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I agree, English is not my native language but effectively it has become my main language, same for most people in Europe, at least online.
Only ~38% of Europeans speak English well enough to hold a basic conversation.
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Also this is a great indicator of intelligence, if someone is so dense that he doesn't understand how lucky the world is that English, through confluence of historical events, established itself as The language of science, computers, pop-culture, media and literature, such person is lacking in basic reasoning skills.
Understanding the historical impact of English and actually learning to speak it are two entirely different things.
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That's why we are very lucky that we have English as one dominant language.
People who don't understand this very simple fact are dumbasses.
This has nothing to do with the topic. Sure, English is a very significant and widely-spoken language, but that doesn't mean people should be segregated based on their knowledge of it. The idea of everyone in the world knowing a common language is all well and good, but it's an extremely long-term goal.
If we were to have the proposed English server and international server, we would have the following:
-A server speaking 1 language that only about 21% of the world can speak.
-Another server speaking up to 6,900 other languages for the remaining 79% of the world's population.
Closed Beta/Alpha Tester back after a 10-year hiatus.
Kiwi pets and Spark spam FTW.
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Posted byWhiteBoyon Jan 15, 2012, 1:22:00 PMAlpha Member
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Though a universal language helps, I'm all for diversity and for this game to be available to as many nations possible. That way, one can always have a buddy, no matter what time they log in.
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Posted bypebblerelenaon Jan 15, 2012, 1:24:41 PM
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No. There is no value in learning a different set of symbols and rules to relay the exact same things you already know how to relay....
Yes there is. Math for instance has its own knowledge, so that mathematical communication can be a lot faster. We could do it all in English, but it would be a waste time.
Everything you say isn't wrong. Same with the OP. But you are partially wrong and which is something you have to accept.
I agree to some things you say, yet you tell me I am wrong. How can that be when I partially agree with you and you think you are right? That is a contradiction. So it cannot be true. Hence you are wrong.
It is easier for me to not be wrong as I don't make as bold statements as you (it is easier to say what is, than what is not), which is why I am right in this discussion and you are wrong.
Last edited by Snuffeldjuret on Jan 15, 2012, 5:02:28 PM
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Posted bySnuffeldjureton Jan 15, 2012, 5:01:34 PM
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No. There is no value in learning a different set of symbols and rules to relay the exact same things you already know how to relay....
Yes there is. Math for instance has its own knowledge, so that mathematical communication can be a lot faster. We could do it all in English, but it would be a waste time.
Complete nonsense and analogy failure. Difference from one language to another is not in their capacity to relay something you can't do with any other language, but in banal historically randomly generated set of symbols and its idiosyncratic rules.
This is why when you learn other languages you don't learn anything, you are only forced to waste time because of temporary practicality.
That practicality(of learning other languages) significantly diminishes when you have one dominant language, as English, and would completely disappear if in every country in the world the only secondary language permitted to be learned would be English and no other.
Simple solution for a vast problem. And having hundreds of languages in the world is a vast problem. It impedes and wastes everything.
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Posted bymetamagon Jan 16, 2012, 3:32:37 AMBanned
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Complete nonsense and analogy failure. Difference from one language to another is not in their capacity to relay something you can't do with any other language, but in banal historically randomly generated set of symbols and its idiosyncratic rules.
That's simply not true. There are lots of concepts which can't be expressed exactly in some languages - there's almost always something lost in translation.
Languages aren't just a bijection between words and meanings, they're tied into cultures and ways of thinking, and influence them in turn.
There's a decent body of evidence from research and studies showing that our language actually changes the way we think about things and perceive the world.
If you're actually interested about learning about such things, this is a decent read - here's a brief sample:
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To test whether differences in color language lead to differences in color perception, we compared Russian and English speakers' ability to discriminate shades of blue. In Russian there is no single word that covers all the colors that English speakers call "blue." Russian makes an obligatory distinction between light blue (goluboy) and dark blue (siniy). Does this distinction mean that siniy blues look more different from goluboy blues to Russian speakers? Indeed, the data say yes. Russian speakers are quicker to distinguish two shades of blue that are called by the different names in Russian (i.e., one being siniy and the other being goluboy) than if the two fall into the same category.
For English speakers, all these shades are still designated by the same word, "blue," and there are no comparable differences in reaction time.
Further, the Russian advantage disappears when subjects are asked to perform a verbal interference task (reciting a string of digits) while making color judgments but not when they're asked to perform an equally difficult spatial interference task (keeping a novel visual pattern in memory). The disappearance of the advantage when performing a verbal task shows that language is normally involved in even surprisingly basic perceptual judgments — and that it is language per se that creates this difference in perception between Russian and English speakers.
There's some more interesting stuff in there too, but the general gist is that we have some compelling evidence that the language we speak actually changes the way we think. It's a fascinating field (to me at least).
You can get a more general overview of such things from wikipedia here. But you certainly shouldn't be making claims like the ones you were without at least educating yourself about such topics first.
