Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Languages of the World, Divide! You have Everything To Lose Including Your Words.
Through one entry on Murky.org, I came across a table listing the world's most common languages (confusingly, the blogger on the site came across this listing on another website). Here're the twenty most common languages (yes, there ARE so many languages in the world):
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1. Chinese [ 885, 000, 000 speakers ]
2. English [ 450, 000, 000 speakers ]
3. Spanish [ 266, 000, 000 speakers ]
4. Hindi [ 182, 000, 000 speakers ]
5. Portuguese [ 175, 000, 000 speakers ]
6. Bengali [ 168, 000, 000 speakers ]
7. Russian [ 160, 000, 000 speakers ]
8. Japanese [ 126, 000, 000 speakers ]
9. French [ 122, 000, 000 speakers ]
10. German (Standard) [ 118, 000, 000 speakers ]
11. Chinese (Wu dialect) [ 77, 175, 000 speakers ]
12. Javanese (Indonesian) [ 75, 500, 800 speakers ]
13. Korean [ 72, 000, 000 speakers ]
14. Telugu [ 69, 000, 000 speakers ]
15. Chinese (Yue dialect) [ 64, 000, 000 speakers ]
16. Marathi [ 61, 000, 000 speakers ]
17. Tamil [ 59, 000, 000 speakers ]
18. Vietnamese [ 59, 000, 000 speakers ]
19. Turkish [ 56, 000, 000 speakers ]
20. Urdu [ 51, 260, 000 speakers ]
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A surprise! French doesn't appear as high on the chart as I expected. In fact, it ranks ninth on the list and is less common than Russian, Bengali, or Japanese are (we would expect these to rank lower since they are usually more contained within a country).
Oops, I contradict myself. Russia is a large place and having a large number of speakers is something that is logical. If you look the population of China and the ranking of China in this list, you'll realise that the extent of a language is, although dependent on a few factors, mainly related to the size of the native country.
Looking at English, I realised that not only does the size of a country affect the number of speakers - the influence of a country or countries is also vital. The difference between English and Chinese is that English speakers are spread throughout the world while Chinese speakers are concentrated in the large population of people residing in China. English is the official language of the United Kingdom and the United States; these two countries exert a large influence over the world - UK, historically, and US, economically. The British Empire encompassed numerous regions in Asia and practically the whole of India, resulting in many of these countries adopting English as an official language (look at Singapore today, and Hong Kong before she was returned to China). Even in India where numerous Indian languages (Aryan and Dravidian) are abundant, English remains as one of the lingua francas linking the people together.
In an egg fight, the one mediating between the parties must first be hit by eggs from different sides first. As such, the attempt by English to serve as a peacemaker and link between these languages must sustain the repeated attacks and slips of the tongue by the people who are getting used to it, resulting in numerous accents, registers, pidgins, creoles and even dialects of English. In the extreme cases, a hybrid language results (such as Singlish) and the original lingua franca is no longer recognisable, save for the presence of a few English words.
I think studying the English serving as a lingua franca in multi-racial and multi-cultural societies is a pretty interesting thing to do; just look at the article on Singlish, Hong Kong English and Indian English on http://www.wikipedia.com/ - it's always amazing how scholars and linguists can take apart pidgins like these and analyse them, even managing to link certain unique features of each pidgin to the languages involved in the mutation-cum-synthesis process.
Apart from English, German is (in my opinion) another language which has undergone various changes and mutations (I mean this word in a technical manner) depending on the region it is spoken in and the proximity of the region to other regions speaking other languages. Take Swiss German for example. I had a senior who was Swiss German and told me how in Swiss German, Eng. "bicycle" translates to "Velo", which is actually French, instead of the Standard German (or Hochdeutsch as it is termed in German) "Fahrrad". This is probably due to the fact that in Switzerland, the official languages are French, German AND Italian - they will interact and mix without fail.
On the other hand, I may simply be thinking too much. What if the differing dialects of German are not mutated FROM German but are rather siblings to German just as French is to Spanish?
In other words, Low German is different from Standard German not because they evolved from each other but rather developed differently, i.e. not father and son but rather brothers.
Perhaps I am simply thinking too much, but perhaps all languages are really one and the same; just different fingers from the same hand; different brothers from the same father.
