Full disclosure: I do not love me some English.
English should, however, not take this personally. At least not entirely. I won't lie, it never had a chance with me, because I am so not a fan of languages with silent letters.
To begin with, silent letters are stupid.
They serve no purpose beyond making life harder for people who are trying, for whatever reason, to learn to write and read the language, kind of like those sorority initiations where people have to do things like swallow raw eggs, not wash their hair for a week, and then wearing unflattering clothing and no makeup, walk up to some cute boy and kiss him - all just to get into a sorority whose principal reason for existence is saying catty things about people who are in other sororities - or none at all.
I should make it clear that I am not talking about languages who, in the course of their evolution, have picked up a silent letter or two here and there. Just as a line or scar or two on a face or a hand can be a little badge of history and identity, so can the occasional silent letter become an endearing little feature without which we cannot imagine something - or someone - a "flaw" that actually enhances beauty.
No, I'm talking about languages that are deliberately dedicated to being positively lousy with silent letters all over the place.
All they do is advertise that:
A) The offending language should be pictographic, but the people in charge of that sort of thing either have a shamefully dim view of the intellect of their fellow language speakers,
and/or
B) No one is in charge of that sort of thing because - hello! - it is not now has it ever been a real language, just a sort of ill-planned salad composed of little cubes and julienned snippets of other languages, that, like Ms Beecher Stowe's Topsy, "just growed."
As if the pain in the brain's language center that are silent letters were not injurious enough, English adds the even-more preposterous additional insult of invisible letters.
You sure don't have to count high - or look very far - to find these rotten Easter Eggs - Where, please tell me, is letter "w" found in the word "one?" The "h" in "sure?"
Shall I continue? Or shall you have the goodness to point out just where the "y" is located in "continue?"
After all, my eyes are Authentic Vintage. Maybe I have just been missing it all these years.
That's OK. Don't bother.
Instead, contemplate this gem from some long-suffering victim over at the Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts, of all places:
It's an honest and reasonable assumption, stoutly buttressed by the popularity of the "English Only" movement, based on the premise that not only will its devotees speak no other language, but neither should anyone else - at least, not in their presence - as if other languages were some sort of excretory function appropriate only in the rest room.
But I have a different theory. I see it as the proverbial healthy reaction to an unhealthy situation.
Native English speakers, having most understandably acquired an extremely foul taste in their mouths from that initial mandatory taste of linguistics, want nothing more to do with the nasty stuff.
Having been obliged to learn at least one language (everybody has to speak something), if that one language was English, they would rather have a root canal without novocaine than learn another one, and view protecting other people - especially their own dear children - from such a fate as a matter of common decency.
This is why people who, as infants, learned any language other than - and/or in addition to - English - are much more likely to welcome acquring more, and go through life scampering delightedly up to any and all of them, eager to pet their soft little ears and have a game of romps, embracing languages for the cute and friendly little puppies they are.
Although it may not be a real language (English had no standardized spelling or orthography at all until the 18th century or so, and whether it has any today is debatable - and frequently (and heatedly) debated***, there is a place in this world for pretty much everything, and English is no exception.
It has long been a preferred language for business discussions, and since the inception of the Internet, has established itself virtually overnight as the default universal language for talking about computers and programming.
If, however, one wishes to have a conversation about anything other than computers or money (and many speakers of other languages not only do this frequently but actually enjoy it) - for example, if one wishes to speak of love or philosophy, of beauty or poetry** - even linguistics - Ethnologue offers a sumptuous and staggering smorgasbord of excellent choices!
**
Example: Choose the correct sentence from each of the following pairs:
1.
English should, however, not take this personally. At least not entirely. I won't lie, it never had a chance with me, because I am so not a fan of languages with silent letters.
To begin with, silent letters are stupid.
They serve no purpose beyond making life harder for people who are trying, for whatever reason, to learn to write and read the language, kind of like those sorority initiations where people have to do things like swallow raw eggs, not wash their hair for a week, and then wearing unflattering clothing and no makeup, walk up to some cute boy and kiss him - all just to get into a sorority whose principal reason for existence is saying catty things about people who are in other sororities - or none at all.
