|
|
I suppose this could only be answered by a multilingual linguist or what is the other ....I think it is a philologist (hope that is the right term)
I seem to remember that Tolkien was a philologist (an expert in the roots of language)
I don't know whether there is any such universal language....not since the Tower of Babel
I would suspect that there are some rules hardwired into our brains regarding language, Presumably, whilst they don't always follow the same form or grammar...I cannot imagine a language without verbs and nouns, though I also believe that the original language of the people of Hawai contains no tense.....so it is difficult for a non native to understand whether thye are talking about past present or future when reading a translation of this language
I don't really think there is an EARTH langauage as such as in the example above, the way the average Hawai native of fifty years ago looked at the cycles of life must have been fantastically influenced by his or her language
If you routinely do not distinguish in your language, between past, present and future, then your idea of time as a result, is going to be very different than your standard western idea of linear time
I would say that there are probably familiar aspects in MOST (though i am sure somebody on here is clever enough to think of an exception) languages.........again, I can only imagine that most if not all languages have verbs, nouns and adjectives to some degree. These MAYbe hardwired into the language centres of the brain BUT I still believe that the cultural and specific environment and the language used by your peers, makes all but the foundational similarities redundant. To counter my own argument it is worth noting that most linguists and translators have found enough common ground between two languages in the past to allow communication between different tribes/cultures, so this does suggest a level of commonality between all languages at some 'meta' level (sorry to get all NLP here)
I still doubt whether there will ever be a standardised language ......even now chinese is competing with English as the predominant NET language
More likely there will still be a myriad of languages out there but like Spanish and Portugese, there will be enough crossover to make communication possible
What is that weird language that messes my head up....Hinglish?
I watched a program recently that showed an Indian girl talking in what sounded like Hindi but every so often she would say a phrase in English that I could recognise. It was a bizarre thing to listen to, this mish mashing of two languages. That is what I see for the future, rather than any universal language.
Funny enough I was talking to a guy yesterday who was recounting a tale about a member of the Doyle in Ireland....this MP was bemoaning that it was disgraceful and ignorant that 98% of the Irish people do not understand Gaelic, their native tongue. A colleague in the house stood up and said "well you must think us all ignorant as there are only fourteen people in this house who have more than a smattering of the same"
But the important point was that with national pride comes a renewed sense of pride and heritage. Whilst the NET has for the past 20 years, pushed more and more people towards English, it is my belief that the sense of national identity and pride in one's own history, will reassert itself and many people will take up renewed interests in their own heritage.
As the insidious creep of globalisation marches ever on, I can see a revival of Nationalistic pride being a reaction and ergo, a revival in long disused dialects. People's sense of powerlessness with the increasing stranglehold of Corporate greed cannot be stopped but on the individual level, a revival in one's ability to speak a native tongue is at least on some level a stamp of individuality
Shit I do go on and talk nonsense
sorry |
|
|