Call me a racist too (I am mocking your misuse of the term here) but I never saw the value in having multiple languages. It is not enriching our culture in the same way different cuisines do, you can not easily savour on a poem in different language. For absolute majority of people their native language is just a necessity because their adult brains are mostly unable to learn new language at the same level as their mother tongue (unless you spend many years in that culture). IMHO different languages are equally annoying, useless and impossible to deprecate as different calendars or metric systems. On the other hand it is a little tragedy that English with it's ambiguous spelling and pronunciation become the lingua franca of the day.
> On the other hand it is a little tragedy that English with it's ambiguous spelling and pronunciation become the lingua franca of the day.
*English with its ambiguous spelling
On the other hand, Mandarin is hardly an improvement when it comes to avoiding ambiguity. Any other language would likely not be big enough to make it to lingua franca status anytime soon.
Again, English winning out so far is already a point for the good-enough, and exterminating other languages would mean giving up on better designs in favo(u)r of standardization on a suboptimal thing.
Is it cool that I can code JavaScript / Browser API almost everywhere these days? Hell yeah! Do I want to give up things that other languages offer (types, concurrency, non-web sockets, manual memory management where it makes sense) so we can all speak the same language? Maybe not.
I think efforts should go towards getting better at supporting diversity, rather than trying to water down everything to the lowest common denominator. Sure it's more effort, but it's not like you don't get anything for it in return.
There is a lot of culture tied to languages. English happens to be a melting pot of many other languages and cultures so perhaps,you don't see it as much with English.
But there is a lot of fascinating history and context tied to other languages.
Somehow in the minds of the world's population, while they are sleeping, you replace their language with a variant of English with cultural-specific loan words and extensions (for the closest approximation, think of French/Portugeuse? schooling in the colonies, or in France for that matter).
And let's propose we rather brainwash ourselves with 'their' language rather than the other way round, to avoid various accusations.
And let's propose we construct great internet firewalls, employ sharp-eyed border guards and have strict controls over the movement of people into and out of the country to maintain cultural homogeneity (look to history for precedents).
Practically almost any phrase can be translated into another language with absolute equivalence. A great army of translators translates all significant works of literature and media into the new language.
Culture is preserved yet we can now communicate between ourselves better? Any observations? (I'll think about it too.)
I can't see how it would change anything if I happened to use Hindi (for example) in my everyday life instead of English, all other things being the same. Watch Seinfeld in Hindi, surf the internet in Hindi, talk with my friends in Hindi.
I think languages serve as natural barriers to cultural homogenization, which otherwise tends to occur.
So how many languages do you speak? And no, english + some latin language doesn't count as "many".
There are many ideas which are impossible to express in english because it's not only lacking the words but the culture itself. Calling for standardization on a language is calling for the death of cultures you do not understand.
And while that's not "racist" as it's not about race, it's quite literally xenophobic. You're afraid of something because it's alien to you.
>You're afraid of something because it's alien to you.
Ugh, don't make stuff up like this to try to prove some point. This discussion is about getting rid of language barriers and has nothing to do with fear of a language. I want standardized language as well and I wouldn't care if it meant I had to learn a new language. So it's not xenophobic at all.
"IMHO different languages are equally annoying, useless and impossible to deprecate"
Not understanding different cultures, thinking their very existence is "annoying and useless" and thus wanting them gone? Yeah, that's being afraid of something alien. And "afraid" is a nice way to put it.
I speak 4 languages fluently and learn more because it's fun, it's beautiful, it teaches you a lot about people and culture and it even improves your understanding of languages you already speak. It's also a wonderful way to immerse yourself into a country you're moving into for the first time. This thread is filled with people who lack that perspective and think their opinion is informed and considerate because "I know I might have to learn a new language and that's fine". Let me remind you how this thread started: "why are we putting up with other languages anyway?".
We already have a lingua franca in the western world and it is English. It's as good as it can get. But the replies here, unhappy with that, boil down to "let's make it official and declare every other language as dead, then let's force that onto the non-english-speaking world".
I used to think like this, btw. I wondered why we bother with different languages. Why going to another country had such a high artificial barrier of entry. Why we didn't just agree on one and left languages to "hobbyists". But I was 8 years old and didn't know any better. I expect more from HN.
