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"I am not trying to argue that we should now give up English for international or scientific communication, or try to replace it with this or that other languag
by beloch 12y ago
"I am not trying to argue that we should now give up English for international or scientific communication, or try to replace it with this or that other language (except possibly in a limited way, e.g., see below on Basic English). I am not proposing to use Interlingua, Esperanto, Latin, Italian, Chinese, Russian, or anything else: I am maybe saying that we should have used Interlingua, Esperanto, Latin, Italian, Chinese, Russian, or something of the sort (probably any of the above would have been better than English) "
He really lost me when he suggested that Chinese would be a better scientific language than English. First, he didn't say which Chinese language or dialect. It's truly remarkable how many Chinese people cannot understand each other even though they speak the same language. Second, all Chinese languages are far harder than English to master speaking. Finally, writing is yet another steep learning curve.
- bdamm 12y agoNor does he address the creation of dialects, an odd omission given how much time he dedicates to analyzing the ways different speakers of english dialects may misunderstand himself. Italian, for example, is primarily spoken in Italy and almost nowhere else except by expat Italians. If Italian were to explode as an international language, you can be sure there would be regional dialects pop up that may misunderstand each other in systematic ways.
- jasonlotito 12y agoMy wife speaks Italian. My brother-in-law also speaks Italian. However, they both speak different dialects (Sicilian and Bari), and have a hard enough time understanding one another. So, there is no need to wait for it to explode. =)
- dwyer 12y agoYeah, the non-phonic nature of written Chinese leads to dozens of dialects in which two Chinese speakers can read the exact same sentence without a single overlapping syllable between them. Regarding scientific communication in particular, the most obscure Chinese characters are for words unique to scientific fields, so while the average English speaker might not be able to understand an English physics paper, the average Chinese speaker can't even read a Chinese physics paper. In other words, you must possess above average Chinese skills to communicate about science.