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DOTD - Debate of The Day #52
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Post by
Adamsm
No it can't; there are too many versions of English spoken across the planet to make all of them the same.
Post by
FatalHeaven
There is no for nor against
.
Just because the change is highly unlikely doesn't mean there isn't a for or against.
I'm pretty sure I listed many for/against and they are all points brought to light by people who have legitimately debated this very thing.
From what I digest of your post you're
against
on the basis that it would be too complicated to do. A legitamate opinion. Do you have any factual data aside from mere opinion showing that it would be implausible?
Do I think the language will change? Personally I think it changes all the time anyways, it's ever evolving. So I don't think it's too far stretched for an official simplification of the English language to happen. Do I think it would happen in my lifetime? No. My childs? Maybe. My grandchilds? Even more likely.
You can find a nice breakdown of English-language spelling reform:
here.
Post by
Ksero
Do I think the language will change? Personally I think it changes all the time anyways, it's ever evolving. So I don't think it's too far stretched for an official simplification of the English language to happen. Do I think it would happen in my lifetime? No. My childs? Maybe. My grandchilds? Even more likely.
You can find a nice breakdown of English-language spelling reform:
here.
This is the exact reason it will never happen, it's constantly changing, but in different parts of the world it's changing in different ways. You cant all of a sudden say "ok now you all have to speak like this" what they would be speaking wouldn't be English anymore.
Found it, it was called
Globish
I heard about this right after it was invented as my mother worked for a company that is international, and had lots of problems with the language barrier.
Post by
MyTie
There is no for nor against
.
Just because the change is highly unlikely doesn't mean there isn't a for or against.
I'm pretty sure I listed many for/against and they are all points brought to light by people who have legitimately debated this very thing.
From what I digest of you're post you are
against
on the basis that it would be too complicated to do. A legitamate opinion. Do you have any factual data aside from mere opinion showing that it would be implausible?
Do I think the language will change? Personally I think it changes all the time anyways, it's ever evolving. So I don't think it's too far stretched for an official simplification of the English language to happen.
You can find a nice breakdown of English-language spelling reform:
here.
Have you read what I've said? /sigh. I'll repeat myself for you:
No doubt change to language happens, and even can be changed by sheer force in certain circumstances, by catching kids early and pounding grammer into them. However, the kind of reform you are talking about, reshaping the English language as spoken, on the world front, is quite impossible. You would need to take entire societies of children from their parents, and speak only your new and improved English around them.
Read about
the psychology of language development in people. I'm not just making this up.
Let's illustrate this point. I want you to stop using contractions for a day, and choose only one form of "they're" "there" "their" to use, and find different ways of explaining yourself without using the others. If you can. Even if you could do it for a day, which would be hard unless you isolated yourself, you would still be a far cry from reteaching yourself language. Now, try to do this with the English speaking world. We can't teach people proper English as it is. You want to teach them a completely different proper English?
You're right in there may be a "for" and "against". You might as well have a "for" and "against" for changing the rotation of our galaxy. While this might be theoretically possible, the sheer difficulty makes any discussion about it academic.
Post by
Thror
English is widely regarded to be one of the most difficult languages to master.
You can not imagine how funny it sounds when I see this sentence as a Slovak guy.
Post by
322702
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
donnymurph
I can actually state my position on this debate with a meme. And if I can, then I must.
http://i49.tinypic.com/2ezpr11.jpg
Post by
134377
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
asakawa
All the weird spellings in a language are the result of the massively rich and fascinating history of the language and they all tell you things that the simple words do not like being able to distinguish the Latin root of a word and being able to make a good guess at its meaning without context or dictionary. Philology is the study of the historical and geographical evolution of language by the way. It's an incredibly interesting field that's far too rarely studied. (Tolkien was a philologist and CS Lewis wrote a main character in his "silent planet" trilogy as a philologist)
I'm all for efficiency (to the point where I don't really believe in upper-case letters at the start of sentences and gave them up for a long time) but there's very little bathwater in with the baby (I hope you can follow that over-stretched idiom) and I don't think you could discard much in the name of efficiency without losing some important stuff.
Post by
Thror
Simplifying a language is like cutting limbs away from artists who use that language in their art. Creating literature in a complicated language is a pleasure, because you can play with its nuances and stretch its limits.
Post by
OverZealous
Me not want simple english because simple english not good
On a more serious note;
Simplifying a language is like cutting limbs away from artists who use that language in their art. Creating literature in a complicated language is a pleasure, because you can play with its nuances and stretch its limits.
I agree with this.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
All logistical issues aside, many words which are technically synonyms have different nuances that are understandable to someone who is well versed in the language, and as such have different uses in writing and expression. To cut some of them away would be taking away the ability to express those nuances without phrases or sentences of simplified words to try and convey the same idea.
In addition, whether or not a word or word usage is officially taught, it will be used. Look at how much of our daily vocabulary is slang, or colloquialisms. Children are constantly coming up with new words and new meanings for words, regardless of not being taught them or hearing them from their parents. And art and media reflects life- no one would buy a movie or a book where they remove the believability of the characters by forcing them to talk in a way that is unnatural and unrelatable.
I have to agree with MyTie on this- I don't think there is even a debate about whether or not we SHOULD simplify it, because I don't think we physically could. I think attempting to simplify it in schools would just lead to the classification and use of more words and terms as slang, but wouldn't cut down on their use. It may make it easier for ESL students to pass the curriculum, but once they got to the real world they would have no easier time understanding people speaking to them or books and other media in English. In fact, if we take the stance that we will simplify what is taught to make it easier to "learn," I think the quality of what they learn in terms of how much it will help them relate to native speakers will go way down. Just because they don't have to learn as many words to get the grades doesn't mean that they will need to learn less words to use the skill effectively.
Post by
gamerunknown
Language isn't something that changes, unless through time, or military conquest.
I disagree: language changes all the time. For example, I've adopted the feminist singular "they" since I was taught it at school. I wasn't taught the subjunctive (if... were, no exceptions), but I've adopted it since learning about it. As I recall, there was a change in German declension rules just before I started learning in school about 10 years ago. However, I agree with asakawa that the English language preserves certain root forms. I don't endorse prescriptivism and I'm sure it'd be easier to learn English if it had simpler pronunciation guidelines, but I can't endorse a campaign to change it globally. Far better if we all learned Esperanto instead. :p
obama has decided that federal law can be ignored.
Well, that particular law had a discretionary enforcement guideline written in.
Post by
168916
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
168916
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
I agree Fenomas. I took Japanese in college. The pronunciation was simple, and the phonetic alphabets were pretty manageable. But as soon as we hit Kanji, I was out- lol.
Post by
168916
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
I'm curious how much experience the OP has had with learning languages other than English? As a point of comparison for how difficult English is to learn compared to other languages.
EDIT: Also
Relevant
Post by
Azazel
English is only my second language and I've never found it difficult. Granted, it is much more common to see ads and tv-shows and such in English than say, German for example, plus you learn it from a younger age here. English has very little grammar and is not hard to speak for a Danish guy like me, I don't see a reason to forcibly change it. If anything, my own language should, as it has grammar with no rules lol.
Post by
Ksero
Everyone should just speak Afrikaans.
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