# why are there a lot of languages



## aspendos

why are there a lot of lanquage on the world. And is it nice  or bad  for you?


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## ireney

Urghh!! That's a difficult one. Unless that is you prefer to take the view that all that is mentioned in the Bible should be taken literally in which case just open one in the story about the tower of Babel 

To make what should be a long story short, let's just say because people separated into different groups sooner or later and each group used different set of sounds to describe the same things.

In other words, there are a many languages around because languages are creations of the man, because there's no "natural" relation between the word and the object/idea etc it describes.

Is it good? From a practical point of view no. Since however I am a rather impractical person and I simply adore diversity I'd have to say yes.


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## Residente Calle 13

A good book which describes the process in normal everyday language is called "The Power of Bable" by John McWhorter.

It's well worth reading. 

Short answer:

Languages change. As people move away from each other, they change in different ways. For example, English speakers in the UK don't speak quite in the same way as they do in the US. Today, people in the UK and the US are in quite a bit of contact so they have not differed all that much but look what happened to Italian, French, and Spanish in the last two thousand years. When the Roman Empire was together there were different dialects of Latin but it was sort of like British and American English. Once the contact ended, the dialects went their own separate ways.

That's the sort of thing that has been happening ever since the first people started talking. Italian, French and Spanish all come from Latin and English comes from Old Germanic but so does German, Dutch, and Swedish, eventually (Old Norse but it's still a cousin). But most European languages come from Indoeuropean...and surely Indoeuropean broke off from another branch that we can't trace because it happened too long ago.


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## Residente Calle 13

Here's an interesting link.


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## danielfranco

Also, if one is to believe the theories about how long humans have existed, humans have been migrating all over the planet for the last 50,000 years, and in all those thousands of years there have been many opportunities for different groups of people to come up with their own language.


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## Residente Calle 13

danielfranco said:
			
		

> Also, if one is to believe the theories about how long humans have existed, humans have been migrating all over the planet for the last 50,000 years, and in all those thousands of years there have been many opportunities for different groups of people to come up with their own language.


A case of that happening is actually quite recent and very well documented.

See this link.

I guess you can add all of the Creoles to this example.


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## aspendos

Residente Calle 13 said:
			
		

> A good book which describes the process in normal everyday language is called "The Power of Bable" by John McWhorter.
> 
> It's well worth reading.
> 
> Short answer:
> 
> Languages change. As people move away from each other, they change in different ways. For example, English speakers in the UK don't speak quite in the same way as they do in the US. Today, people in the UK and the US are in quite a bit of contact so they have not differed all that much but look what happened to Italian, French, and Spanish in the last two thousand years. When the Roman Empire was together there were different dialects of Latin but it was sort of like British and American English. Once the contact ended, the dialects went their own separate ways.
> 
> That's the sort of thing that has been happening ever since the first people started talking. Italian, French and Spanish all come from Latin and English comes from Old Germanic but so does German, Dutch, and Swedish, eventually (Old Norse but it's still a cousin). But most European languages come from Indoeuropean...and surely Indoeuropean broke off from another branch that we can't trace because it happened too long ago.


 
I want to say that the language is a material to speak with otherone. Actually I think it is from God. I have written here God weil I have found it in the dictionary  as a translation from Allah we say..
You say As people move away each other and than I have tought bevor people move away each other they were together. But than the people were separated  by the devil. But in the separeted Part they were together as today. 
And I want to ask now 
why we are not now irseparable. Altought we were together?


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## ireney

Aspendos I must admit I didn't understand all of your last post I am afraid but I think I can safely say that different languages are only one of the many things that keeps us "apart".


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## aspendos

ireney said:
			
		

> Aspendos I must admit I didn't understand all of your last post I am afraid but I think I can safely say that different languages are only one of the many things that keeps us "apart".


I guess, you are right. And I want to try maybe a bit to learn  languages that at least I can try to keep us not apart .


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## maxiogee

aspendos said:
			
		

> why are there a lot of lanquage on the world.



Because different peoples want to express different things to each other. Irish had no need for a word for kangaroo, or desert, or baobab tree.


