A note of thanks here from an avid reader of this fascinating discussion. I am overwhelmed with work obligations here for the time being and can't chime in, but I wanted each of you who are carrying this forward how much I and I would guess many others on this list appreciate the caliber and productivity of the discussion.
Thank you. Lawry de Bivort > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Keith Hudson > Sent: Fri, August 22, 2003 3:32 PM > To: Ed Weick > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; pete > Subject: [Futurework] Chinese as the world language? was: Re: > [Futurework] Languages (fwd) > > > At 10:39 22/08/2003 -0400, Ed Weick wrote: > >(KH) > >But surely, Prof Daniel Abrams' thesis is *not* valid. He is trying to > >maintain that minority languages can be protected. I originally wrote > >that this is not possible. PW, EW and I have each been saying > that once a > >new way of life becomes communicable, tradable and geographically > >possible, then minority languages disappear. Prof Abrams would do better > >to spend his time and research money in recording as many minority > >languages as possible for future study and analysis, than trying to save > >them in the here and now while our present type of economic system is > >still sweeping the world. > > (EW) > >Much would seem to depend on the size, status and power of the > linguistic > >group. There is no doubt in my mind that Quebec will maintain > French and > >do its governing and business in French in the foreseeable > future. The people > >it will deal with in Ottawa will have to be able to use French. > > I'm sure you must be right. However, Quebecian French will die in the end > if Quebec wants to stay in the mainstream of the developed world. When is > another matter. It's interesting that the French Academy have given up > their long-time attempts to exclude American and English word imports. > Almost all middle class Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, Dutch and > what-have-you can speak fairly fluent English because that's the language > of modern commerce and science. Almost no middle class Englishmen > could put > more than a sentence or two together in another language. Once > upon a time > I used to be able to read Simenon and Pushkin in their own > languages fairly > comfortably -- and enjoyably, too -- but I could never speak the > languages. > > Although I think that English is a strong candidate as a world > language, I > wouldn't bet on it. Chinese is a much stronger candidate in the longer > term. It is basically easier to learn than most others. It has > lost all the > appendages that other languages still have -- conjugations, declensions, > irregular verbs, subjunctives, ablatives, and so on -- nightmares that > plagues learners of most other languages. Chinese has also lost > inflections, cases, persons, genders, degrees, tenses, voices, moods, > affixes, infinitives, participles, gerunds and articles. It lost > all these > in the course of several thousand years of a largely unified culture and > literature. There are no words of more than one syllable and every word > has only one form. It proceeds by means of subject and predicate > -- that's > all -- and explicates by means of metaphors. Thousands of them. Tens of > thousands of them. More poetry has been written in Chinese than in any > other language. > > Chinese is just about the most finely chiselled language in the world -- > the most fully developed. And when China gets to the forefront > in science, > technology and commerce I think it will probably whop the confused and > convoluted language that we call English (much as I love it). > > Keith Hudson > > > Keith Hudson, 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath, England, > <www.evolutionary-economics.org> > > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework > _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
