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- Let' try to write in english !
Either native English speaker and writer or not, just do it and let's have fun chatting on any topic but in English 😉
I apologise for the Missing "s" of "let's" in the title, it disappeared mysteriousely...
What's the topic exactly ? English is fine, but you need a theme.
Or I may suggest... must everyone read Mark Twain today ?
Is apodicticity useful in everyday life ?
Can we really live with a fuzzy logic ?
Why is English spreading so fast ?
Are we really obliged to think differently in any other language ?
I don't know about Mark twain but I'm currently looking for a new book to read in English (after 6 volumes of sherlock holmes!)
I think English is spreading fast because it's the language of the internet, of codes and programming languages and of America
And regarding languages, seeing that some abstract concepts only exist in certain tongues I'd say that every language goes with a unique way of thinking - but it sounds foolish to me to separate language and culture in this instance
(and seriously Abderian you're as wordy in English as you are in French! Always a delight to read your lines)
Well, this topic deserves a whole section. Mark Twain, of course, he's probably my favorite non-scifi non-fantasy author. His quotes are deliciously ironic. One example ?
"A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining but wants it back the minute it begins to rain."
My personal favorite : "age is an issue of mind over matter : if you don't mind, it doesn't matter".
English is a kind of "common tongue" nowadays. Global Internet requires it as much as diplomacy or commerce. It doesn't mean that other languages are any less valuable, on the contrary. Just consider that (US) English is simple enough to allow (nearly) everyone to speak it and communicate with the world ;)
As for apodicticity, I confess I had to look it up. I'm reassured : I didn't know what it means in French either ! :)
@Alumine : ty ! But I'm not wordy... I'm prosy ! 😵
About the other topic... Well, for example, English encompasses a very large array of different sublanguages, and you have so many books, so many styles, so many cultures to go on Alumine's idea that I am under the very weird impression that even if a common cliché tends to emphasize a unique, neat, worldwide and business-minded English, there are so many forms, shapes and trends that even our little Frenchie language sounds small and stern, or so dimly lively, or... undead ?! 😨 I always come to learn it from a new perspective, I keep getting new shots and shards and befall unexpected grammar, words, so that the very fabric of this "langague" is sometimes made-up, sometimes phoney, sometimes unreal, sometimes bombastic, sometimes creepy, and it is so ductile that anyone indeed can speak it, meaning here that anyone can invent its own "English". Is it me or is French much more steady ?
@Merlin : Any favourite book by Mark Twain ? And why ?
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. It links two themes I favor : time travel and Arthurian legend, with as usual Twain's witty style.
And of course, the "common tongue" is US English. British, that's a whole other matter... and don't even get me started on local dialects and accents :D
Just went online and downloaded the book for my daily subway time (:
Parisian life sure makes me read a lot!
Just noticing that this thread was inactive. Maybe time to boost it a bit ?
English language is the modern antidot to Babel disruption. Communicate and understand people from all over the world, except perhaps English people themselves, but this is not only a matter of accent 😄
Well, why not with a simple question :
Would you like to promote another international language ? For instance, have you ever learned the sweet and green-flag esperanto ? Do you think that English could be defeated by... Spanish, Chinese or any other real or made-up linguistic system (and I'm not thinking of maths here ^^) ?
/provocative mode on
Esperanto can't work because it's a synthetic language and we're not synthetic people. We need languages with roots, not an artificial construct made of arbitrary bricks from all other languages. We might as well speak in binary ;)
/provocative mode off
I do wonder sometimes if Chinese (Mandarin) isn't going to replace English at some point, if China becomes expansionnist and ends up conquering (buying?) a big part of the world. But even standardized Chinese written in Pinyin is very difficult to learn. English, on the other hand, is simple in comparison, especially International English.
I believe that English is now what Latin used to be in the Middle Ages, or French at the Renaissance courts : a common tongue, that can help most people speak with each other.
But hey... maybe the translation devices are going to become really efficient and then we won't need to learn languages, our phones will translate anything in any language ?
Yes...things are going faster and faster, thanks to the silicium progress : "time flies like an arrow"
But 10 years ago the translation devices didn't make the difference between the right translation and "les mouches du temps aiment une flèche".
Probably they do now.
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