================================================
1. Chinese [ 885, 000, 000 speakers ]
2. English [ 450, 000, 000 speakers ]
3. Spanish [ 266, 000, 000 speakers ]
4. Hindi [ 182, 000, 000 speakers ]
5. Portuguese [ 175, 000, 000 speakers ]
6. Bengali [ 168, 000, 000 speakers ]
7. Russian [ 160, 000, 000 speakers ]
8. Japanese [ 126, 000, 000 speakers ]
9. French [ 122, 000, 000 speakers ]
10. German (Standard) [ 118, 000, 000 speakers ]
11. Chinese (Wu dialect) [ 77, 175, 000 speakers ]
12. Javanese (Indonesian) [ 75, 500, 800 speakers ]
13. Korean [ 72, 000, 000 speakers ]
14. Telugu [ 69, 000, 000 speakers ]
15. Chinese (Yue dialect) [ 64, 000, 000 speakers ]
16. Marathi [ 61, 000, 000 speakers ]
17. Tamil [ 59, 000, 000 speakers ]
18. Vietnamese [ 59, 000, 000 speakers ]
19. Turkish [ 56, 000, 000 speakers ]
20. Urdu [ 51, 260, 000 speakers ]
================================================
A surprise! French doesn't appear as high on the chart as I expected. In fact, it ranks ninth on the list and is less common than Russian, Bengali, or Japanese are (we would expect these to rank lower since they are usually more contained within a country).
Oops, I contradict myself. Russia is a large place and having a large number of speakers is something that is logical. If you look the population of China and the ranking of China in this list, you'll realise that the extent of a language is, although dependent on a few factors, mainly related to the size of the native country.
Looking at English, I realised that not only does the size of a country affect the number of speakers - the influence of a country or countries is also vital. The difference between English and Chinese is that English speakers are spread throughout the world while Chinese speakers are concentrated in the large population of people residing in China. English is the official language of the United Kingdom and the United States; these two countries exert a large influence over the world - UK, historically, and US, economically. The British Empire encompassed numerous regions in Asia and practically the whole of India, resulting in many of these countries adopting English as an official language (look at Singapore today, and Hong Kong before she was returned to China). Even in India where numerous Indian languages (Aryan and Dravidian) are abundant, English remains as one of the lingua francas linking the people together.
In an egg fight, the one mediating between the parties must first be hit by eggs from different sides first. As such, the attempt by English to serve as a peacemaker and link between these languages must sustain the repeated attacks and slips of the tongue by the people who are getting used to it, resulting in numerous accents, registers, pidgins, creoles and even dialects of English. In the extreme cases, a hybrid language results (such as Singlish) and the original lingua franca is no longer recognisable, save for the presence of a few English words.
I think studying the English serving as a lingua franca in multi-racial and multi-cultural societies is a pretty interesting thing to do; just look at the article on Singlish, Hong Kong English and Indian English on http://www.wikipedia.com/ - it's always amazing how scholars and linguists can take apart pidgins like these and analyse them, even managing to link certain unique features of each pidgin to the languages involved in the mutation-cum-synthesis process.
Apart from English, German is (in my opinion) another language which has undergone various changes and mutations (I mean this word in a technical manner) depending on the region it is spoken in and the proximity of the region to other regions speaking other languages. Take Swiss German for example. I had a senior who was Swiss German and told me how in Swiss German, Eng. "bicycle" translates to "Velo", which is actually French, instead of the Standard German (or Hochdeutsch as it is termed in German) "Fahrrad". This is probably due to the fact that in Switzerland, the official languages are French, German AND Italian - they will interact and mix without fail.
On the other hand, I may simply be thinking too much. What if the differing dialects of German are not mutated FROM German but are rather siblings to German just as French is to Spanish?
In other words, Low German is different from Standard German not because they evolved from each other but rather developed differently, i.e. not father and son but rather brothers.
Perhaps I am simply thinking too much, but perhaps all languages are really one and the same; just different fingers from the same hand; different brothers from the same father.
Monday, July 18, 2005
An Opening Post.
It's a first post - I declare "I Speak Dead Languages" ( or "Ispedela" for short, or "ISDL" if you prefer) open!
It's a blog where I post my musings on languages and related subjects - a boring thing to most, but something to me =]
Nothing to muse on yet for now, I need to get on a conference call with Des and Cas =]
It's a blog where I post my musings on languages and related subjects - a boring thing to most, but something to me =]
Nothing to muse on yet for now, I need to get on a conference call with Des and Cas =]
