Re: OT: Off shore call center workers mad at Amer
 

Heh you think having to learn Spanish to get a job is bad? Try having to learn (or at least take as a course) French in order to get into a Canadian university! It's quite similar to Spanish in some respects, such as the masculin/feminin designations attached to most words...really is frustrating to learn! Never have been good with languages...

What we really need is a worldwide language, something that everyone speaks. Unfortunately, everyone would want that to be their language...

Re: OT: Off shore call center workers mad at Amer
 

English is the primary trade language of the world because that's what's used in the USA. English is not at all easy to learn. Many of our words are not pronounced the way that they're spelled, i.e. "though", "of", "neighbor", etc.

There are also myriad exceptions in our grammar. Just try listing the rules of grammar. Examples: How do you express a verb in the past tense? Usually you add an -ed: Climb->climbed, but what about run->ran is->was sleep->slept read->read (not the pronounciation changes)? When do you use "too" and when do you use "to"? Also, consider how changing the accent on a word can change it's meaning. "CONtent" vs. "conTENT"

It's funny that you compare English to Spanish. Spanish is a relatively easy language (at least for English speakers) to learn. Consider that the words are almost always spelled exactly like they sound. Accents are always on the second-to-last syllable unless an accent mark is present. Of course, there are irregular verbs etc., but I believe there are significantly less of them than in English. Messing up the gender of nouns/adjectives may cause confusion, but it won't cause complete loss of meaning. Finally, as far as I know, "spoon" is "cuchara" and "table" is "mesa" or "tabla", depending on which definition of "table" you mean. What are the 100 other translations?

Re: OT: Off shore call center workers mad at Amer
 

English is the primary trade language of the world because Great Britain went on a gigantic colonization spree for a century or two and managed to outdo everyone else at it, and everywhere they went they took their language with them. At its height, the British Empire included the American colonies (which became the USA), India, Australia, huge swaths of Africa, and part of Canada. France got a share of Canada, and Spain took Mexico and maybe some parts of South America, but they never even came close to matching Great Britain.

I think I've seen some statistics that Spanish is actually spoken by more people than English, but English speakers are spread out more, so it's easier for non-speakers to find a translator in more places for English than for anything else.

Re: OT: Off shore call center workers mad at Amer
 

If you believe in exponential economic growth, everyone better be looking for a good crash course in one of the Chinese dialects.

Re: OT: Off shore call center workers mad at Amer
 

What we really need is an artificial language for maximum ease of learning and use.

Don't use anyone's native language, but make a list of the best features and make one.

- Certainly no gender for asexual or non-living things.
- Pronounced the way it is spelled.
- Avoid sounds that major groups of people find hard to distingush.
- Avoid words that sound the same but mean different things.
- Unambiguous grammar.
- Consistent tenses.
- etc...

Perhaps add some single-word paradoxes to cut short the inevitable AI uprisings http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

If you make your tenses very structured, you should even be able to handle time travel tenses without any problems:
"I'm glad that I will have thought of this idea!"

Re: OT: Off shore call center workers mad at Amer
 

Well Spoo I suppose in a sense your right however most people do tend to agree that gender designation for myriad objects that are not even alive is a frustrating and difficult aspect to learn.

I agree with that part entirely because I tried to learn Spanish and the gender designation PLUS the different words to represent the SAME object were frustrating as hell.


But I do agree that we should probobly eventually come up with a universal language that is used for trade and international relations because it would seriously simplify things.

Problem is that whole ONE LANGUAGE thing scares the hell out of most people and rightfully so, because a universal language can lead to a universal government and unfortunately you can't be at all sure that would be a good thing.

Re: OT: Off shore call center workers mad at Amer
 

There sort of is: Esperanto... but the catch is getting enough people to want to learn such a thing that everyone does, and then keeping it "pure" and avoiding the language drift that leads to such things as the word "special" becoming an insult, without getting the chains on advancement that France deals with....

Re: OT: Off shore call center workers mad at Amer
 

I think someone took the time to write down Klingon.


We can all switch to that for this board http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Or for the klingons out there:

joH'a' 'oH wIj DevwI' jIH DIchDaq Hutlh pagh http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: OT: Off shore call center workers mad at Amer
 

Scouting has badges for people who pass a translator test; no specific language list is on the requirements, just that the translator be able to do the test in the appropriet language and have a scorer that is considered fluet (basically, amounts to translating a particular length of text or carrying on a meaningful conversation for a particular length of time).

I've met somone who prominently displayed a "Klingon" translator badge on his shirt.

Kinda scary, really....

Re: OT: Off shore call center workers mad at Amer
 

A nice universal language would help as an intermediary for translations too.

How would it lead to one government anyways? That's silly. Better let the Americans, British and Canadians know.