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## frequency

aspendos said:
			
		

> why are there a lot of lanquage on the world. And is it nice or bad  for you?


 
...So that the nature arrange a job for some people like reading/writing foreign languages and staying in front of the computer all day in the world- as a translator. 

I think languages had been always changed as much as the distance they transfer increased.


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## felicia

Residente Calle 13 said:
			
		

> A case of that happening is actually quite recent and very well documented.
> 
> See this link.
> 
> I guess you can add all of the Creoles to this example.


 Not quite so recent but on the same lines are the *Berbers of whom some tribes fled from the Arabs up into the Atlas mountains and remained there for a period of about 400 years. (ca. 1600 AD) When they returned to what is now North Africa (Marocco)they found they could not communicate with other tribes.  They had developed their own language.(The history of the Berbers in Moyen and Haut Atlas" by H. Reinisch)    Is this what happened in Pays Basco, perhaps?  Would be interesting to hear theories on this subject?*


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## Residente Calle 13

felicia said:
			
		

> Not quite so recent but on the same lines are the *Berbers of whom some tribes fled from the Arabs up into the Atlas mountains and remained there for a period of about 400 years. (ca. 1600 AD) When they returned to what is now North Africa (Marocco)they found they could not communicate with other tribes.  They had developed their own language.(The history of the Berbers in Moyen and Haut Atlas" by H. Reinisch)    Is this what happened in Pays Basco, perhaps?  Would be interesting to hear theories on this subject?*


Well, with the Berbers and the Basques, that's language diverging. The Nicaranguan example is one of people who made up a language, seemingly, out of thin air.


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## felicia

Residente Calle 13 said:
			
		

> Well, with the Berbers and the Basques, that's language diverging. The Nicaranguan example is one of people who made up a language, seemingly, out of thin air.


  Hi Residente Calle 13!  I found both your links very interesting to read, although I had some problems with some of the phrases.  Bit I think I got the "gist" of it.  But please, what is "Morphs?)


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## Juan Vera

Because,  language is an expression of a culture.  There are many culture. Babel Towel


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## texasweed

Residente Calle 13 said:
			
		

> Languages change. As people move away from each other, they change in different ways.


 
Internet access is changing all that. Interesting to look at the nationalities of the authors of all this subject's posts ! All symbols and weird letters (é à è ù etc) are eliminated on the Net. English is becoming universal and is gathering us all here. That's a great thing.

Thus to the initial question of aspendos, I can only say : what a shame that so many languages make us miss great human contacts. Perhaps we wouldn't have a 60% divorce rate were we able to discuss with, and truely understand, anyone in the world. We'd live in better harmony as we could grasp the cultural differences easily through ONE language without needing a master's degree in Cultural Anthropology and sociology.


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## comsci

maxiogee said:
			
		

> Because different peoples want to express different things to each other. Irish had no need for a word for kangaroo, or desert, or baobab tree.


 
To second that, I guess words like "polar bears" and maybe "igloos" are for no one but Canadians then.  Same goes to "kiwi birds" and "kea" for New Zealanders.


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## Pivra

Different languages are for cultural identities.


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## JimPojke

texasweed said:
			
		

> Internet access is changing all that. Interesting to look at the nationalities of the authors of all this subject's posts ! All symbols and weird letters (é à è ù etc) are eliminated on the Net. English is becoming universal and is gathering us all here. That's a great thing.
> 
> Thus to the initial question of aspendos, I can only say : what a shame that so many languages make us miss great human contacts. Perhaps we wouldn't have a 60% divorce rate were we able to discuss with, and truely understand, anyone in the world. We'd live in better harmony as we could grasp the cultural differences easily through ONE language without needing a master's degree in Cultural Anthropology and sociology.


 
I think that eliminating symbols and what you call "weird letters" is not a great thing at all, but the opposite! They might seem weird to you, but not to the natives of the language that uses them. They represent something and have a purpose in such language. I think they should find a way so we could use our "weird letters" on the internet, just as they did with computers (before, you couldn't save a document with an 'ñ' in the file's name). 

It is nice to have a language that can be used as lingua franca, but I don't think we have to give up our languages (just tell me, who would?) and start speaking just english.

