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		OT: How Lingual Are We Collectively? posted on 03/25/2005 3:40 PM by puregrace	[Top] [Show Index] [Reply to this post]
	all of us total, how many languages do you think we can cover? i mean, in terms of what we speak fluently. just a curious little experiment, please add to the list! (ps. is is true that the average person is only capable of learning 7 languages fluently? i don't remember where i heard that...) *English (duh) *Korean *French/Italian (ok, i know i said fluent. i put these together because i'm about half fluent in each heh) and uh... the language of music notation, if you'd consider that a language =) Next! [Reply]

		Re: OT: How Lingual Are We Collectively? posted on 03/25/2005 4:31 PM by mars22	[Top] [Show Index] [Reply to this post]
	american/bad american english and american are two seperate languedges like mexican and spanish [Reply] [Parent]

		Re: OT: How Cuni-Lingual Are We Collectively? posted on 03/25/2005 6:14 PM by mekanikalmekka	[Top] [Show Index] [Reply to this post]
	Used to be fully fluent in a few, but a long stint here in the US has dulled my brain to the extent where I'd need some several weeks re-immersion selectively to recall - but, for the record; Arabic, German, Norwegian, Swiss, Austrian (these two are German dialects but unique in many areas) and "classical" English (that's NOT Ebonics OR MTV as I like to call it) as my native tongue. I also have a rough knowledge of Japanese (15 years rusty), Chamoru, French and a smattering of Russian :) Don't forget the language of "love". [Reply] [Parent]

		Re: OT: How Cuni-Lingual Are We Collectively? posted on 03/25/2005 6:29 PM by filton	[Top] [Show Index] [Reply to this post]
	im fluent in french and english. [Reply] [Parent]

		Re: OT: How Cuni-Lingual Are We Collectively? posted on 03/25/2005 6:32 PM by mekanikalmekka	[Top] [Show Index] [Reply to this post]
	What about math? [Reply] [Parent]

		Re: OT: How Cuni-Lingual Are We Collectively? posted on 03/25/2005 6:41 PM by filton	[Top] [Show Index] [Reply to this post]
	i would count math .it is universal. [Reply] [Parent]

		Re: OT: How Cuni-Lingual Are We Collectively? posted on 03/25/2005 7:26 PM by puregrace	[Top] [Show Index] [Reply to this post]
	what chamoru? and haha i like that, the language of love. and yes, i think math would definitely be a yes if we're also counting music notation. [Reply] [Parent]

		Re: OT: How Cuni-Lingual Are We Collectively? posted on 03/25/2005 11:27 PM by eldras	[Top] [Show Index] [Reply to this post]
	Hi! ...loads and then some. I've got a few languages of my own I used for programming short cuts. i know Chomsky's work on inate language was discredited drat... missed hearing himspeak in london recently,but it sound pretty interesting. it's certainly a determinist arguement. That there's a base language matrix that all humans access culturally diffferently as they mature. i believed differently, and the first draft of the British Engineered Signalling Service architecture was all language based, like Cyc is/was. It's really tempting and difficlut to disprove in my view, to assert that the cosmos is language based. it certainly seems that way. newton's assertion that everything is compsed of number shape and size etc and plato's that everything is number, means that every calculation done is a form of language (which maths certainly is). I call language 'trade'...as a courtesy to Information Theory (which is the most dumb subjective lunacy ever accepted in science!)...although I replace it in my own calculations with data theory which is imoperical...ie weighting each peivce of compexity as data, and so library-ing it. language is...what? 1. Statement of data. 2. request for statement of data. and both are data. Language HAS rules or it cant make any subjective sense. It has to have a projecter and and receiver (inputter/outputter) I suspect it also has perfect algorithms (surely the best one ever was the darwin finch algorithm that helped the eccentric recluse establish the theory of evolution...Origin of Species' 1859). language is a yes/no flow chart, I'm reasonably certain, driven by a very few, simple base urges. We are built on goals to satisfy survival and reproduction for which we co-operate by filing knowledge as meories, which we then modify as learning. Language too works like this ....memetically of course..... not genetically....but it is NOt random. In fact I doubt anything can ever be random (Von Neumann suggested this yonks ago on his screaming death bed...no man in history has died so badly!). Languahe is not random..No...sirrrr! It is driven by clearly observable goals. REQUESTS for survival and reproduction information, and STATEMENTS of survival and reproduction information. And language is algorithmic, like a game of table tennis with the ball gaetting bigger and bigger as it's hit to and froth over the net. Longer and longer strings. There are huge numbers of TREES etc but it's still really simple. That's why we can build pretty simply, smart A.I.'s based on parsing and natural language. Well that's my 1/2pence worth on it. Ta Salutant! ELDRAS [Reply] [Parent]

