Appeal to SJG

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Trivia: the Australian prime minister is the only national leader who rides in the front seat next to the driver.

I heard plans were afoot to make him drive himself, until it dawned on people that this would entail giving a politician control of a device that could cause untold harm to innocent people.

When people wondered how this was different from allowing them control over the military, economy, security services and all the rest of it, a Civil Service spokesman was empathetically not heard remarking that the difference was that in order to control those things, politicians needed to have the approval of the Civil Service.

[pieclone]

Originally Posted by Kromm

...Generally, the languages with the most pull in the world (Mandarin, Hindi-Urdu, Spanish, English, and Arabic) are the ones most tolerant of regional deviation and with the greatest willingness to give a pass on marginal usage...

My first thoughts on seeing the languages you've listed there and before even getting to the rest of the comment was that the relative pull of a language might be due to homogenity of culture, population size, colonial tendencies and/or religious proselytization but on reading the rest of the comment I have to say that it's a really interesting point and not something I've ever actively thought about.

I'd say my initial thoughts weren't wrong so much as putting them in the wrong order. The introduction of a language through colonialism or religious indoctrination (Arab Muslim expansion and the King James Bible for example) only shows when it was introduced and by whom rather than why it is still in use so widely today.

It's an interesting subject so that should take care of the rest of my evening as I scutter off through some books about language...

[Gizensha]

Originally Posted by RyanW

So what you're saying is that, while some people might know several languages, your typical English monoglot knows millions!

*snerks*

It is certainly true that, especially in the case of the various British dialects of English, it is often difficult to discern where a dialect ends and a language begins (The most obvious example of this is that Scots is considered by many to be a language while the Yorkshire Dialect, which when thick enough has about as much and as little similarity to 'standard' english as Scots, is in nobody's, perhaps outside of a few academic circles, considered anything other than a dialect.)

(Do take the above with a grain of salt, it's all iirc a discussion about the Ulster Scots question on the census form, but only in Scotland)

I doubt this would be visible at the GURPS resolution, however, and if it is then I suspect the various dialects/languages of English default to each other so that having Native in one grants Accented (perhaps only for understanding) in the others.

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Yes, which underlines the main thing that has thwarted my use of French. As someone who was lived in two distinct regions of Canada, worked in Canadian and U.S. English, and dealt professionally with every kind of English, I'm so used to filtering English as I hear or read it that I assume that's how the world works: If you get close enough, people will nod, forgive, and understand. Languages with a strong sense of One True Way-ness don't work like that, though, and French is such a language. Those who speak it are quick to dismiss regional usage as créole and treat it like another language, and generally lack the English-speaker's sense of "his word order is a mess, his pronunciation sucks, and his diction is off, but I get what he's saying." This makes it very hard to "bootstrap" oneself from ignorant to passable in the language!

Generally, the languages with the most pull in the world (Mandarin, Hindi-Urdu, Spanish, English, and Arabic) are the ones most tolerant of regional deviation and with the greatest willingness to give a pass on marginal usage. Those with strict central academies rarely have much weight that doesn't date to colonial times. In a strictly utility-based rules set, those five languages I listed would be worth more points; e.g., Spanish is fantastically useful in a modern-day campaign. Meanwhile, speaking more formalized, centralized languages correctly would likely waive Cultural Familiarity in the homelands of said tongues; e.g., if you speak proper académie française French, you'll probably be assumed French.

As someone who has native Spanish fluency, and near-native French and English fluency, allow me to nitpick:

Spanish is quite varied, but we have a Central Academy ("Real Academia de la Lengua Española"), only it's mostly a joke, accepting many strange things and regional variations into the standard, while not accepting or "Spanishizing" words in use (Whiskey in proper Spanish should be spelled "Güisqui", and a CD-ROM should be spelled "Cederon"). Moreover, Spanish, even in Spain, has quite a lot of regional variance, in both speech and style. This is in part due to the presence of regional languages, that are considered to be official languages (Galician, Basque, Catalan/Valencian, Aranese are co-official, and others are recognized). This wikipedia article is quite illustrative of the linguistic chaos that is Spain.

In fact, were it not for the widespread use of Latin American reality shows and cartoon dubs, and for the immigration, we European Spanish speakers would have great trouble understanding Latin American Spanish. Hell, if you look at DVDs, you'll see that most movies have distinct Latin American and Castilian Spanish dubs.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

In fact, were it not for the widespread use of Latin American reality shows and cartoon dubs, and for the immigration, we European Spanish speakers would have great trouble understanding Latin American Spanish. Hell, if you look at DVDs, you'll see that most movies have distinct Latin American and Castilian Spanish dubs.

As a New World denizen, I must admit that I naturally think "Spanish-speaker = Latin American," because with ~375 million native Spanish-speakers in Latin America and a bonus ~45 million in the U.S.A., the ~42 million native Spanish-speakers in Spain constitute a distinct minority (<10%)! This is similar to the lot of Englishmen (~50 million) vis-à-vis native English-speakers (~330 million). Whereas Frenchmen (~65 million) constitute the biggest chunk of native French-speakers (~75 million). Once you toss in non-native speakers and various multilinguals, it gets hard to say much . . . but the case where most of the native speakers of Whatever-ish still live in Whatever-land is unusual for languages of global importance.