Languages will always exist, trying to impose english (or any other language) would never succeed, because human nature is to be creative and evolve, that's where all the languages (and cultures) come from. Every person is different and sees the world in a different way.

Also, be careful because they say chinese is the new lingua franca and that would be fateful for most people in the US who think that everybody speaks english, and if they didn't, they should.


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## texasweed

JimPojke said:
			
		

> I think that eliminating symbols and what you call "weird letters" is not a great thing at all, but the opposite! *They might seem weird to you, but not to the natives of the language that uses them*. They represent something and have a purpose in such language.
> 
> I don't think we have to give up our languages (*just tell me, who would?*) and start speaking just english.


 
I AM a native of France & French has *loads* of such weird letters. Their only purpose seems to be the assurance that everyone over here spends their life learning how to spell and continue to make errors in their eighties.

*I have* chosen to move away from it. My own child doesn't speak a word of French. He's not interested in it, and I forgot it (deliberately) but for the basics.


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## mansio

There are two kinds of alphabets: the phonetic ones like those of Spanish, Italian or German, and the alphabets that reflect the history of the language as those of French and English.


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## felicia

texasweed said:
			
		

> I AM a native of France & French has *loads* of such weird letters. Their only purpose seems to be the assurance that everyone over here spends their life learning how to spell and continue to make errors in their eighties.
> 
> *I have* chosen to move away from it. My own child doesn't speak a word of French. He's not interested in it, and I forgot it (deliberately) but for the basics.


Bon jour, Texasweed!  I find as a sociologist your last sentence very sad, for your childs' sake.  Think of all the wonderful French litterature he/she will be missing out on, in the original!  But this is not a discussion programme and you are entitled to your choice.  Bonne chance!


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## maxiogee

texasweed said:
			
		

> Internet access is changing all that. Interesting to look at the nationalities of the authors of all this subject's posts ! All symbols and weird letters (é à è ù etc) are eliminated on the Net. English is becoming universal and is gathering us all here. That's a great thing.



English is re-inserting 'weird' instead of letters -> think of the apostrophe.
The internet is inserting(edit) 'weird' also -> think of the smileys we all find we need because we can't be bothered to express ourselves precisely enough to indicate clearly when we are being facetious, snide, jocular, angry, etc.


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## Residente Calle 13

Languages don't have those kind of symbols, writing systems do. "Ñ" is not Spanish. It's  just a symbol used to spell that sound. Other languages have that sound but spell it a different way. It's easy to confuse spelling with language. Don't.


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## Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!

texasweed said:
			
		

> I AM a native of France & French has *loads* of such weird letters. Their only purpose seems to be the assurance that everyone over here spends their life learning how to spell and continue to make errors in their eighties.
> 
> *I have* chosen to move away from it. My own child doesn't speak a word of French. He's not interested in it, and I forgot it (deliberately) but for the basics.



Just because French may have atrociously irregular spelling doesn't mean all languages do. Letters with diacritics more often than not make things simpler. They help you avoid having ligatures and multiple pronunciations for the same letter. On the other hand, the diacritics in French do seem to convey rather unhelpful information such as "there used to be a 's' after this vowel, but it's not there anymore", which isn't very practical (nor typical), but I don't claim to have a profound understanding of French spelling.

Now, I have chosen to learn Spanish over French owing in part to the simpler spelling/pronunciation relationship, so I suppose I can relate to your sentiment (although not to its intensity), but I find it ironic that you decided to move from French to English of all things. I mean, it's not like English actually _has_ an orthography...


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## Juan Vera

Sounds in any language are associated to mouth and tongue' muscle exercises.  My native language is spanish; I have learnt english at high school: I will never reproduce de vowel's sound as a native english person does.


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## Residente Calle 13

Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li! said:
			
		

> Letters with diacritics more often than not make things simpler. They help you avoid having ligatures and multiple pronunciations for the same letter.


Well, no. The way a language is written does not influence its pronunciation except for a few isolated words. 1921 Turkey changed the way they wrote from Arabic script to the Latin alphabet. They didn't sound all that different in 1922. Especially, since, I image, many people in Turkey (and in many places) at the time were completely illiterate.



