Charts of standings, etc. are pretty handy things to see on a TV screen. Numbers are pretty easy to read in any language! :lol:
What should be the International Olympic Committee's official language policy?
- Thread starter Machjo
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Charts of standings, etc. are pretty handy things to see on a TV screen. Numbers are pretty easy to read in any language! :lol:
I'm not sure what you mean about Chinese being more descriptive. If you mean precise, I actually find Chinese grammar to be even more vague than that of English, and English itself is known as a grammatically imprecise language!
As for Esperanto, it is precise, though I suppose we'd expect that from a planned language. Yet its precision does not come at the expense of ease of learning in the least. I'd learnt it on my own with a self-instruction grammar and a dictionary within no more than about 100 hours. Compare that to the hundreds of hours children spend in school learning English or French as a second language and still can't speak it.
No problem. We can all be wrong at times. There is actually some really good original literature available in Esperanto too, from poetry books to novels, many of them profitably published and distributed worldwide.
For me, it just bewilders the imagination that governments in both English and French Canada spend so much money on teaching English and French as a second language with most children failing to learn it just because it's too difficult, and then having to become politically involved to get everything translated into their language because that's the only way they can access it. All of this while we have a language like Esperanto that any Canadian could learn to fluency at a fraction of the cost (in both time, money, and frustration) that it takes to learn English or French (a number of studies put Esperanto at five to ten times easier to learn than either of our official languages!). And since people could actually learn it successfully, we could all easily accept Esperanto as a compromise. Yet, since it would be a common second language to all, Esperanto interpretors would be a dime a dozen, along with Esperanto teachers.
In fact, since all Canadians would know it as a second language anyway, interpretation would not even be needed at any pan-Canadian event. Everyone could just use their common second language, with English and French being reserved for provincial-level events. And an added bonus is that neither side would feel inferior to the other.
This could save much money at the UN level too, and save lives when we consider that an estimated 15% of plane crashes in the world are cause by simple linguistic miscommunication. 15% might not seem like much bu when lives are at stake, even 1% is a lot.
One Chinese character for an apple, for instance, is very much more descriptive than saying "apple". The couple I know mean red apple and ripe apple, as opposed to just apple. (or something like that. It's been a while since I used them)
Yes, Chinese, like English, is an excellent language for puns and word plays. However, that's also precisely what makes it more vague than many other languages. Just as a native English speaker can sometimes misinterpret the meaning of another native English speaker when punning, so the same can occur with Chinese. Also, you don't want a language full of possible double meanings for aeronautical communication!8O
This is a well-written article on the subject from someone working in the industry:
Misfunctional FAA phraseology
I did say generally. lol Specifically, well, it depends upon the discipline. I find Latin to be more descriptive than other languages when it comes to the classification of forms of life, for instance. Inuits have a variety of terms for "snow" whereas we have only a modest few.
There's just one thing wrong with numbers and charts Countryboy- they are dangerously close to STATISTICS. :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:
Yes, Romance languages are more grammatically precise than most languages.
Though there certainly is a place for punning too. For example, owing to English's vast array of synonyms, homonyms, etc. it's much easier to joke and play with words in English than French. I'm not saying it's not possible with French, but just that you have to search more for the puns. In these senses, I'd say Esperanto is more like French, more grammatically precise, but less rich in synonyms, homonyms etc that can be a useful source of humour in literature, for example. So while English, Chinese and other such languages might be a more effective medium for literature, French, Latin, and Esperanto are more useful for legal, technical, and other such communication where there is no room for ambiguity.
In my opinion I would say that we should stick with the tradition. English and French are the two international languages. They are languages of international art and culture. More people speak english and french (as native or secondary languages) than any other languages in the world according to a study. Having the home nations language(s) is good as an accompanying language but should be last. As french preceeded english in its forth coming into the world, it should be first, english second, and the native language 3rd, as it is today. If we used EVERY language of the UN we would have an olympics that "welcome" would consume the first 15 minutes of the olympics! Just imagine if china hosted them again and wanted the various dialects separate plus the UN languages! I think the way it is now is the most efficient. Many people know english, and if you don't you probably know french (well should, it is the languages of the educated and international business lol).
...though I might be biased because I speak both fluently lol. But oh well...
...though I might be biased because I speak both fluently lol. But oh well...
There are many more Spanish speaking people than French speaking around the world, including Mexico, most of the Caribean, Central America and South America (except Brazil) I believe but not sure that Spanish speaking out number English speaking too.
How about just use the language of the host country and let other countries use their own announcers to tell them what is happening.
I'm surprised somebody hasn't suggested Greek as the ONLY language to use. After all, they started it, right?
There's one poster on here who would probably buy it. Can't remember if his name is ARistotle or Socrates.
I'm not for blind tradition, but tradition followed based on a sound philosophy I can certainly agree with.
Not quite. The UN has 6 official languages. There is not truly authoritative world organization that has ever declared English and French to be the world languages. That's a tad bit ethnocentric, don't you think?
OK, you didn't include the definite article this time, and so I can agree to that. Based on that argument though, then many languages could qualify for the position of official language of the IOC. That's by no means unique to French and English.
What study? According to this (List of languages by number of native speakers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), as for native languages, French ranks 14th and English 3rd most spoken language in the world. And as for non-native languages, then what level of fluency are we talking about? According to the studies I've seen, though bout 25% of the world's population studies English, only about 10%, including native speakers, really speak it well. Hardly an internationally representative language now, is it.
[/quote]Having the home nations language(s) is good as an accompanying language but should be last. As french preceeded english in its forth coming into the world, it should be first, english second, and the native language 3rd, as it is today.[/quote]
That's nice for Canada, and you could have a legitimate argument there. How would you formulate that as a general rule for all Olympic events worldwide?
Again, a legitimate point here.
Again, your ethnocentrism is glowing bright in this sentence. As for how efficient English and French are at international events, that's debatable. But there is no doubt that it's certainly convenient for the less than 20% of the world's population that speak either one.
I speak both fluently too, but that's no excuse to not apply critical thinking skills to the issue just because you would like to maintain the privileged status of former imperial languages in the world. Odd that, considering you have an NDP avatar.