Language and culture relationship
On previous posts about kanji logic, one might have noticed that some discussions end up involving some part of Japanese and/or Chinese culture. And in that aspect, I believe strongly that language is influenced by culture and vice-versa.
That's one reason why I frown when I listen to people who say that the world should speak one language.
So far I've only heard this from American (US) and Japanese people. Maybe the latter case was caused by naivety, but in some cases of the former I can read between the lines "and it should be English" and it pisses me off.
I agree that an international language is useful. And it's usually the language from the most influential group/nation/country around. So, currently it's English mostly because of the US influence throughout the globe. Other languages had that role before, and others may have that role in the future (some say it'll be Chinese).
Still, all those international languages had roles at most as an international second language. Even Esperanto, constructed to become an international language, aimed only at becoming an international second language. I wouldn't believe that it may become the world's only language.
My theory is that even if somehow someone managed to make the whole world speak one language (which I think it's unlikely), culture would exert its influence and start creating ramifications until the language became something different again.
For example, Japan with all its honorifics, politeness and indirect communication. They'd start creating terms to reproduce those characteristics in the new language. Other countries would do the same until the languages were apart again. Maybe that process may have played a role in the development of languages like Spanish and Italian from Latin.
The same person may change slightly his/her behavior when speaking different languages. I already wrote a post about that. And I noticed that I really act a little different when I'm speaking Portuguese, English or Japanese. For example, In Portuguese I'm way less carefree with what I say, while In Japanese I'm humbler. I gesticulate more when talking in Portuguese than in English or Japanese.
My guess is that to obtain a certain level in a language, you also have to assimilate part of its culture. And it becomes attached when you shift to that language. One cannot swear in Japanese like one could do in English. But talk in a low formality level and you may have the same effects... or even stronger according to whom you're talking to. On the other hand, taking informally in Portuguese might give an impression of friendliness.
By looking at the language, it may be possible to get some grasps of the culture behind it. Since Japan cares about hierarchy and seniority, it's no wonder that they have distinct words for "older brother" (兄) and "younger brother" (弟), for example. Also, I've heard that in Japanese the sentence is built as subject-predicate-verb (opposed to the subject-verb-predicate of English, for example) so one would have to wait until the end of the sentence to understand the meaning.
I'm still trying to understand if there's some meaning in some characteristics, though...
In Japanese, why there are so many ways to count things? It depends on what you're counting, so "one" may be 一匹 when counting small animals like puppies; 一人 when it's one person; 一冊 when it's a volume/book...
Some languages like Italian, French or German have more verb conjugations than languages like English or Japanese. Was there any necessity for those languages to strongly define the person (first person singular or second person plural) when speaking?
Different languages have different settings for masculine and feminine words, from articles to genre of words. English allocates all objects as neutral (it), while Portuguese doesn't have neutral, so all words must be either masculine or feminine. In German, some objects are masculine, others feminine and others neutral. In French, there's an article specific for neutral words. In German, there are different articles to use if it's used as subject or predicate...
In the end, my guess is that the only possibility of the "one world one language" madness I said in the beginning would be if "one world one culture" were also enforced at the same time...
Nonsense! But Americans are trying it someway...
That's one reason why I frown when I listen to people who say that the world should speak one language.
So far I've only heard this from American (US) and Japanese people. Maybe the latter case was caused by naivety, but in some cases of the former I can read between the lines "and it should be English" and it pisses me off.
I agree that an international language is useful. And it's usually the language from the most influential group/nation/country around. So, currently it's English mostly because of the US influence throughout the globe. Other languages had that role before, and others may have that role in the future (some say it'll be Chinese).
Still, all those international languages had roles at most as an international second language. Even Esperanto, constructed to become an international language, aimed only at becoming an international second language. I wouldn't believe that it may become the world's only language.
My theory is that even if somehow someone managed to make the whole world speak one language (which I think it's unlikely), culture would exert its influence and start creating ramifications until the language became something different again.
For example, Japan with all its honorifics, politeness and indirect communication. They'd start creating terms to reproduce those characteristics in the new language. Other countries would do the same until the languages were apart again. Maybe that process may have played a role in the development of languages like Spanish and Italian from Latin.
The same person may change slightly his/her behavior when speaking different languages. I already wrote a post about that. And I noticed that I really act a little different when I'm speaking Portuguese, English or Japanese. For example, In Portuguese I'm way less carefree with what I say, while In Japanese I'm humbler. I gesticulate more when talking in Portuguese than in English or Japanese.
My guess is that to obtain a certain level in a language, you also have to assimilate part of its culture. And it becomes attached when you shift to that language. One cannot swear in Japanese like one could do in English. But talk in a low formality level and you may have the same effects... or even stronger according to whom you're talking to. On the other hand, taking informally in Portuguese might give an impression of friendliness.
By looking at the language, it may be possible to get some grasps of the culture behind it. Since Japan cares about hierarchy and seniority, it's no wonder that they have distinct words for "older brother" (兄) and "younger brother" (弟), for example. Also, I've heard that in Japanese the sentence is built as subject-predicate-verb (opposed to the subject-verb-predicate of English, for example) so one would have to wait until the end of the sentence to understand the meaning.
I'm still trying to understand if there's some meaning in some characteristics, though...
In Japanese, why there are so many ways to count things? It depends on what you're counting, so "one" may be 一匹 when counting small animals like puppies; 一人 when it's one person; 一冊 when it's a volume/book...
Some languages like Italian, French or German have more verb conjugations than languages like English or Japanese. Was there any necessity for those languages to strongly define the person (first person singular or second person plural) when speaking?
Different languages have different settings for masculine and feminine words, from articles to genre of words. English allocates all objects as neutral (it), while Portuguese doesn't have neutral, so all words must be either masculine or feminine. In German, some objects are masculine, others feminine and others neutral. In French, there's an article specific for neutral words. In German, there are different articles to use if it's used as subject or predicate...
In the end, my guess is that the only possibility of the "one world one language" madness I said in the beginning would be if "one world one culture" were also enforced at the same time...
Nonsense! But Americans are trying it someway...
2 comments:
pois eh, se o idioma virar um so, depois acaba mudando em cada pais... o proprio idioma de cada pais ja muda... um exemplo interessante que vi na tv outro dia foi o significado (atual) de "sugoi" e "yabai" (no sentido usado atualmente pelos jovens)...
Essa cultura da linguagem é interessante. Cada país tem a sua própria por fatos culturais e históricos por eles vividos. E claro, cada língua evoluiu a partir de uma mais antiga até chegar nas diferenciações que cada país apresenta hoje né? A própria evolução do homem devido à sua necessidade de comunicação evoluiu para isso.
Como você mesmo escreveu, mesmo que tentassem instaurar um único idioma universal, bem provável que com o tempo, cada país e suas regiões alterarão ela. Só ver por exemplo os sotaques no Brasil por ser um país muito grande. Só em Curitiba que é tão perto de Londrina já muda bem até. E o sotaque acho que é só uma das características de mudanças regionais de um mesmo idioma!
Eu não acredito que vá ocorrer essa universalização de um único idioma tão cedo. Mas todas as línguas sempre estão em processos de transição. Só ver as novas regras gramaticais do nosso porutugês que estão sendo mudadas! E é legal mesmo ver essas diferenças culturais linguísticas! =)
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