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That practicality(of learning other languages) significantly diminishes when you have one dominant language, as English, and would completely disappear if in every country in the world the only secondary language permitted to be learned would be English and no other.
First off, you're going to have to qualify how you're judging English to be the "dominant" language - it's not the world's most commonly spoken. It's also generally regarded as a rather tricky language to learn, compared to many others, such as Spanish - which is according to at least some figures more commonly spoken that English, so why aren't you insisting that everyone learn Spanish instead?
Second, do you actually believe that it would be a good thing to place arbitrary restrictions on what people should be allowed to learn? Really? Leaving aside the fact that languages are an intrinsic part of cultures, that is way to thought-police-y for me, and fortunately for many other people, so we'll hopefully never see such horrible things put in practice.
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Simple solution for a vast problem. And having hundreds of languages in the world is a vast problem. It impedes and wastes everything.
No, having multiple languages is vital to maintaining our rich cultural heritage as human beings. Different languages encourage people to have different ways of thinking and of approaching problems, and humanity is all the richer for it.
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Posted byMark_GGGon Jan 16, 2012, 4:18:06 AMGrinding Gear Games
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Complete nonsense and analogy failure. Difference from one language to another is not in their capacity to relay something you can't do with any other language, but in banal historically randomly generated set of symbols and its idiosyncratic rules.
That's simply not true. There are lots of concepts which can't be expressed exactly in some languages - there's almost always something lost in translation.
Languages aren't just a bijection between words and meanings, they're tied into cultures and ways of thinking, and influence them in turn.
There's a decent body of evidence from research and studies showing that our language actually changes the way we think about things and perceive the world.
If you're actually interested about learning about such things, this is a decent read - here's a brief sample:
"
To test whether differences in color language lead to differences in color perception, we compared Russian and English speakers' ability to discriminate shades of blue. In Russian there is no single word that covers all the colors that English speakers call "blue." Russian makes an obligatory distinction between light blue (goluboy) and dark blue (siniy). Does this distinction mean that siniy blues look more different from goluboy blues to Russian speakers? Indeed, the data say yes. Russian speakers are quicker to distinguish two shades of blue that are called by the different names in Russian (i.e., one being siniy and the other being goluboy) than if the two fall into the same category.
For English speakers, all these shades are still designated by the same word, "blue," and there are no comparable differences in reaction time.
Further, the Russian advantage disappears when subjects are asked to perform a verbal interference task (reciting a string of digits) while making color judgments but not when they're asked to perform an equally difficult spatial interference task (keeping a novel visual pattern in memory). The disappearance of the advantage when performing a verbal task shows that language is normally involved in even surprisingly basic perceptual judgments — and that it is language per se that creates this difference in perception between Russian and English speakers.
There's some more interesting stuff in there too, but the general gist is that we have some compelling evidence that the language we speak actually changes the way we think. It's a fascinating field (to me at least).
You can get a more general overview of such things from wikipedia here. But you certainly shouldn't be making claims like the ones you were without at least educating yourself about such topics first.
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That practicality(of learning other languages) significantly diminishes when you have one dominant language, as English, and would completely disappear if in every country in the world the only secondary language permitted to be learned would be English and no other.
First off, you're going to have to qualify how you're judging English to be the "dominant" language - it's not the world's most commonly spoken. It's also generally regarded as a rather tricky language to learn, compared to many others, such as Spanish - which is according to at least some figures more commonly spoken that English, so why aren't you insisting that everyone learn Spanish instead?
Second, do you actually believe that it would be a good thing to place arbitrary restrictions on what people should be allowed to learn? Really? Leaving aside the fact that languages are an intrinsic part of cultures, that is way to thought-police-y for me, and fortunately for many other people, so we'll hopefully never see such horrible things put in practice.
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Simple solution for a vast problem. And having hundreds of languages in the world is a vast problem. It impedes and wastes everything.
No, having multiple languages is vital to maintaining our rich cultural heritage as human beings. Different languages encourage people to have different ways of thinking and of approaching problems, and humanity is all the richer for it.
Very good reasoning Mark - Thumbs up ! The bigger mix the better.
http://www.youtube.com/user/swedishtavern
Around 90h of PoE Content made and spread across Scandinavia. Now invading Europe & US
Enjoy
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Posted bySwedishTavernon Jan 16, 2012, 6:05:11 AM
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No, having multiple languages is vital to maintaining our rich cultural heritage as human beings. Different languages encourage people to have different ways of thinking and of approaching problems, and humanity is all the richer for it.
Why do you place such unexamined importance to "rich cultural heritage"?
Culture is a fluid notion, it constantly emerges from social interactions and it has no inherent value because it is not intentionally constructed through reasoning and science, it is just random idiosyncrasies generated by features of geography, history and economy.
For example:
1. this is inferior culture
2. this is inferior culture
3. this is inferior culture
You get the point? They are inferior because they are not constructed through reasoning and science but nature and history molded them, exploiting the foibles of the semi-rational human ape.
