Re: Spanish and Portuguese in Latin America

MARC AND MARK WROTE:

Why is Spanish not so difficult IYO? because of the Latin lexicon?
porque se escribe como se habla? easy pronunciation? I don't think it's
intrinsically easier than English or any other language, do you?
Marc
My own view is that Spanish is much more suited to be the 'world
language' in that it is probably the easiest of the major world
languages to learn. This is unlikely to happen, though. Mark.


Spanish is regular, and of all the world's major languages, I'm told
only Turkish is more regular. This counts for a lot. The spelling
system is consistent and it's pretty much pronounced as its spelled.
For the most part, the phonology is not difficult either (dark-L and
tap-R are difficult for English-speakers). No language's grammar is
'simple', but compared to, say, Russian or English or German, its
grammar requires one to memorize considerably fewer rules.

Italian, so I'm told, is also just as easy to learn. Spanish, however,
has far more native-speakers world-wide.

Esperanto suffers from the enthusiasm of its true-believers. I once
heard it (rather archly) described as 'an Indo-European language in the
Slavic group'.

If a designed language, a 'conlang' (constructed language) is to be
imposed on the world, then one not quite so Euro-centric and even
IE-centric would be considerably more appropriate. Such a language
would lack not merely grammatical gender, but grammatical number as
well. Agent-verb agreement would probably be positional and not
inflectional. It might even dispense with articles. Much of the world
speaks languages without such niceties, and these features are rather
difficult to learn if you have not grown up with them.

Thus. Spanish is the best candidate available among the world's major
languages to be the 'world-language'. English, however, has established
itself, and I don't thing anything is going to change in this regard.

Mark.

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I WRITE:

English is likely to be the basis of an international language, because
of its established position in technology (especially the internet and
computers), science, finance, business and entertainment - all
important areas of international communication. But if this happens, I
doubt that someone who is "communicating" on the Web in even just 20
years from now will recognize the actual language used, as the English
we know today. Already on the web you can see metamorphosis going on,
with the use of Acronyms (per your own IYO = In your Opinion) and
specialized Jargon (Flaming etc). Word forms are being abrev. &
simplified & language becoming shorter & less qualified (elaborated). I
would not be surprised to see some of the changes you are suggesting
(consistent phonology etc) being incorporated into the Web-English
(Webeng or perhaps webing or web-ez) in the future. And from there it
may creep into every day conversational English.

Also, the ease of learning a language that has high regularity may also
be the shortcoming of the language as a medium for broadscope
communications. That regularity may limit the flexibility of the
language to incorporate jargon generated in specialize pursuits (the
source of most new words today). The advantage of the American form of
English is that it is VERY open to vulgarization, evolution and
simplification - imposing few consistent rules. Language changes occur
here more in a process of amalgamation. Americans even seem to delight
in this process, especially the young. English may become the lingua
franca of the world, but its likely to pay a price of deterioration in
the process- losing it special characteristics (its flavor) to
increase it's capability to carry more of the load, and do it
efficiently. (i.e. less keystokes).

Ironically, as English takes on more and more of the world
communications tasks, it is likely that Spanish will make greater
inroads into the USA. It would not surprise me to see us eventually
become truly Bi-lingual here, at least in the southern states. If this
happens, maybe there will some integration of the two language systems,
as well. Especially as Latin America begins to join the Internet
community in greater numbers.

But the real test, in my mind, for an international language, is the
language that is easiest to learn and USE for our Asian brothers (and
sisters). Certainly English is established in the Orient, and this may
be enough for it to continue. On the other hand, I think it's going to
be difficult for any IE language to be established in the Orient. I
can't see English really becoming prevalent in China. Likewise, I
doubt if any Asian language will make inroads outside of its sphere of
direct influence. I still feel that eventually - Machine Translation
will be the way the world comes together. (And should, because it bests
offers the chance for the most people to join the Web, and also
preserve their own languages). Anyway -It will be interesting to see
what happens in the next few decades.

Brent