESL, but not for Chinese as a Second Language.

I would guess that if English is someday replaced as "the world's favorite second language", Spanish would be a very likely candidate, IF the economies of Latin American countries improve.

Spanish is at least as easy to learn as English (unlike Chinese), and South America has historically been successful at welcoming and assimilating immigrants from different ethnic backgrounds (also unlike Chinese).

You are more than wrong, Throbert. Linguistic features never influence the choice of the international language. Why hasn't English been replaced by Esperanto?
Most people in China know Mandarin. English is the lingua franca, but most people in the world don't know it. It is also very difficult. English spelling is a terrible mess, English pronunciation is very difficult too. Even Russians have big problems with English consonants, while Russian is a very consonant-rich language (36 consonants; English - 24). Not to mention the Chinese.
Think how Russian was abandonned in Slavic countries, while it was much easier than English for them.

However, Marcus, I think you are correct in some sense -- linguistic features are probably less important than cultural and political and economic factors. If China became a much more attractive destination for immigrants from around the world, and if Chinese culture became much more welcoming to immigrants from all ethnic backgrounds who want to fully assimilate and become Chinese citizens, then people would be "motivated" to learn Chinese, despite the linguistic barriers.

English pronunciation is very difficult too

"Difficult" in what context -- Making yourself understood? Or passing yourself off as a native speaker?

According to a Chinese national survey quoted on Wikipedia, only about 53% of China's population is able to communicate competently in "standard Chinese", aka "Mandarin".

Another Chinese survey showed that while 90% of Beijing residents were fluent in Mandarin, in many other large Chinese cities, the rate of Mandarin fluency was generally below 10%.

But they can at least understand Mandarin. Anyway, English will be replaced when America falls (at least loose the present power). It's very likely for China to become the next superpower.

. Practically some elderly or rural Chinese-language speakers do not speak Standard Chinese fluently, if at all, but most are able to understand it. But the younger generations are almost all fluent in Standard Chinese, some to the extent of being unable to speak their local dialect.

if mastery of Mandarin is defined as Grade 1-A (an error rate lower than 3%), the percentages were as follows: Beijing 90%, Shanghai 3%, Tianjin 25%, Guangzhou 0.5%, Dalian 10%, Xi'an 12%, Chengdu 1%, Nanjing 2%.[citation needed]

The requirements are very high, so your statistics means nothing.
How many people can speak British standart variety of English?

Making yourself understood?

Yes. Imagine how a Chinese or a Japanese speak English. An untrained Russian pronounces the word "live" approximately like "leaf". I recorded myself and Chaika said it was difficult to understand me, although my pronunciation is not very bad.

Originally Posted by Marcus

Yes. Imagine how a Chinese or a Japanese speak English. An untrained Russian pronounces the word "live" approximately like "leaf".

That's a good point, Marcus. Perhaps the tones of spoken Chinese really aren't more difficult to learn than the consonant and vowel distinctions of English -- I'm not sure, because I've never tried to learn Chinese!

I still think that the complexity of written Chinese presents a barrier, but if China decided to promote international learning of spoken Mandarin written in some form of pinyin romanization, then I imagine it would be possible for Chinese to replace English as a global lingua franca.

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

That's a good point, Marcus. Perhaps the tones of spoken Chinese really aren't more difficult to learn than the consonant and vowel distinctions of English -- I'm not sure, because I've never tried to learn Chinese!

I still think that the complexity of written Chinese presents a barrier, but if China decided to promote international learning of spoken Mandarin written in some form of pinyin romanization, then I imagine it would be possible for Chinese to replace English as a global lingua franca.

That's not a good point. For a Russian there isn't much difficulty to speak English. Most English sounds are close to Russian and that diversity doesn't hamper much. In the word "live" all sounds are similar to Russian so I don't know what's the problem for Marcus to say that. For Asians English is more difficult than for Europeans but still for a Chinese to learn English is easier than for an English to learn Chinese.

but if China decided to promote international learning of spoken Mandarin written in some form of pinyin romanization, then I imagine it would be possible for Chinese to replace English as a global lingua franca.

Even if it doesn't. English didn't need a spelling reform to become international. If the Chinese can learn characters then all the other can too.

Originally Posted by Marcus

Even if it doesn't. English didn't need a spelling reform to become international. If the Chinese can learn characters then all the other can too.

Do you have any clue to talk about the theme? Chinese themselves have problems with their language:
Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard

Originally Posted by Marcus

Even if it doesn't. English didn't need a spelling reform to become international. If the Chinese can learn characters then all the other can too.

Oh for Pete's sake. Marcus, as crazy as English spelling is, it is MUCH more phonetic than Chinese.

Of course, you can say that about many other languages, too (that their writing system is much more phonetic than Chinese) because the Chinese writing system is incredibly NON-phonetic.

I'm not an expert on Chinese, but as I understand it, a typical Chinese character does contain a "phonetic element," but the phonetic element only gives you very vague information, such as: "this word begins with a sibilant consonant sound" (s, sh, z, zh, etc.). But it doesn't tell you WHICH sibilant consonant (s, or sh, or zh...), nor does it tell you which vowel follows the consonant, nor does it tell you the tone-value of the vowel. To understand what I mean, just imagine that Russian used the glyph $ to represent ALL of the following syllables: са, ся, се, сё, со, си, сы, су, сю, за, зя, зе, зё, зо... ...жа, же, жо... ...ша, ше ... щи, щу! Thus, Шла Саша по шоссе и сосала сушку would be written as $ла $$ по $$ и $$ла $$ку.

There are certain advantages to this extremely non-phonetic written language -- a Mandarin speaker and a Cantonese speaker can both read the same written character, even though they will pronounce the spoken word so differently that they can't understand each other.

But if you're a native speaker of English, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Turkish, etc., and you're trying to learn Mandarin as a spoken AND written language, it's a significant disadvantage that written Chinese offers very few clues about the spoken pronunciation.