When you strip out all the primitive fluff from any culture you are just left with stuff like cuisine and dress codes. Surely it goes without saying that those things are a welcome variety and therefore in no danger of ever being extinguished.
Culture doesn't enrich anything, science and evidence based reasoning does.
As for why English is a dominant language compared to Spanish it is because it is the language of the first world which produces science, literature and media in such quality and quantity that dwarfs all other.
Which brings me to next point, you say that:
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Languages aren't just a bijection between words and meanings, they're tied into cultures and ways of thinking, and influence them in turn.
There's a decent body of evidence from research and studies showing that our language actually changes the way we think about things and perceive the world.
Very curious, everything that was produced to garner the current state of modern civilization is obviously not even by a smidgen influenced by these differences in any meaningful way.
You are just replicating the same fallacy you did with the "rich cultural heritage", more extra idiosyncratic stuff does not inherent value make.
Last edited by metamag on Jan 16, 2012, 8:36:38 AM
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Posted bymetamagon Jan 16, 2012, 6:27:06 AMBanned
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Can't tell if trolling.
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Posted byMaliceon Jan 16, 2012, 7:29:56 AMAlpha Member
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No, having multiple languages is vital to maintaining our rich cultural heritage as human beings. Different languages encourage people to have different ways of thinking and of approaching problems, and humanity is all the richer for it.
Why do you place such unexamined importance to "rich cultural heritage"?
Culture is a fluid notion, it constantly emerges from social interactions and it has no inherent value because it is not intentionally constructed through reasoning and science, it is just random idiosyncrasies generated by features of geography, history and economy.
For example:
1. this is inferior culture
2. this is inferior culture
3. this is inferior culture
You get the point? They are inferior because they are not constructed through reasoning and science but nature and history molded them, exploiting the foibles of the semi-rational human ape.
When you strip out all the primitive fluff from any culture you are just left with stuff like cuisine and dress codes. Surely it goes without saying that those things are a welcome variety and therefore in no danger of ever being extinguished.
Culture doesn't enrich anything, science and evidence based reasoning does.
As for why English is a dominant language compared to Spanish it is because it is the language of the first world which produces science, literature and media in such quality and quantity that dwarfs all other.
Which brings me to next point, you say that:
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Languages aren't just a bijection between words and meanings, they're tied into cultures and ways of thinking, and influence them in turn.
There's a decent body of evidence from research and studies showing that our language actually changes the way we think about things and perceive the world.
Very curious, everything that was produced to garner the current state of modern civilization is obviously not even by a smidgen influenced by these differences in any meaningful way.
You are just replicating the same fallacy you did with the "rich cultural heritage", more extra idiosyncratic stuff does not inherent value make.
Although you make you a semi decent point of your skills towards a certain outlook to your belief, I believe, no disrespects of course, that you fail to measure the problem at hand accurately enough. Unfortunately, the way to which you come across could well have a negative response towards racial discrimination towards other cultures of our very diverse planet we call Earth. Don't get me wrong, I speak natively English, yet I see the importance of different languages world wide.
Let us take Star Wars or perhaps Star Trek for examples, if the entire idea behind those two legends were based upon a single spoken language, lores or varying degree's would be completely different if not destroyed. A new language altogether was spawned from Star Trek and folks even today go out of their way to learn.
When I was in school, back slang was created for the elitist kids who communicated a entirely new language and spoke it on any given day, I was never one of those elite kids so I sat there most the time feeling out of place. *Bring on the self pity*.
I have always had a soft spot for how the Japanese written language looks, symbols which are so unique to the globe and very difficult to learn I am lead to believe. My final point to this conversation and most likely one which is controversial, English was not the first spoken language on the planet, in fact the English language *especially from the UK*, is overly complicated in its own right, a left off from when Latin dominated things. *I can most likely be corrected here somewhat, yet the whole idea is based around fact* **Dig**
Oh, the final point after my final point, I enjoy playing with different cultures online, solving a problem for someone who does not speak or write a word of English is incredibly satisfying.
Just a thought of course..
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Posted byUyresoulon Jan 16, 2012, 7:37:59 AM
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metamag, I just replied to what you said. If I don't make sense to you with that comment, you don't make sense to yourself.
Time to get out of here, let's not waste more of Mark's time! =)
But first: What about a system that automatically detects if you are speaking non-English? If German for instance, the game puts you in the German chat. If I speak Swedish the game detects it and puts me in the Swedish chat, and so on. And if I choose to speak English I won't be tossed out of the English chat room or what to call it.
Many times I prefer to speak to swedes in Swedish, as I find the possibility to build a relationship more probable that I can "capitalize" on. I generally only get to know other Europeans in smaller games (like HL2 mod Resistance and Liberation, a game peaking at 40 players or so a normal day) or niche communities (like competitive community for a semi-small game, like the HL2 mod Insurgency when it had it's competitive peak in 2009), and I think I am not alone with that attitude. It's all about having enough in common so that the internet friendship will last.
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Posted bySnuffeldjureton Jan 16, 2012, 9:15:31 AM
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