			
				Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li! said:
			
		

> On the other hand, the diacritics in French do seem to convey rather unhelpful information such as "there used to be a 's' after this vowel, but it's not there anymore", which isn't very practical (nor typical), but I don't claim to have a profound understanding of French spelling.


That's true. But it's like through (isn't thru simpler?) and knee. These spellings are etymological. French and English spelling like to preserve word history. Spanish has few silent letters and Italian less still and there are studies that claim to indicate how dyslexia is less common under those spelling systems and how literacy can be more easily spread.

But this thread is really about language diversity and not about spelling systems. You could write Spanish, French and Italian in a modified Hebrew script and they would still be Spanish, French and Italian.


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## Residente Calle 13

Juan Vera said:
			
		

> Sounds in any language are associated to mouth and tongue' muscle exercises.  My native language is spanish; I have learnt english at high school: I will never reproduce de vowel's sound as a native english person does.



And you don't have to as long as you make yourself understood. In any case, many find foreign accents charming, exotic, interesting, and even sexy!


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## JimPojke

texasweed said:
			
		

> I AM a native of France & French has *loads* of such weird letters. Their only purpose seems to be the assurance that everyone over here spends their life learning how to spell and continue to make errors in their eighties.
> 
> *I have* chosen to move away from it. My own child doesn't speak a word of French. He's not interested in it, and I forgot it (deliberately) but for the basics.


 
Well, I do think that french (writing system) has got a lot "weird letters". But they are there for a reason (phonetical or historical). I don't find much trouble with them, perhaps the most troublesome mark would be the circumflex, because it's there just to represent a letter that existed in old french.

In spanish, we've got a very phonetic writing system. So, there is no prolblem when we write it. I'm not going to tell you that everybody writes it correctly, but those who don't are usually people who hadn't had a good level of education.

What I don't understand is: why are you against these so called "weird letters" when english (writing system) has got so many words that aren't pronounced as spelled? If you really decided to go for english just because french wasn't phonetic, you should have gone for Serbian, which is pronounced exactly as spelled.

I find it sad, that you have forgotten your mother tongue. Even if it was hard to write, you could just speak it. Because, no matter what, you'll always be french. Your son, I understand, when someone is not interested in learning a language, you must not force him/her into doing it.


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## Residente Calle 13

JimPojke said:
			
		

> In spanish, we've got a very phonetic writing system. So, there is no prolblem when we write it. I'm not going to tell you that everybody writes it correctly, but those who don't are usually people who hadn't had a good level of education.



Gabriel García Márquez is said to be a horrible speller. I wish my education was as bad as his.


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## JimPojke

Residente Calle 13 said:
			
		

> Gabriel García Márquez is said to be a horrible speller. I wish my education was as bad as his.


 
That's why I said "usually" and not "always". Besides, what he had was dedication and love for writing, not really a superb education.

And, come on, spanish spelling is very simple, and the stress marks on the letters help people to know how to pronounce a word correctly, that is something I would appreciate in russian or swedish (in which is hard to know how to pronounce a word).


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## Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!

Residente Calle 13 said:
			
		

> Well, no. The way a language is written does not influence its pronunciation except for a few isolated words. (...)


 Not quite what I was trying to say. In etymological orthographies, if the language has undergone many consonantal and vowel shifts since the orthography was created, such as in English and French, the same letter (or group of letters) may come to represent several different sounds of the spoken language (just look at BrE "-ough") and make things generally irritating.



			
				Residente Calle 13 said:
			
		

> But this thread is really about language diversity and not about spellinng systems. You could write Spanish, French and Italian in a modified Hebrew script and they would still be Spanish, French and Italian.


 Of course. But texasweed's issue was with "weird letters" and how eliminating them (along with their languages) was a Good Thing, seemingly based on his experience with a single language (French), which is what I was responding to.


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## Residente Calle 13

JimPojke said:
			
		

> And, come on, spanish spelling is very simple, and the stress marks on the letters help people to know how to pronounce a word correctly, that is something I would appreciate in russian or swedish (in which is hard to know how to pronounce a word).


