New language

[jch2103]

Esperanto? 

[Richard]

Esperanto? 

Currently, Esperanto is seen by many of its speakers as an alternative or addition to the growing use of English throughout the world, offering a language that is easier to learn than English.

What L. L. Zamenhof had in mind was very similar to my goal but he used words from European languages. I would prefer all new words based on mathematics. In ancient Greek and Hebrew all letters had a numerical value. My choice would be to use existing characters from several languages to create a much larger alphabet then assign a numerical value to each. The numerical sum of words would be added, subtracted, multiplied, or divided by the numerical sum of another word to create a new word. As an example: stud/mare = foal.

[joel23]

Ahhhhh, are these English-speaking people happy, I think, they even do not know (mostly), how lucky they are! 

I may be lucky that English has become something of a common language around the world but that does not mean that I am happy with the situation.

I can imagine We Germans (in a certain age) are known for our bad English and it must sometimes be horrible to read our posts. I believe all other European countries are better with English than Germans are, except maybe our French neighbors
Scherz beiseite.

I know what you mean - what really is bad, is that non native speakers may get irritated reading "your" when "you're" is meant of when some always uses " 's ", her's, his's, our's, their's or "its mine".  ARGH.
In the past I of course first thought it's me being wrong and reading this wrong English - written by native speakers - does not help much. But it's the same for us Germans, when someone e.g. use "als wie" (as|than - how|such|like) together. "Er ist grösser als wie ich" "He is taller as like me" or "He is taller how than me" Also very common gets using "Standart" instead of "Standard".

But  I am still not sure if it has to be "Bridges cache", "Bridges' cache" or "Bridge its cache" Maybe you like to help here.

In my opinion English is a hard language to learn.

Nah, nothing compared to German or try Tagalog (Filipino) - they have whole paragraph(s?) without a single "e":
Ang Boracay ay ang pinakamagandang isla sa buong mundo", meaning "Boracay is the most beautiful island in the whole world". Yes, it is! But the language...

ps
you might move this thread to OT, since Mario reopened the original bug report (same subject), this thread is not needed anymore in its original context.
UPPS, while writing this thread was splitted but I almost posted it in the original thread.
pps
found it

[Richard]

But  I am still not sure if it has to be "Bridges cache", "Bridges' cache" or "Bridge its cache" Maybe you like to help here.

Hi Jörg,

I would be glad to help if I was sure of what you are trying to convey with "Bridges". A bridge "spans" a river so I will assume that "Bridges cache" is used to mean that something spans the cache. "Bridges' cache" would be like saying the cache belongs to some bridges. "Bridge its cache" makes no sense as written. A dog eats its food. "Its" refers back to "dog", not to eats.

[joel23]

But  I am still not sure if it has to be "Bridges cache", "Bridges' cache" or "Bridge its cache" Maybe you like to help here.

Hi Jörg,

I would be glad to help if I was sure of what you are trying to convey with "Bridges". A bridge "spans" a river so I will assume that "Bridges cache" is used to mean that something spans the cache. "Bridges' cache" would be like saying the cache belongs to some bridges. "Bridge its cache" makes no sense as written. A dog eats its food. "Its" refers back to "dog", not to eats.

Hi again Richard.
Okay, I meant the cache of the software named "Bridge" - otherwise I would have written "bridge" in lowercase. So it must be Bridges' or Bridge' cache? Or how to point to IMatch its cache?
Thanks!

[Richard]

We Germans (in a certain age) are known for our bad English and it must sometimes be horrible to read our posts.

In 1961 I was buying something in a store in Germany. The cashier apologized for not speaking better English. My response was "This is Germany and it is I who should apologize for not being better at speaking German." Back then I could speak some German but not write in German.

I have many years of practice reading person's attempts at writing English and it is not just from Germans. I am actually honored that they make the attempt.

[Richard]

Okay, I meant the cache of the software named "Bridge" - otherwise I would have written "bridge" in lowercase. So it must be Bridges' or Bridge' cache? Or how to point to IMatch its cache?

I should have caught the fact that "Bridge" was capitalized and thus a proper noun. Bridge's cache or IMatch's cache would mean the cache belonging to Bridge or IMatch.

[Ferdinand]

I am very tolerant of English spoken and especially written by a non-native speaker.  I know how hard it is to communicate in another language that you're only partially fluent in.  I admire the efforts of the non-native speakers in this forum.

I am a lot less tolerant of poor English spelling and grammar by native English speakers.

[joel23]

Okay, I meant the cache of the software named "Bridge" - otherwise I would have written "bridge" in lowercase. So it must be Bridges' or Bridge' cache? Or how to point to IMatch its cache?

I should have caught the fact that "Bridge" was capitalized and thus a proper noun. Bridge's cache or IMatch's cache would mean the cache belonging to Bridge or IMatch.

Ah okay, I see. Thanks a lot. Hope I got it now.
btw: you mentioned being in Germany in 1961. If you don't mind asking me: what have you been doing here, Army or traveling? And if being in the Army, where was it?
Good night.

[Richard]

I will add that a name that ends in s would show possessive when ' is added after the s. As in: Lloyd Bridges' dog.

While in the Army I was stationed in Ludwigsburg, Mannheim, and Giessen.

[Mario]

I think, for the future, the language 'spoken' on the Internet will be the language spoken (even as a secondary language) by most world citizens. According to this statistic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_used_on_the_Internet

it will be either English, or Chinese...

