|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
|
 Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 5:49 am Post subject: |
 |
|
| Quote: |
I find it extremely strange to even argue the point that a language is using too many loan words - it shows a complete misunderstanding of what language actually is.
Using this logic, English is the most bastardised language on the planet, yet in reality it is loved for its versatility and adaptability. All languages change through contact with other people, cultures, and languages and that is what is happening now with Korean. It is also a completely democratic process as it is entirely up to the language users themselves whether they want to appropriate a word or discard one.
Language needs to be open and adaptable as it is part of the social world which is always changing with it. If you worry about 'loan words' or 'foreign influences' in language then you fundamentally misunderstand language. |
Not really - that depends on the language. Languages always change with time but governments are certainly able to change them if they want. Atat�rk commanded Turkey to change their writing system and vocabulary and bang, now Ottoman Turkish is no more. Israel revived Hebrew as a spoken language and now they use it every day. Azerbaijan doesn't use the Cyrillic alphabet anymore, etc. Even German isn't a completely natural language - Hochdeutsch came from a written standard that was hardly spoken at all until recently. So yes, languages do naturally evolve over time as rivers do, but at the same time governments are perfectly capable of stepping in and changing the flow whenever they feel like it. It's not always right to do so, but language is never a perfectly natural phenomenon.
Here's a small list of replaced loanwords in Turkish, so yes it is perfectly possible to 'purge' a language of them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_replaced_loan_words_in_Turkish
The reason of course was that most people didn't really understand most of the vocabulary and there was a large disparity between the language spoken by the masses and that used by the rulers.
| jaganath69 wrote: |
Re Indonesian, whilst Suharto pushed for all citizens to speak 'bahasa Indonesia yang baik dan benar' (correct and proper) I think you will find the spread of popular media has had a lot to do with the spread of the language. That being said, there is a definite move back to regional patois in some popular drama since the centralizing and homogonizing tendencies of the new order government have slackened. Hell, you weren't even allowed to write Chinese characters when I first went there.
I agree governments do have a lot to do with standardizing language, what I am saying is they shouldn't. |
Not at all, or just as little as possible? I'm always in favour of intranational cooperation between countries that use similar languages, like Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore. If they were allowed to drift apart and turn into incomprehensible dialects wouldn't that ruin the status of the language as a whole? Isn't a bit of government meddling worth the added value of knowing you'll be understood throughout an entire region instead of just one country? |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
jaganath69
Joined: 17 Jul 2003
|
| Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 6:11 am Post subject: |
|
|
| mithridates wrote: |
Not at all, or just as little as possible? I'm always in favour of intranational cooperation between countries that use similar languages, like Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore. If they were allowed to drift apart and turn into incomprehensible dialects wouldn't that ruin the status of the language as a whole? Isn't a bit of government meddling worth the added value of knowing you'll be understood throughout an entire region instead of just one country? |
You probably know the historical origins of Malay as a lingua franca for trade between Aceh and The Philippines, but there it is if you did not. The language grew out of voluntary interaction as it served a viable purpose and fit where others did not. No government mandated its use, people just saw utility in it and went with it.
APEC meetings, I think, are predominantly held in English, but there is probably a translation network a la the EU going on there. But for doing business in the region, unless you are 'Orang Cina' is likely to be done in English. Yes, Indonesians and Malaysians will probably use a hybrid Malay (most understand the variations, as do I as a speaker of Bahasa Indonesia), but there is my point reiterated; as long as there is utility in the language, people will use it to the end of mutual benefit.
I think where your argument falls down, however, is the evolution of the Indonesian language that has taken place with the advent of the internet. Particularly the patios in usage amongst younger people. In addition to Bahasa Gaul (roughly 'hanging out language') there are a bunch of other dialects or sets of slang in usage amongst groups with common interest. Just ask any Jakartan about Bahasa Gay or Bahasa Banci (transexual). You see, the government, in spite of what it may wish to do, can't mandate the standardization of a language because culture and communications render this as an absurdity. Indonesian is changing in certain contexts, to the point where my wife, whose parents spoke Bahasa Aceh and Sunda, but only grew up speaking Bahasa Indonesia, can't keep up with the developments of these internet and street patois dialects that are developing so rapidly.
So what is it to be? A closed authoritarian system where the variables I mentioned that affect language are shut out, or something like in Ireland where the government, in the name of preserving culture, spends loads on keeping alive a language spoken by around 20 000 people.
Finally, where do we draw the line at linguistic purity? Should we purge all Japanese loan words from Korean? Should we then go get rid of the English ones, the Chinese ones, German ones, French ones, anything from the misty Altaic past even? You see where this is going, right? If taken to its logical conclusion, we might as well go back to speaking Old Norse. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
|
| Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 6:54 am Post subject: |
|
|
| jaganath69 wrote: |
| mithridates wrote: |
Not at all, or just as little as possible? I'm always in favour of intranational cooperation between countries that use similar languages, like Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore. If they were allowed to drift apart and turn into incomprehensible dialects wouldn't that ruin the status of the language as a whole? Isn't a bit of government meddling worth the added value of knowing you'll be understood throughout an entire region instead of just one country? |
You probably know the historical origins of Malay as a lingua franca for trade between Aceh and The Philippines, but there it is if you did not. The language grew out of voluntary interaction as it served a viable purpose and fit where others did not. No government mandated its use, people just saw utility in it and went with it.