Vueno, la berdad es ke abeces tienes dos opsiones para escribir un sonido y eso puede probokar un poko de confuzion y da mucho para correjir a los pedantes, ¿no crez? Vueno. Abrá ke conformarze con el echo que otras formas de eskirbir son maz komplicadas.


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## JimPojke

Sí, y es por ello que uno va a la escuela y aprende qué sonido va con cada palabra, con eso eliminamos la confusión. Igualmente, leer ayuda a que uno se vaya familiarizando con las palabras y normalmente los errores que hace una persona no suelen ser tan generales.

Pero me queda una duda... ¿Y ese acento en "abrá"? Creo que ése tiene que ir ahí, si no, podría entenderse otra cosa. ;-) Gracias por ayudarme a probar mi punto de la necesidad de los acentos.


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## Residente Calle 13

Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li! said:
			
		

> Not quite what I was trying to say. In etymological orthographies, if the language has undergone many consonantal and vowel shifts since the orthography was created, such as in English and French, the same letter (or group of letters) may come to represent several different sounds of the spoken language (just look at BrE "-ough") and make things generally irritating.



That's right. But I think what's "irritating" is subjective. An English person might think the tilde on the _*n*_ in Spanish is a pain. A Spaniard might see it as a matter of national pride. The French Academy tried to eliminate the circumflex accent from many words. The French resisted. The Germans tried to simplify their spelling and got the same kind of reaction from some German media providers. 

From a practical point of view, I think those weird letters are, in many case, not necessary at all. But people feel attached to them because they believe, quite stupidly IMHO, that if they are "taken away" a piece or their language will be lost.

*Thru *makes much more sense than *through*. But if I write *thru *I am either an ignorant brute incapable of rational thought, tearing the English language to pieces and defecating on its corpse, or both.


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## Residente Calle 13

JimPojke said:
			
		

> Sí, y es por ello que uno va a la escuela y aprende qué sonido va con cada palabra, con eso eliminamos la confusión. Igualmente, leer ayuda a que uno se vaya familiarizando con las palabras y normalmente los errores que hace una persona no suelen ser tan generales.
> 
> Pero me queda una duda... ¿Y ese acento en "abrá"? Creo que ése tiene que ir ahí, si no, podría entenderse otra cosa. ;-) Gracias por ayudarme a probar mi punto de la necesidad de los acentos.


Van a la escuela los que pueden y en los países más pobrecitos muchos menos. ¿Pero que importa? ¿Quién dijo que la educación era para todos? Que sean necesarios o no se van a seguir usando los acentos. 

Pero si te confunde este texto, me avisas:

*Muchos anyos despues, frente al peloton de fusilamiento, el koronel Aureliano  Buendia abia de rekordar akeya tarde remota en ke su padre lo yebo a konozer el  ielo. Macondo era entonzes una aldea de beinte kasas de barro i ka**ny**abraba  konstruidas a la oriya de un rio de aguas diafanas ke se prezipitaban por un  lecho de piedras pulidas, blankas i enormes komo uebos preistorikos. El mundo  era tan reziente, ke muchas kosas karezian de nombre, i para menzionarlas abia  ke se**ny**alarlas kon el dedo. Todos los a**ny**os, por el mes de marzo, una familia de  jitanos desarrapados plantaba su karpa zerka de la aldea, i kon un grande  alboroto de pitos i tinbales daban a konozer los nuebos inbentos.*


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## JimPojke

Pues eso de que van los que pueden, pues sí, los que no pueden ni cómo le hagan. Pero... ¿Quién puede ir a la escuela? A la escuela pueden ir todos los niños, jóvenes y hasta adultos, a menos que se encuentren postrados en su cama, incapaces de ponerse de pie.

Mi país es un país pobre, y yo veo que hasta en las colonias más paupérrimas la gente hace lo posible por que sus niños vayan a la escuela; y en verdad asisten, por lo menos hasta secundaria. Y soy de la opinión de que la educación sí es para todos; que haya quienes quieran evitar eso, ya es otra cosa.