Stop projecting! Just because you used to be afraid of other languages does not mean people cannot criticize the economic and social barriers languages put up. Calling an idea xenophobic because you disagree with it shows a complete lack of objectivity.
Would you call the creation of the Euro or even bitcoin xenophobic? They both were designed to eliminate barriers imposed by differences between countries as well.
I'm not calling the idea xenophobic. It's misguided but has potential. The reasoning various people are giving for it here is another story however. The lack of attempt to understand what languages have to offer to humanity, and just pass it off as "useless" is extremely xenophobic.
It will mostly lose it, yes (like explaining a joke).
Because it's not just that a word exists in some language X that doesn't exist in language Y (you can always explain the word's general meaning with a complete phrase or two).
The most important part is rather having that notion in the language X as a handy thing to use -- and thus being able to shape concepts and phrases around it, and sharing an instant common recognition for that notion with others.
That said, there are several very good books on the subtleties of translation and language concepts in general, but one I suggest for the HN crowd would be "Le Ton Beau De Marot: In Praise Of The Music Of Language" by Douglas R. Hofstadter (of "Godel, Escher, Bach" fame).
I'm not sure if the main point is that things can't be explained, but rather that a good explanation needs to encompass a (impractically) large section of the culture surrounding the term. Just as you can learn a new culture and language by immersion, that immersion can be approximated by language (one of the reasons why reading books is such a great thing!).
I'm not sure if these are examples of things that cannot be translated or explained in a foreign language, but they are a few things that came to mind:
You can't really translate Japanese haiku to English, only approximate them (well, some of them). The Samic language (and probably others, at least I'd expect some native American/First Nation languages to have a similar term), has a word for the state between being awake and being asleep/dreaming: adjagas. In Maori, the ideas of boiled food is tightly connected to the physical world, so much so that boiled fish/food is considered anti-magic (or so I've been informed by a linguist). The Norwegian word "koselig"/"å kose seg" is hard to translate to English. It's related to "cozy"[k], but carries a deeper meaning that is deeply connected to Norwegian culture (or so a lot of foreigners seem to think).
In martial arts, the concept of distance can be represented by the Japanese term "maai"[m]. Is this really so different from similar concepts from fencing? I'm not sure, but the meaning is certainly deeply connected to the culture and concepts of martial arts.
You'll note that I've not listed any English concepts that I see as hard to translate or explain in other languages. This is partly because thanks to Hollywood (and other cultural exports, like books), many ideas from (American) English is already part of many cultures of the world - at least those with which I'm mostly familiar: Norway and Japan. I suppose the custom of asking how someone is doing, while not actually wanting to know how they're doing, could be one such example.
> And while that's not "racist" as it's not about race, it's quite literally xenophobic. You're afraid of something because it's alien to you.
(or (disagrees-with person thing)
(disinterested-in person thing)
(dislikes person thing)) => t
(equal (or (disagrees-with person thing)
(disinterested-in person thing)
(dislikes person thing))
(afraid-of person thing)) => nil
This is the same kind of irrational, manipulative, deceptive talk used to ridicule political opponents.
"You dislike x? So you're xphobic."
"You disagree with x? So you're an xphobe."
"You don't support x? So you're against x rights."
It's hollow and transparent, but sadly, many people fall for it.
So what do you call "wanting the death of cultures alien to you because you don't understand them"?
I see you complaining elsewhere in the thread about the use of the term "racist". Yes, I'm with you, it's not racist. I said it was xenophobic in answer to that. People confuse the terms a lot because often enough they can be used interchangeably. But the very etymology of xenophobia is "fear of what is alien".
This thread is a very, very clear example of that. You don't like it maybe because you don't see it, or you don't understand how inconsiderate it is to take somebody's language - an essential tool of communication, built over thousands of years with immense and incredibly diverse legacies - call it "useless" and wanting it gone.
I would love to discuss the practicality and side effects of "standardizing on a single language". Why it's not that simple. Why it won't have the effects you'd be looking for. Why languages even exist in the first place. But this thread started rotten and got worse - nothing good can come of it anymore.