		So-called "Swiss" &"Austrian" dialects posted on 03/26/2005 6:57 AM by Redakteur	[Top] [Show Index] [Reply to this post]
	Used to be fully fluent in a few [...] but, for the record; Arabic, German, Norwegian, Swiss, Austrian (these two are German dialects but unique in many areas) and "classical" English... The above statement is vague and misleading. Some clarification is in order. Switzerland has four official languages ("Amtssprachen"): French, German, Italian, and Rhaeto-Romansh (which is a rare Romance language). To say that one speaks "Swiss" would be as imprecise and misleading as saying that you spoke "Belgian" or "Canadian" when, in fact, you meant "Flemish" or "French." The proper term would be "Swiss-German" (German: "Schwiezer Düütsch" - I hope that these Umlauts are legible). Schwiezer Düütsch and Swabian, etc. comprise "Alemannic." "Alemannic" plus Bavero-Austrian constitute "Oberdeutsch." (I freely confess the the above is likewise an oversimplification, but due to space constraints, I'll leave it at that.) In actual fact, the variants of (spoken) Alemannic are so numerous and divergent that the inhabitants of one remote alpine valley will often have considerable difficulty understanding the inhabitants of another. I have lived more than half of my life studying and working in a Swabian-speaking region, but would not claim that I "spoke Swabian." I UNDERSTAND Swabians (when they don't lapse into one of the aforementioned obscure variants), and my Hochdeutsch reflects the fact that I live in this region, but it would be frankly ridiculous to aver that I was fluent in it - nor should anyone who didn't spend his formative years in the given linguistic region and/or devote intense years of study to it. [Reply] [Parent]

		YUP posted on 03/26/2005 9:07 AM by mekanikalmekka	[Top] [Show Index] [Reply to this post]
	what chamoru? puregrace: Chamoru or Chamorro is a language native to the Marianas Islands in the Pacific. It's roots are probably Malay/Indo-Malay since the first people probably arrived over 3500 years ago - rough guestimate. Since the Spanish invasion of cultures in the Pacific, Chamoru has become more Spanish than its original form, probably due to the fact that the Spanish killed off most of the men once the Jesuits got a foothold in the region. When the Americans occupied the island (and still do), they (Admiral as governor) at first banned the use of the native language in schools and public (WWII to 1960's roughly) and would beat (spank?) the children if they used their native tongue in school. However, efforts on the part of mainly then mothers (matrilinical society - Spanish missed the mark here) preserved both the language as best as possible and the oral traditions and culture of the peoples until recent changes in US policy have afforded the local gov't to teach both language and history in the public schools. The above statement is vague and misleading. Some clarification is in order. Redakteur: In response to your over-comlplification of things; Swiss-German is what I meant, but in order to make it easier for people to understand I worded it as a German-like dialect. I lived in Zurich (umlats) and went to a top school there as a child as well as Austria and Norway. During each circumstance I lived natively and had to learn very quickly, especially since I had to navigate on my own almost from the moment I arrived in each area. In Norway, I lived on an island called Soroya (umlats also required) and we spoke a dialect different from, say those in the south of Norway and very different from the Laplanders whom also live in Norway and Finland. There were a couple of years that I lived in Greece, but because I was in an English boarding school I didn't have the immersion necessary to osmote although I learned a few choice phrases. I lived in a number of countries in Europe and have traveled to almost every one including the former Soviet-block countries before the fall of the "wall" as well as almost every Middle Eastern country too, from Egypt (I consider it an Arab nation) and Saudi to Afghanistan and Pakistan. I've been to a few African nations and some Asian countries and travelled always "local" like. Language has always been rather easy for me (at least when I was younger :) and I can pick-up by osmosis and immersion better than I can in a classroom. If you wanted to correspond in German, for instance, I would need time to "remember" since it has been long out of use - ich glaube :) I agree with your statements, however, and the use of the word "fluent" might require further definition, because almost no one is fluent in any language - eg; most Americans are certainly NOT fluent in English and most Germans the same and so on. In the US alone, there are different "dialects" - hence my sarcastic mention of Ebonics to show that I didn't take it too seriously. Language is dynamic and evolving by nature and trying to bolster ones academia by defining the multitude of differences even between regions is more suited the classroom than the real world. If one can easily and effectively communicate in a native language as well as read and write the same I would consider this "fluent". However, this is a science blog and it comes as no surprise. You are correct in your assessment. [Reply] [Parent]