Tu texto es interesante, sobretodo la 'ny' y la 'ñ'. En lo personal, nunca he visto a un hispanohablante (que no sea catalán, valenciano o balear) escribir la 'ñ' como 'ny'; y menos utilizar ambas en un mismo texto. E incluso se respeta la diferencia entre la 's' y la 'z' en el texto, tal como lo haría un español. Aunque, claro, llena de 'kas' que en español sólo vienen en palabras extranjeras.

Y los acentos, que sí son necesarios, se seguirán usando. Claro que sí. Y no por imposición de la RAE, sino para el buen entendimiento del lenguaje escrito.

Cada idioma tiene sus particularidades (fonéticas y escritas); en todo el mundo, la gente tiene que ir a la escuela para aprender a leer y escribir. No te vas a encontrar el día de mañana con que hay una forma de escribir el español para la cuál no se necesite ir a la escuela.


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## Residente Calle 13

JimPojke said:
			
		

> No te vas a encontrar el día de mañana con que hay una forma de escribir el español para la cuál no se necesite ir a la escuela.


Claro que no. La otrografía está para eso. Está para saber quién fue a la escuela y por cuanto tiempo, quién fue a la universidad, quién es de la ciudad, y en medida que esos factores reflejan la raza de la persona, quién es blanco y quién no lo es.


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## cuchuflete

Residente Calle 13 said:
			
		

> Claro que no. Lo otrografía está para eso. Está para saber quién fue a la escuela y por cuanto tiempo, quién fue a la universidad, quién es de la ciudad, y en medida que esos factores reflejan la raza de la persona, quién es blanco y quién no lo es.



It may be a minor inconvenience to one's ideological posture, but orthography might just have other motives than racial and economic profiling.  A language, if it exists in written form, is apt to have a body of written history, recorded cultural artifacts...poetry, essays, novels, drama...and teaching materials for any number of subjects, including scientific ones.
People have an obvious choice: standardize a system of writing, or invite a free-for-all.  Standardization allows more people to learn more easily.

Si te parezka vien eskribir como te dé la zantìzima, just hope you don't get what you wish for the next time you have a prescription to fill.  Precision and adherence to standards are sometimes useful in practical settings.  

I don't spell especially well, and I type quickly and badly, so my writing is full of errors, when compared to standard spellings.  Sometimes this matters not at all; at others it can
change the meaning from what I intended to convery to something contrary, or just confusing and meaningless.

Simplified spellings have their obvious benefits, but come at the cost of people having to learn both older and current orthography...unless, of course, they are so current and up to date that something written a few decades ago is beneath them.


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## Residente Calle 13

cuchuflete said:
			
		

> It may be a minor inconvenience to one's ideological posture, but orthography might just have other motives than racial and economic profiling.  A language, if it exists in written form, is apt to have a body of written history, recorded cultural artifacts...poetry, essays, novels, drama...and teaching materials for any number of subjects, including scientific ones.
> People have an obvious choice: standardize a system of writing, or invite a free-for-all.  Standardization allows more people to learn more easily...
> 
> 
> Simplified spellings have their obvious benefits, but come at the cost of people having to learn both older and current orthography...unless, of course, they are so current and up to date that something written a few decades ago is beneath them.


Standardization and rationalization are not mutually exclusive concepts. I'm all for standardization what I am against is a spelling system based on prejudice and stupidity.

In Spanish, the "correct" way to spell has changed. I have a book, printed in 1989, about Spelling of all things, the spells "closet" without the accent. I didn't have much trouble figuring it out. 

Cervantes wrote _Don Quijote _without marking a single accent. We didn't have much trouble figuring it out. And while we are on the subject of literature, many spellings in Spanish have been rationalized. You can read: "...de oi a quinientos años..." in Nebrija's _Gramática_. You  can also find _an sido_, _e ido_, _umana_, and _ístorico_  for _han sido_, _he ido_, _humana_ and _hístorico_ as well  as *onor*,* ora*, *ombre*, and *ermano* for in *honor*,  *hora*, *hombre*, and *hermano* other Late Medieval and Early  Renaissance Spanish texts. 