[sinus]

I am very tolerant of English spoken and especially written by a non-native speaker.  I know how hard it is to communicate in another language that you're only partially fluent in.  I admire the efforts of the non-native speakers in this forum.

I am a lot less tolerant of poor English spelling and grammar by native English speakers.

And, from my point of view, it is also a difference, if I write some "normal" conversation in English, I mean, like a conversation, what for example two mens does, if they meet on the street.

"Hey man, how are you?"
"Fine, and you, got some beers?"
"Not yet, but later ... oh, look, what the heck, look at this wunderful woman!"
"Phew, really great ...."
"Should we go and ask her ..."
"Too late, look, an old chap seems to know her ... well, what about having a beer?"
"Oh, a good idea, maybe it will be raining anyway, so let's go to this bar there."
"Fine, hey, did you look yesterday the football-game, Chelsea against Bayern, was great, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, cool goal, but this stupid referee, so stupid..."
"Yep, but the penalty was a real one, wasn't it and this Drogba ... uh, no, I mean Lampard..."
"Hey man, Lampard is playing for Manchester City, wait, or New York City ... hmmm, these changings always..."
"Yes, and what a money they earn, not more normal, a man like me works for that money, what such a player earns in a week, I work for that surely 500 years, tsss..."
"Right man, unbelievable ... brrr, ok, let's have a beer, that's the best we can do!"
"Yep, hey, look, boah, these legs ... hmm, too late, ok, let's have a beer!"

But if it is in some cases, like here in/on (grrrr, what is correct? such things I have always to think, aside of spelling correct) the forum, where we should be very precise, it is sometimes really hard to understand and to write.

But finally I am very lucky, I can speak with people from England, America, Australia, Sweden, India and so on, even of course not perfect (I doubt, that someone can speak perfectly anyway), even very poor, but I can say and understand and have a conversation.

Finally this is a real good thing. Some years ago, say 30-40, the English language was not that popular like it is nowadays, and this is very good. Better a language like English, what might be not very good to lern, then a "perfect" language, but this is not popular. Hence I would prefere, that English will be even more popular that it is now.

BTW: Richard, we here in Switzerland say, lerning English is much easier then lerning French or Italian. And of course, a lot of English music and nowadays the Internet does help this meaning. And in a way, it is a kind of "be in" to speak English.

[Richard]

Better a language like English, what might be not very good to lern, then a "perfect" language, but this is not popular.

If a "perfect" language existed and people all over the world used it, it would not last. It seems to be human nature to bastardize words. Record a person speaking this "perfect" language today. In 5014 a person could listen to that recording and have no clue what was being said. Something like: "the sons of Issac" would become "Issac's sons" then Issacsons and eventually Saxons.

I doubt that spoken language was invented many different times. Most likely we all descend form common ancestors who spoke one language. If you take the Bible account, all people descend from the seven people on the Ark with Noah and I have no doubt that they all spoke the same language. If you believe that your distant ancestors evolved from monkeys, it would not change the fact the somewhere down the line a language developed that was common to those early humans. Now we have over 100 languages and each one has several dialects.

I have read that linguists have used words common to two or more languages to trace the origins of their common language and their results show that this common language existed just south of the Ararat Mountains. Some names in Japan trace back to ancient Hebrew. Yet the language of Japan has little else in common with the Hebrew language today. Members of the tribe of Judah became known as Jews. What does "Jew" mean today? How many words in the English language are borrowed from another language? A "perfect" language would have the same fate.

[cytochrome]

I think, for the future, the language 'spoken' on the Internet will be the language spoken (even as a secondary language) by most world citizens. According to this statistic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_used_on_the_Internet

it will be either English, or Chinese...

Then for people my age it will be English... For my grandchildren probably something else, maybe Chinese?

The discussion of how good your English should be is interesting. It raises the question of what really is "good English". Here we often read and hear about "Francophonie", there are meetings, discussions etc. When I watch literary programs with authors from Canada, Algeria, Belgium, Congo etc, they are always adamant that French does NOT belong to the french but to the people reading/writing it and that these can do whatever they want out of it. And that the french should be glad and proud that others use and improve their language and make it evolve instead of letting it die out. I agree totally.

So I speak and write English without fear or shame und wenn Ich mit Deutsche schwaetze habe ich auch keine Hemmung...

And I don't intend to learn esperanto, a language without a culture, traditions and dialects is still-born

Francis

[sinus]

So I speak and write English without fear or shame und wenn Ich mit Deutsche schwaetze habe ich auch keine Hemmung...
Francis

cool 

[Gerd]

I think, "learning by doing" is here the magic sentence .. 

When I moved 10 years ago from Germany to the Netherlands, I had to learn Dutch ... Now I can talk with the people ... and sometime it's nice, because they recognize very quick, that I'm a German and then they talk to me in (sometimes a little bit funny) German and I repeat in (sometimes a little bit funny) Dutch ...

A differerent story is writing ...

... but at the end of a day, don't ask me, in which language I was using e.g. Lightroom, or if the foto-book I read, was in English/German or Dutch ...

If I have to learn or have to get experienced with new software, I try to get it in English, because here I can find the most help and support. A challenge are everytime the MS-programs like Windows and Office in different languages, special Excel and Access, where also the function-names are translated into the specific language ...   

But I think, all, what's keeping us (positiv) busy, is keeping us healthy ...