		Re: YUP posted on 03/26/2005 9:58 AM by puregrace	[Top] [Show Index] [Reply to this post]
	When the Americans occupied the island (and still do), they (Admiral as governor) at first banned the use of the native language in schools and public (WWII to 1960's roughly) and would beat (spank?) the children if they used their native tongue in school. that sounds familiar... i remember my mother telling me stories of how during the japanese occupation of korea, they banned use of the old korean dialect, and the new modern form we use now is a bastardized blend of old korean, japanese pronunciation and chinese character roots. i also believe during schooling my mother had to learn japanese for roughly 13 years. [Reply] [Parent]

		aspects of fluency posted on 03/26/2005 12:08 PM by Redakteur	[Top] [Show Index] [Reply to this post]
	Dear Mekanikamekka, I apologize if you felt that I was lecturing YOU. What I wrote, I wrote for the benefit of (most of) the other readers who might have taken your less-than-stringently correct labels for "bare Muenze" - for the gospel truth. But I wasn't making it more "complicated" than it is - on the contrary: A linguistic map of the Germanophonic regions of Central Europe, with its riot of isoglosses, would give Rand-McNally nightmares. You are indeed a "rara avis" - a rare bird - in the sense that you did indeed spend some of your formative (critical) years in what amounted to a total-immersion environment in each of the countries you mentioned. Under such conditions, I would be more than willing to concede that you probably acquired almost total (spoken) fluency in the respective languages (despite your qualification - restriction - of having grown "rusty"). I admit that I suspected that you might simply have been "talking out of your hat," i.e. grossly exaggerating your language skills. Especially Americans are liable to lay claim to complete fluency based merely upon having been stationed in Europe, or having studied a language at college, etc. So again, I ask your pardon! I confess that I apply pretty tough standards when it comes to "fluency." I've known e.g. U.S. service brats who attended the German equivalent of junior high school, and who could curse like a fish monger's wife in the broadest Bavarian accent and chatter non-stop without betraying their "Valley Girl" origins. But their written German was atrocious. And they were unable to engage in high-level discourse on abstract topics, although they had acquired advanced degrees at American universities. As someone who seriously began acquiring foreign language skills only as a young adult, and only in formal settings (i.e. classrooms) - at least, until I came to live here - and who thus will never be mistaken for a native speaker, while I obviously envy you your fluency, I nevertheless feel that I possess a unique perspective about how complex language is. Both monolinguists and polyglotts who "absorbed" foreign languages without formal study will TEND to underestimate how difficult it will be to program a computer to understand human speech, generate intelligible, meaningful speech, shift sociolects, or translate from one tongue into another - or they will go to the other extreme and assert that it is completely impossible. Respectfully, Redakteur [Reply] [Parent]

		Re: aspects of fluency posted on 03/26/2005 2:32 PM by puregrace	[Top] [Show Index] [Reply to this post]
	what are your thoughts on language and culture? does one shape the other, or they shaped based on something else? as someone who has studied languages of both germanic and asian roots, (you said you also studied japanese?) how do you think the different cultural views of each society are represented in the way they speak to each other? for example, in the korean language, there is no formal word "you," to address someone as "you" and not by their full title is by its very nature (in this language at least) informal. the words that do exist to express "you" would be considered insubordination if expressed to someone who would merit formal speak (ei elders, teachers, anyone of higher status or age), and they're words you'd use with your younger siblings, your peers, or anyone on an equal or lesser social status. also, "teacher" is used to describe anyone in the realm of medicine, holistic or otherwise, or as a show of respect to the bredth of knowledge they've acquired. i feel other languages have similar built in ways of defining rank. here's a question for you. do you think humor/pun/jokes are universal, or relative to the language that they originate from? do you think ai could eventually be programmed to have a sense of humor? not just repeat jokes that they've been programmed to say, but interpolate conversation and interject puns and irony and sarcasm on a not so surface "why did the chicken cross the road" kind of sense of humor? [Reply] [Parent]

