Job Discussion Forums

[InTime]

POLL and Comments Below are from the British Council Newsletter
Chenglish in China?
Votes?
Comments?

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/talk/vote.asp

[Shan-Shan]

Double minus bad idea. Speak 2 e.z. = ideas triple minus small.

[furiousmilksheikali]

Or we could just invent a language that everyone will learn. It'll be really easy for everyone to understand and use and we can use the industry of the TEFL language to spread it. Once we impose our top-down idea for clearing up language problems and making it easier for everyone to communicate our job will be done.

We could call it Esperanto.

[latefordinner]

milksheik, for years I've been telling people that I'm a native speaker of Esperanto. Grew up in downtown Esperant. Cheered for the local hockey team, the Fleas, and played old-timers for the ex-Esperants. Check out my flawless bog-standard accent, don't I sound like a native speaker? Check out my passport photo, don't I look like a native? You do believe me, don't you? Of course you do. (Someone's been in China too long)

[furiousmilksheikali]

[kev7161]

Yeah, but who's going to decide which form this simplified English is going to take? I'll bet there are dozens of English-speaking countries (or countries that are assimilating English, such as China), who would think THEIR version of "shortcut English" is the easiest. Of course, what would make learning a simplified version easiest is to largely ignore all the synonyms out there. Big is big and that's it. It's not huge, large, immense, etc. If you want to say "huge" for example, then big becomes VERY big.

Of course, I like the English language and I know that variations of words used in a sentence or story paints the picture in my mind and that's okay for a native-speaker. I like the idea of simplified English but how to go about coming up with a universal language is what would be difficult.

[mondrian]

Here is an (amusing to me) article that I downloaded from some site or other (source not known)

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German, which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five year phase-in plan that would be known as "Euro-English".
In the first year the 's' will replace the soft 'c'. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard 'c' will be dropped in favour of the 'k'. This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiam in the sekond year, when the troublesome 'ph' will be replased with the 'f'. This will make words like 'fotograf' 20% shorter.
In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double leters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.
Also al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent 'e' in the language is disgraseful and it should be abolished. By the 4th yer peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing 'th' with 'z' and 'w' with 'v'.
During z fifz yer ze unesesary 'o' kan be dropd from vords kontaining 'ou' and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After ziz fifz yer ve vil hav a rali sesibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikltis and erivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer. ZE DREM VIL FINALI KUM TRU!

[InTime]

RE: Kev7161

[Steppenwolf]

The most widely held illusion is that the easier something is to get the more will want to acquire it and KEEP IT.

That this is an illusion becomes clear when you see how people treat any freebies - they discard them carelessly.

You can't make a language "easier" as it already is! It's "difficult" for some but not difficult for all. It's always the motivationally-underperforming that want the top achievers to be put a peg or two closer to the bottom ranks. In colonial times pidgin spread around the world; its days are over now but a new, ugly version has reared its head and that is called 'Chinglish'.

There are, of course, bona fide attempts at simplifying the basics of English; one such attempt was the setting up of an 800-strong vocabulary of monosyllabic words. They are easier to retain, and they cover most semantic needs of beginners up to intermediate-level learners. Beyond that you have to diversify and acquire a specialised vocabulary.
Grammar hardly changes for anyone. Let's not tamper with the rules to please the lazy and slackers.

[Shan-Shan]

[InTime]

'Easy come, easy go
was NOT
made-in-China.

Lin YuTang
great cosmopolitan
writer of the 1930s
discussed in depth
the processes of evolution
from culture to civil society to language

With its mix of Latin/Greek/Germanic streams
English's multi-cores are not yet coherent
So that's why:
*the French look upon the English synonym dictionary as being flabby
*oversee and supervise, though identical in root meanings, have quite different meanings
*see/saw/seen
*English will continue to develop into a more user-friendly language, as in cut/cut/cut
Vini/vidi/vinci

[Lobster]

I think of simplified English in two way (yes, I'm the bustard who has cast the only "I already do it" vote). One is the adjustment of my classroom English to an appropriate level for my students, the avoidance of idiomatic expressions and slang, and the focus on practical and common English in contrast to the use of more advanced and complicated vocabulary and structures.

The other perception of simplified English, which seems to advocate the development of a pidgin, elimination of cognates (i.e. incredible/unbelieveable) and the extension of regular forms to irregular verbs, is something I don't accept or support. As the development of English continues, I'm sure we'll see many forms becoming acceptable, and the past tense forms such as dreamt, burnt, and crept dying out. That doesn't mean to say that sleeped and lended are going to find their way into my classroom in the forseeable future.

Spare me the views of the French on the English language. Of all the languages I've learned, French is the most restricted and inflexible in terms of alternative forms of expression. Leave it to an anglophobic francophone to characterize the brilliant diversity of English as "flabby".

RED

[WastedMiddleAge]

As an aside to the discussion of the pros and cons of a "simplified version of the language," as the BC website calls it.

The British Council were instrumental in the ELT profession's rejection of Ogden's BASIC English system (1930) after British PM Winston Churchill (1944) suggested that some form of simplification of English might aid post-war communication. Why did they do it then, and why are they asking for discussion on the issue now?

[furiousmilksheikali]

[WastedMiddleAge]