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People don't speak one universal language, or even a handful. Instead, today our species collectively speaks over 7,000 distinct languages.
And these languages are not spread randomly across the planet. For example, far more languages are found in tropical regions than in the temperate zones. The tropical island of New Guinea is home to over 900 languages. Russia, 20 times larger, has 105 indigenous languages. Even within the tropics, language diversity varies widely. For example, the 250,000 people who live on Vanuatu's 80 islands speak 110 different languages, but in Bangladesh, a population 600 times greater speaks only 41 languages.
Why is it that humans speak so many languages? And why are they so unevenly spread across the planet? As it turns out, we have few clear answers to these fundamental questions about how humanity communicates.
[...] Language diversity has played a key role in shaping the interactions of human groups and the history of our species, and yet we know surprisingly little about the factors shaping this diversity. We hope other scientists will become as fascinated by the geography of language diversity as our research group is and join us in the search for understanding why humans speak so many languages.
https://theconversation.com/why-do-human-beings-speak-so-many-languages-75434
Would you people care to speculate as to why there are so many languages ?
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Tuesday July 18 2017, @12:40AM (22 children)
Australian, Great Britain, Canadian, and American.
Go ahead, tell me how you speak more! I dare you!
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @12:53AM (2 children)
> Australian, Great Britain, Canadian, and American
Ahem.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Snotnose on Tuesday July 18 2017, @01:08AM
I only claimed I spoke it, not that I knew what it was called.
checkmate, sucker.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday July 18 2017, @06:36PM
That's the American spelling. Similar to aluminum vs aluminium.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @02:01AM (7 children)
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Tuesday July 18 2017, @02:28AM (3 children)
What was that movie, Trainspotting? Heard glowing reviews of it, rented it, couldn't understand a word they said. The sequel came out a year or two back, no desire to see it.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday July 18 2017, @06:07AM (2 children)
I believe The Full Monty was screened in the U.S. with subtitles for those that couldn't follow the Sheffield dialect/accent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @11:16AM
See also:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXuvFtcKHKc [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCroBn6H8k4 [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRk9WQ7ySKg [youtube.com]
On a vaguely related note:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=purple+burglar+alarm [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday July 19 2017, @07:06AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Tuesday July 18 2017, @03:18AM (1 child)
That would be the joke son. You know, that whooshing sound over your head. Think I can speak a decent Australian accent? yeah, about that. Did ya catch my comment on Trainspotters? Again, about that.
I speak English. Specifically, southern california english. You speak New Yawk to me you better speak slow. Let alone the gibberish they speak in Trainspoters.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @04:25PM
What's a "joke son"? Is it some kind of a spawn of a joke? I don't think you know English nearly as well as you claim. (Well, at least not written English.) Yes, knowing how to punctuate is an important part of knowing the language. Proper spelling also helps.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @04:19AM
In some cases yes, I have an easier time understanding what Dutch people are saying than some of the accents of the commonwealth. I remember sometimes having to turn on subtitles to figure out what people on British TV are saying. That's mostly because they don't just have a drastically different accent, but they also use words and idioms that don't exist in American English, which makes it basically impossible to follow until you at least get the words/idioms or the accent down.
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Tuesday July 18 2017, @02:04AM (3 children)
Only one type of American? I speak fluent Southern Redneck, Midwest and Yankee, passable West Coaster, and a heavily-accented AAVE (took me forever to get the hang of the verbs). Plus Londoner and Canucki.
And Church Latin, but that's a whole different story.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @02:37AM (2 children)
It's an emergency! Does anybody here speak Jive?!
(Score: 2) by Webweasel on Tuesday July 18 2017, @12:41PM
You jive turkey. See? You got to sass it. Quit jivin' me, turkey. You got to sass it. A "turkey" is a bad person.
Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday July 18 2017, @03:22PM
And how would someone learn Jive anyway? Is Hooked on Ebonics any good?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @05:07AM (5 children)
A little test: Translate for us
"Visit the Duke"
"Trouble and strife"
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday July 18 2017, @06:14AM (4 children)
Neither of these are phrases I'd ever use myself, but I recognise “Trouble and Strife” as being Cockney slang for “wife”, but “Visit the Duke” is new to me. I have an idge that it's bathroom related, and if it's rhyming slang again then I'll plump for “puke” (vomit). Do I get a prize?
On the topic of speaking Great Britain, I count at least five indigenous languages other than English in the UK.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday July 18 2017, @07:58AM (1 child)
I think visiting the duke means going to your landlord to pay rent.
It seems most of these phrases are extremely regional terms that were used by small groups of teenagers and young adults that ended up being picked up and circulated by clueless script writers that wanted to sound young and relatable to the middle\lower classes back in the early days of popular theater and television.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday July 18 2017, @11:26AM
That's probably where Shakespeare got a lot of his "new" words from.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @10:03AM (1 child)
Indeed.
“Visit the Duke” is new to me.
I'm reminded of the ST:TNG episode where the civilization spoke in metaphors and, if you didn't know the context, you would never figure out WTF they were talking about.
Steve Jones, formerly of The Sex Pistols, has a show on an L.A. radio station where he uses the phrase to mean it's time for a commercial.
RamiK got it right.
(The whole thing is "visit the Duke of Kent".)
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @11:28AM
Same if the alien has a different sort of colour vision trying to explain the different stuff it sees to us. We'll have no words for the subtle shades of infra-red and the wonderful sensation they get when it's mixed with UV-B.
Or trying to explain to a dog what we really want it to detect.
Human: "Here doggie, bark when you smell this sort of urine and not this sort of urine"
Dog: uh what do you want me to tell you about?
"Early stage bladder cancer?"
"Ovulating?"
"Had beef for lunch?"
etc
or some combination of the possibilities e.g. ovulating AND had wine.
So the training process is partly for the dog to figure out what the heck we want the dog to smell from the zillions of detectable combinations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @05:37AM
I also speak mexican, vato loco.