		Re: aspects of fluency posted on 03/27/2005 5:28 PM by grantcc	[Top] [Show Index] [Reply to this post]
	what are your thoughts on language and culture? does one shape the other, or they shaped based on something else? I believe language is part of culture and is most commonly used to express elements of that culture between people of the same culture. Humor displays a deep knowledge of a culture. Here is an example I often use to show how language, thought and culture are deeply entertwined: I was reading a Chinese comic book in which a boulder comes loose from a mountainside, rolls down and crashes into a tree. When it hits the tree, it breaks open and a monkey steps out. A little boy walking by sees this miracle and asks the monkey: "Who are you?" "Su Kong" replied the monkey. "Oh" said the boy, I thought you were Wu Kong." "No," said the monkey, "I'm his older brother." Many Chinese students read this piece and break out laughing. Why? First, they have to be familiar with the story of Monkey -- a character who has magical powers. Next, they have to know that this character, Wu Kong, was released from a boulder to begin his journey. They also have to know that the Chinese way of talking about siblings numbers them in order of birth. Thus, Wu Kong is the fifth born male in his family. Su, representing the number four in Chinese makes Su Kong the elder sibling. So, first of all the listener must be acquainted with the culture and literature of China. He/she must also have some knowledge of Chinese literature. And, finally, the listener must be aware of the use of numbers and names to identify siblings of the same family. I think language begins with a picture or series of pictures in the mind. These pictures form a concept based on a relationship between the pictures that can be recognized as such and put into words to pass that concept to a listener/reader. Without the concept, there is nothing to put into words. Without the words there are few ways to transmit the concept from one person to another. You can make a model, draw a picture, or mime the idea. You can also take the pictures the words another person puts into your mind using language. Therefore I would say that language begins with with a picture. It is assembled in a montage to create a concept. The concept is transmitted by shaping words in a rule-based way to pass the concept from one person to another. And since we don't forget the words after using or hearing them, society builds a library in each mind to grease the process and this, to my mind, is what we call language. We should also take into consideration the fact that we don't all learn and use the same words. We also assign meaning to the order and pauses between words (which come out as punctuation in the written language)and we tie it all into the environment in which the words are being used. A book, for example, is a tool used to transmit spoken words to paper or computer screen but it is also a reference for making a wager -- to make book on something. Anyway, language is, to my mind, a process by which we create and transmit references to things and situations in our culture. If you don't know the culture, you don't know the language. Parroting words without meaning is something so simple a bird can do it. It takes some depth of knowledge to handle humor in another language. [Reply] [Parent]

		Re: aspects of fluency posted on 03/27/2005 6:43 PM by puregrace	[Top] [Show Index] [Reply to this post]
	beautifull written =) something you said... ah, here it is: I think language begins with a picture or series of pictures in the mind. reminds me of something else i read. i've been interested in autism lately, and thought it was some kind of sign that i and my friends kept coming across autism articles (until of course, we found out that it was National Autism Awareness month heh) but anyway. one of the articles feature a woman (her name escapes me at the moment) who had a hand in the cattle industry. she would go and redsesign platforms and entire structures based on how she percieved the cattle were thinking. and then she described how autism made her think, and how she didn't even realize the way she thought was different from how other people think until she was in her mid twenties. but anyway, she described it like this: when she hears a word, she sees a picture. it isn't necessarily always the picture OF the object, just a physical representation/mental association visualized. when she hears a string of words forming a sentance, she sees the picture in her mind changing, each new word adding to the overall "sense" of the view, and that is how she understands what people are saying. another article i read talked about someone who saw color/pitch associations in her mind. like, she would hear Ab and see bright red. certain intervals put a bitter or sweet taste in her mouth. what do you think about autism, and what it might tell us about the capacity of human perception? for a long time, people merely passed them off as dumb or retarded. but it's pretty obvious that people who "suffer" under the spectrum of autism have a heightened perception. i wonder if maybe autism is the next step in evolution. [Reply] [Parent]

		Re: aspects of fluency posted on 03/26/2005 4:31 PM by mekanikalmekka	[Top] [Show Index] [Reply to this post]
	Redakteur: I am, at times, a hard ass, and I also apologize if I came of unabashed. Your observations are well noted and much respected. It is actually a marvelous thing, the divesity we find all around ourselves an yet too often an easy excuse for a lack of common communication. As for puregrace: I am interested in Redakteur's perspective on your comments. Without spending a lot of time on answering with my own thoughts, I will only say for know that many language groups share a common ancestor, yet some regions seem to have an "inherited" understanding and commonality that although not apparent in peoples who never get a chance to speak their native tongue, seems plausible amongst indigenous peoples. I say so because there are some concepts that a Westerner will have extreme difficulty understanding even having spent decades learning and absorbing the culture. This would seem to rule out ONLY cultural bias and somehow include so, as of yet, unknown quantity. Also, many cultural concepts are incoded in the symbolism of the text/writing of certain languages that are equally difficult for the foreignor to decipher and comprehend at the deeper levels - eg; Chinese (Lao Tzu's "Thick Black Theory"). Just a thought. [Reply] [Parent]