I should make it clear that I am not talking about languages who, in the course of their evolution, have picked up a silent letter or two here and there. Just as a line or scar or two on a face or a hand can be a little badge of history and identity, so can the occasional silent letter become an endearing little feature without which we cannot imagine something - or someone - a "flaw" that actually enhances beauty.
No, I'm talking about languages that are deliberately dedicated to being positively lousy with silent letters all over the place.
All they do is advertise that:
A) The offending language should be pictographic, but the people in charge of that sort of thing either have a shamefully dim view of the intellect of their fellow language speakers,
and/or
B) No one is in charge of that sort of thing because - hello! - it is not now has it ever been a real language, just a sort of ill-planned salad composed of little cubes and julienned snippets of other languages, that, like Ms Beecher Stowe's Topsy, "just growed."
As if the pain in the brain's language center that are silent letters were not injurious enough, English adds the even-more preposterous additional insult of invisible letters.
You sure don't have to count high - or look very far - to find these rotten Easter Eggs - Where, please tell me, is letter "w" found in the word "one?" The "h" in "sure?"
Shall I continue? Or shall you have the goodness to point out just where the "y" is located in "continue?"
After all, my eyes are Authentic Vintage. Maybe I have just been missing it all these years.
That's OK. Don't bother.
Instead, contemplate this gem from some long-suffering victim over at the Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts, of all places:
The bewildering tendency of so many "native" English speakers to set such a great store by being monolingual, considering it a virtue and a blessing right up there with having perfect pitch or a natural talent for break-dancing, has long been attributed by the less-linguistically impaired world to rank (and woefully misplaced) snobbery.Perhaps the most incredible achievement of any letter is to be SILENT and INVISIBLE. The following SILENT E’s are INVISIBLE, since they do NOT make the preceding vowel long: have, give, done, gone
It's an honest and reasonable assumption, stoutly buttressed by the popularity of the "English Only" movement, based on the premise that not only will its devotees speak no other language, but neither should anyone else - at least, not in their presence - as if other languages were some sort of excretory function appropriate only in the rest room.
But I have a different theory. I see it as the proverbial healthy reaction to an unhealthy situation.
Native English speakers, having most understandably acquired an extremely foul taste in their mouths from that initial mandatory taste of linguistics, want nothing more to do with the nasty stuff.
Having been obliged to learn at least one language (everybody has to speak something), if that one language was English, they would rather have a root canal without novocaine than learn another one, and view protecting other people - especially their own dear children - from such a fate as a matter of common decency.
This is why people who, as infants, learned any language other than - and/or in addition to - English - are much more likely to welcome acquring more, and go through life scampering delightedly up to any and all of them, eager to pet their soft little ears and have a game of romps, embracing languages for the cute and friendly little puppies they are.
Although it may not be a real language (English had no standardized spelling or orthography at all until the 18th century or so, and whether it has any today is debatable - and frequently (and heatedly) debated***, there is a place in this world for pretty much everything, and English is no exception.
It has long been a preferred language for business discussions, and since the inception of the Internet, has established itself virtually overnight as the default universal language for talking about computers and programming.
If, however, one wishes to have a conversation about anything other than computers or money (and many speakers of other languages not only do this frequently but actually enjoy it) - for example, if one wishes to speak of love or philosophy, of beauty or poetry** - even linguistics - Ethnologue offers a sumptuous and staggering smorgasbord of excellent choices!
**
***If you like stirring up the pot to watch it boil over, next time you are in the presence of two or more English nerds, just toss out a casual question about whether apostrophes can/should ever/must be/absolutely never should be used in plurals:If you have some intuition and a reasonably good ear, you can read English poetry quite well with very little knowledge of metrical theory. This is because there is not, and never has been, any single universally-applied system of English meter. Thus English metrical theory is retrospective fancy icing on the cake. By contrast, Urdu meter is a large part of the cake itself.
Example: Choose the correct sentence from each of the following pairs:
1.
2a) No, seriously. I really admire your mom's unceasing commitment to 80's fashion.
b) Um, the 60s called. They want their black eyeliner wings back.
Feel free to debate this among yourselves, but please remember - violence is never the answer! :devil:a) Binky: I've been looking for a job for weeks now, and all I get are no's.
b) Stinky: You're going to hear a lot of nos before you finally get that yes.