-------------------- "I was surprised by the matter-of-factness of Kafka's narration, and the subtle humor present as a result." (Sizer 2005)
Registered: Mar 1999
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Any history book will tell you that the Cold War didn't officially end until the Soviet Union fell in 1991. In hindsight, with what we know now from Russian sources, it's easy to say they were ready to fall in 1986. Not so easy with what we the public knew back then. Anybody who says he knew is talking through his hat. It's like somebody walking down the street screaming the world is going to end tomorrow. He may be right, but he can't prove it to me.
Esperanto is a silly contrivance that will never replace English as the true international language. You can't impose a language on people. It doesn't work. You have to give them a language they can use in everyday life, that they can see on storefront signs, that can interface seamlessly with the International Scientific Vocabulary. Like it or not, English is that language. Nothing is more versatile. Sure, it's a hopeless mishmash of grammatical, spelling and pronunciation rules, but nobody said it's perfect, just the best.
As for female commanders, remember that in the final TOS episode, Janice Lester was once in line to become a starship commander. She didn't fail because she was a woman, she failed because she was mentally unstable. Not to mention there was always the famous Romulan commander. Tough as nails, but undeniably a woman. So latter-day Trek isn't as progressive as you think.
-------------------- Never give up. Never surrender.
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"Esperanto is a silly contrivance that will never replace English as the true international language. You can't impose a language on people. It doesn't work."
French was imposed on the English, and now we're stuck with words like "you."
"Sure, it's a hopeless mishmash of grammatical, spelling and pronunciation rules, but nobody said it's perfect, just the best."
quote:Like it or not, English is that language. Nothing is more versatile ... (It's) just the best.
Arrogance. Sorry, but this is pure arrogance. I completely agree that if there is one world language, it's English (even if there are much more Chinese-speaking people). But it's absurd to assume that this is due to the versatility of the English language or whatever. The reason is simply today's political and cultural domination of the U.S. ... In 17th century Europe, culture was dominated by France, so all the educated/rich people spoke French. By the way, it is this arrogance that sometimes bothers me about "americanized" Star Trek.
Registered: May 1999
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Not only is it caused by "US domination" of culture these days, but also because the British Empire was so widespread that English ended up being spoken all the way 'round the globe. Britain, America, Australia, India...
The idea that English is so popular because it's an inherently good language is one of the most absurd things I've heard. English is one of the most difficult languages (if not the most difficult) to learn properly. Even most native speakers don't know how to speak it properly.
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So how about producing a better candidate? Did I say it was easy? No. Did I say it was perfect? No again. Did you give any other reason for badmouthing the language other than your personal feelings? I didn't see any.
ISV is overwhelmingly based on Latin. That immediately knocks all of the native languages of the Pacific Rim out of contention for heavy duty scientific work, unless you like seeing Kanji (for instance) mixed with Roman characters. Perhaps you prefer German. I never really liked the preponderance of long compound words in that language. I've seen entire paragraphs where 90% of the words were 12 or more letters long. French, perhaps? Even the French public doesn't like most of the words and phrases being coined by their cultural guardians in their efforts to stop English in its tracks. They find the new lexicography verbose and clumsy.
So where you find arrogance, I find cold, hard reality. You may say even native English speakers can't master the language. I defy you to find any language in the world that is perfectly used by all its speakers. Not even Esperanto can achieve that.
-------------------- Never give up. Never surrender.
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Ok people, when we start to show extreme emotional distress over grammer and language preferences, we're into what I believe psychologists term "seriously wack behavior."
Registered: Mar 1999
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'Battlefield Earth' animated series? Isn't that a sign of the apocalypse or something? Chow Yun Fat doing English voice overs? Isn't that the sign of something really bad?
-------------------- "Nah. The 9th chevron is for changing the ringtone from "grindy-grindy chonk-chonk" to the theme tune to dallas." -Reverend42
Registered: Sep 2000
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Chow Yun Fat isn't doing the English voiceovers. The show is being made in Hong Kong, as anime, and he's doing the voice of Terl there. I don't recall who is doing the English dubs. Somebody not nearly as famous, I guess.
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Did you give any other reason for badmouthing the language other than your personal feelings? ... Perhaps you prefer German.
No, you got me wrong. I neither want German to become a world language, nor French, nor Esperanto, nor Klingon. I like English, and I know about and accept its status as a lingua franca. I do not have any resentments about any language. I just wanted to express that it's arrogant to say that English was the most versatile -- whatever -- language. In lots of African countries, people speak French or English, but not because they realised those languages are better than their mother tongues, but because they were occupied by the French/English.
Registered: May 1999
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