Past changes in Spelling, and there have been many, have had little impact on  whether texts can be read by contemporary readers. The graphemes *ph*,  *th*, and *rh* have been eliminated, in Spanish, to reflect pronunciation and the  rules of accentuation have eliminated some of the rules that never really made  sense (_*fué *_and _*acabóse *_come to mind) without making old books any harder to read. 

Or even current ones. I have no problem reading the London Times despite *tyre*, *colour*, *centre*, etc.

You can write "sicólogo" (even _*sicologo*_) today and people will understand. No pasa nada. Spellings can be changed to reflect current pronunciation without making older texts impossible to read. 

The issue REALLY is that writing "*sicologo*" (and even "sicólogo") to some extent tells the reader who you are...well, who you're not or what elite you don't belong to.

At one point, the older texts will become impossible to read anyway because the language would have become foreign. Try _Beowulf _in the original.


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## maxiogee

I think we would all agree that the primary purpose of language, any language, is to *communicate*, but I suppose we ought to acknowledge that one of the lesser purposes of language is to _exclude_. Jargon, argot, cant, slang -> call it what you will, but certain words and forms of speech are designed to keep some communication secret from people who might wish to profit by overhearing/learning our secrets.
And the notion of 'shibboleth' conveys a similar concept - language used as an identifying badge to exclude others.


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## JimPojke

Residente Calle 13 said:
			
		

> Claro que no. La otrografía está para eso. Está para saber quién fue a la escuela y por cuanto tiempo, quién fue a la universidad, quién es de la ciudad, y en medida que esos factores reflejan la raza de la persona, quién es blanco y quién no lo es.


 
Claro que sí. La ortografía no está para ver quién fue o no a la escuela, ni por cuánto tiempo. Está para señalarnos las reglas de cómo escribir bien para poder entendernos entre todos sin mayor dificultad.

Es obvio que, si en la escuela es donde enseñan ortografía, se crea que quien escriba muy mal no fue a la escuela (ya sea porque no quiso, o porque no pudo). Y así haya habido otra forma de escribir, diferentes obras que difieren de la ortografía actual, debemos guiarnos por la acordada más recientemente. Pues, en teoría, sería la más fácil.

Eso de ser blanco... la raza... yo creo que los racistas en lo que menos se fijan es en la ortografía de una persona (y cuando lo hacen, será porque ya identificaron a su víctima y sólo buscan cualquier pretexto), y a los que se fijan en la ortografía poco les importa la raza de quien escribe.


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## Residente Calle 13

JimPojke said:
			
		

> Claro que sí. La ortografía no está para ver quién fue o no a la escuela, ni por cuánto tiempo. Está para señalarnos las reglas de cómo escribir bien para poder entendernos entre todos sin mayor dificultad.


¿Escribir _*bien *_según quién? ¿Quiénes son los que dictan las reglas?

Las reglas ortográficas causan muchas dificultades. Pero vez un "no me gusta el proseso" y dices "ah! un latinoamericano!" o "ah! ese es andaluz!" o a lo mejor "es un miserable, o peor un vago, que no sabe escribir y se merece la miseria en que vive". 

¿La *H* muda facilita qué? ¿Escribir _mó*v*il _sirve de qué? Nisiquiera se justifica en lo etimológico. ¿_Ciru*j*ano_? ¿_Ciru*g*ía_? ¿Para el noventa porciento de los que hablan el idioma cómo se justifícan _democra*c*ia _e _idiosincra*s*ia_? Se escribe así porque así lo escriben los que reparten el bacalao.

En muchos países, el dinero y el color son casi la misma cosa y por eso mencioné eso de la raza. En Santo Domingo un blanco pobre está casi igual de "frito" que un pobre negro pero la verdad es que la plata la tienen los más claritos. No pasa nada. Creo que está claro que en nuestros países quién es quién.

Pero el hilo más adecuado para esto es este

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=132307

Este hilo se trata de por qué hay tantos idiomas.


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## macta123

Simply, 

Because of origin (for civilisation) point of view in different place.Living at a certain region over a  long time and developing a culture.
Yes a language is of true importance to everyone


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