Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Sunday January 27 2019, @08:50PM   Printer-friendly
from the You-will-be-assimilated dept.

English is currently one of the dominant languages on the planet due to the spread of the US and UK empires in the last century. With the rise of technology English may be made redundant with the advent of automatic language translation.

Just waiting for made up languages to become the norm (e.g. Esperanto), or hyper language learning.

Now ponder, as Douglas Hofstadter did, translating Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky from English into French, German, and Russian (Cyrillic .GIF) or (ASCII transliteration).


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by deimtee on Monday January 28 2019, @04:49AM (2 children)

    by deimtee (3272) on Monday January 28 2019, @04:49AM (#792882) Journal

    Could it be "A History of the World in 6 Glasses" by Tom Standage ?

    I would also recommend "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond as an interesting read.

    --
    If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday January 28 2019, @04:23PM (1 child)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Monday January 28 2019, @04:23PM (#793064) Homepage Journal

    From my army doctor grandfather

    But I’ll never read it as it’s all about how wars are won or lost by public health problems. Consider that not Cortez but smallpox that conquered the Aztecs.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @01:28PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @01:28PM (#793526)

      This is very true. Up until the 19th century the biggest threat to a large army was disease. There are stories about how WW1 and WW2 were so different due to supply lines and better insect repellent soaked cloth.

      In order for an empire to spread it has to win wars.