I think that's what I was really getting at in my post. When most of the native speakers of Whatever-ish still live in Whatever-land, learning the majority dialect tends to lead people to assume that you come from Whatever-land, giving the effect of Cultural Familiarity. Whereas when native speakers of Whatever-ish are distributed over dozens of countries that collectively dwarf Whatever-land, you no longer get that benefit but you do have a language with far more practical utility unless your adventures always take place in one country.

I didn't think out the formal academy angle very well . . . a central academy isn't the cause of any of this. Rather, the success of a central academy is a test for this. If such an academy exists at all, its success usually depends on the extent to which the country that backs the academy represents the language. If most native speakers don't live there, the academy is a joke; if most native speakers do live there, the academy might well have real influence, as it has the tax backing of the majority of the native speakers.

YMMV. Living in Spain, most of the Spanish-speakers you know are doubtless Spaniards. Living in Canada, the majority of Spanish-speakers I know are Argentines, Bolivians, Chileans, Colombians, Cubans, Ecuadoreans, Guatemalans, Mexicans, Peruvians, and Venezualans. I've met three Spaniards in person here, but at least two of all of the above (and quite a few more Colombians, Cubans, and Mexicans). But the majority of French-speakers I know are Québecois(es), which is also unusual. And Canadian English has the interesting property of being fairly close to both British and U.S. English; the average Canadian can follow media from the U.K. and U.S. better than the average person in the U.S. and U.K., respectively, as well as native media which, jokes aside, are transparent to both groups.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Generally, the languages with the most pull in the world (Mandarin, Hindi-Urdu, Spanish, English, and Arabic) are the ones most tolerant of regional deviation and with the greatest willingness to give a pass on marginal usage. Those with strict central academies rarely have much weight that doesn't date to colonial times. In a strictly utility-based rules set, those five languages I listed would be worth more points; e.g., Spanish is fantastically useful in a modern-day campaign. Meanwhile, speaking more formalized, centralized languages correctly would likely waive Cultural Familiarity in the homelands of said tongues; e.g., if you speak proper académie française French, you'll probably be assumed French.

John McWhorter, a linguist, has a book that maintains this thesis systematically: Language Interrupted. His list isn't exactly the same as yours, but has a lot of overlap with it. His basis thesis is that the natural tendency of a language left to itself is to accumulate legacy grammar and pronunciation, century after century, until they're bafflingly complex; he cites some very specific examples that will make your brain hurt. He regards comparatively easily learned languages like English and Arabic as a tiny minority whose grammar has been ruthlessly simplified through long periods of frequent contact with non-native speakers who can't get the complexities. McWhorter's a pretty lucid and interesting writer generally and I recommend him if you're interested.

The way the world is going now, anyone who can't understand Indian English as easily as British and American is going to be increasingly marginalized in using help lines, tech support, and e-commerce. Not to mention that sheer mass of speakers is tending to make Indian English the dominant dialect.

Bill Stoddard

[dgrm4]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I heard plans were afoot to make him drive himself, until it dawned on people that this would entail giving a politician control of a device that could cause untold harm to innocent people.

When people wondered how this was different from allowing them control over the military, economy, security services and all the rest of it, a Civil Service spokesman was empathetically not heard remarking that the difference was that in order to control those things, politicians needed to have the approval of the Civil Service.

This is actually very true.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by dgrm4

This is actually very true.

Except that she is a woman and the civil service here is called the Public Service.

Are we on topic?

[Lupo]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Generally, the languages with the most pull in the world (Mandarin, Hindi-Urdu, Spanish, English, and Arabic) are the ones most tolerant of regional deviation and with the greatest willingness to give a pass on marginal usage. Those with strict central academies rarely have much weight that doesn't date to colonial times.

This is definitely true, although I am not sure what is the cause and what is the effect.

Italian people are quite unforgiving about Italian usage: if you speak Italian, you are expected to speak it correctly (I am not saying that you will be mistreated if you don't, just that you'll be immediately noticed as a foreigner, and that your mistakes might be noted more than the fact that you bothered to learn Italian in the first place).

I think this is the result, not the cause, of Italian foreign-speakers being rare: we are not very used to hearing foreigners speaking Italian, so we are less accustomed to foreign accents and pronunciations of it.

Even the Italian language of Switzerland (which has very minor differences to standard Italian) is, at least subconsciously, regarded as a "weird" or "wrong" Italian rather than the national language it actually is.

Originally Posted by Brett

Are we on topic?

If you adopt a descriptive, rather than prescriptive, notion of "being on topic", then yes, we are on topic since apparently most of us are talking about the same topic :P

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Lupo

If you adopt a descriptive, rather than prescriptive, notion of "being on topic", then yes, we are on topic since apparently most of us are talking about the same topic :P

That would set an interesting precedent. And by "interesting", of course I mean "deplorable".