It's interesting because his experiment wouldn't work with everyone. He just accidentally admitted he has an internal monologue. I'm sure he'll get carted off one day.
He makes a point that language shapes our perception and our identity and can limit us, and that we inherit our primary language without our will. I'm sure he doesn't think language is bad on net, but it is a kind of cost that comes with language. My question is then which language is best? According to him what language you have isn't inconsequencial in terms of your life's trajectory.
English and Chinese are currently the fastest growing languages. Are these the best? In the market place of languages do better languages prevail or is there a Gresham's law of language?
The alternate argument is maybe it doesn't matter because his main complaint really was with labels more than language more broadly and most languages have the same labels with different words for them or can adopt them. Maybe it matters just as much what labels a language doesn't have as much as what labels it does have. Maybe as English expands we should be trying to preserve parts of these soon dead languages by grafting in their vocabulary, so we have fewer label blind spots. After all we are all English speakers soon enough.
One of the advantages English has is that it is a much more democratic language. It's already a mutt language. But there is no single correct central authority that decides what is correct English. This is different than Portuguese, Spanish, French, and German which all have a history of state actors making decisions about the use of those languages. What is correct English. It depends on the speaker and listener. So the English spoken in Germany 20 years from now when it is nearly an exclusively English speaking country is as correct as any other English even if they decide to bring a lot of German into it. It is being spoken by English speakers so it is correct. My point is maybe speakers in areas that are being taken over by English should do this intentionally.
If English becomes a language spoken primary by European decedents and is spoken by all Europeans (eventually) then English should be a pan-European language by who has contributed to it.
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It's interesting because his experiment wouldn't work with everyone. He just accidentally admitted he has an internal monologue. I'm sure he'll get carted off one day.
He makes a point that language shapes our perception and our identity and can limit us, and that we inherit our primary language without our will. I'm sure he doesn't think language is bad on net, but it is a kind of cost that comes with language. My question is then which language is best? According to him what language you have isn't inconsequencial in terms of your life's trajectory.
English and Chinese are currently the fastest growing languages. Are these the best? In the market place of languages do better languages prevail or is there a Gresham's law of language?
The alternate argument is maybe it doesn't matter because his main complaint really was with labels more than language more broadly and most languages have the same labels with different words for them or can adopt them. Maybe it matters just as much what labels a language doesn't have as much as what labels it does have. Maybe as English expands we should be trying to preserve parts of these soon dead languages by grafting in their vocabulary, so we have fewer label blind spots. After all we are all English speakers soon enough.
One of the advantages English has is that it is a much more democratic language. It's already a mutt language. But there is no single correct central authority that decides what is correct English. This is different than Portuguese, Spanish, French, and German which all have a history of state actors making decisions about the use of those languages. What is correct English. It depends on the speaker and listener. So the English spoken in Germany 20 years from now when it is nearly an exclusively English speaking country is as correct as any other English even if they decide to bring a lot of German into it. It is being spoken by English speakers so it is correct. My point is maybe speakers in areas that are being taken over by English should do this intentionally.
If English becomes a language spoken primary by European decedents and is spoken by all Europeans (eventually) then English should be a pan-European language by who has contributed to it.