APEC meetings, I think, are predominantly held in English, but there is probably a translation network a la the EU going on there. But for doing business in the region, unless you are 'Orang Cina' is likely to be done in English. Yes, Indonesians and Malaysians will probably use a hybrid Malay (most understand the variations, as do I as a speaker of Bahasa Indonesia), but there is my point reiterated; as long as there is utility in the language, people will use it to the end of mutual benefit.
I think where your argument falls down, however, is the evolution of the Indonesian language that has taken place with the advent of the internet. Particularly the patios in usage amongst younger people. In addition to Bahasa Gaul (roughly 'hanging out language') there are a bunch of other dialects or sets of slang in usage amongst groups with common interest. Just ask any Jakartan about Bahasa Gay or Bahasa Banci (transexual). You see, the government, in spite of what it may wish to do, can't mandate the standardization of a language because culture and communications render this as an absurdity. Indonesian is changing in certain contexts, to the point where my wife, whose parents spoke Bahasa Aceh and Sunda, but only grew up speaking Bahasa Indonesia, can't keep up with the developments of these internet and street patois dialects that are developing so rapidly.
So what is it to be? A closed authoritarian system where the variables I mentioned that affect language are shut out, or something like in Ireland where the government, in the name of preserving culture, spends loads on keeping alive a language spoken by around 20 000 people.
Finally, where do we draw the line at linguistic purity? Should we purge all Japanese loan words from Korean? Should we then go get rid of the English ones, the Chinese ones, German ones, French ones, anything from the misty Altaic past even? You see where this is going, right? If taken to its logical conclusion, we might as well go back to speaking Old Norse. |
Yes, and I did write about that in the first post though, that it wouldn't work in Korea's case for precisely that reason, since there really isn't a 'pure' Korean anywhere in existence that can be referenced like Old Norse etc. Were the government to decide to purge loanwords from Korean everybody would have their own idea on what to get rid of and it would be a mess, plus nobody would follow along. That's pretty much your point too so I think we agree on that.
I'm actually more along the lines of what billybrobby wrote that it's a bit annoying but inconsequential in the end. There also seem to be cases where governments can interfere in the natural evolution of a language and mess things up a bit, such as keeping in use a standard that's grammatically too difficult for the average person to learn and use effectively.
The only time I can see Korea actually deciding to get rid of its English loanwords would be far in the future if English were ever to lose its current status and people stopped studying it, and Koreans were left with a whole host of loanwords that made little sense to the average person by that time and didn't fit in a systematic matter as hanja does. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
xeno439
Joined: 30 Nov 2005
|
| Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 8:39 am Post subject: |
|
|
All of you are missing the big picture here. Some time down the road when we are all well dead, there will eventually evolve a global language. English will take a large role in this evolution. As far as preservation of language . . . come on! Progress doesn't happen without sacrifice.
I know, you are going to give me the Dennis Miller speech about not giving a *beep* about your third generation progeny: "Who gives a shit about global warming 300 years from now?" Well, I do. And I don't give a shit about your over-sized vocabulary Dennis. I'm not impressed. But I do think you are an innovator of the "rant". I'll give you that one.
This is a little sarcastic, but I firmly believe this will happen one day. So why fuss and fight about the details?
Why the hell did I drink on a Monday? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
kermo
Joined: 01 Sep 2004
Location: Eating eggs, with a comb, out of a shoe.
|
| Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 3:55 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| xeno439 wrote: |
All of you are missing the big picture here. Some time down the road when we are all well dead, there will eventually evolve a global language. English will take a large role in this evolution.
|
It's a possibility, but in my mind it's also possible that English will continue to splinter into mutually incomprehensible dialects and pidgins, making it a lot less useful as a lingua franca. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
warezthebeef
Joined: 04 Feb 2006
|
| Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 4:48 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I despise the sound of English loanwords in Korean and doubly so because they have a rich collection of hanja from which they could easily build "native" korean words. However my opinion is based purely on aesthetic reasons, consequently I'd adore the opportunity to study Korean in North Korea should the political situation ever change to a point that it becomes feasible.
Amusingly I'm certain the French, Germans and a host of other nationalities all say exactly the same thing about my use of their words when I speak English  So for the forseeable future at least I'm probably just going to have to get used to mangling my native words for the benefit of Korean ears. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
denistron
Joined: 21 Oct 2006
Location: Busan
|
| Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 7:19 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Many people have made the argument that all words are made up, and so this allows the Korean language to incorporate English, French... Although I agree that this is unavoidable, a language that leaves the doors open to free changes at any opportunity and with no discretion cannot really work. Without sounding too much like a language Nazi, a language without rigid structures and rules will become unusable for a large population over time. If all speakers are allowed to mold and shape it without adhering to rules, the language will diverge into colloquial and dialectical zones to the point where two towns next to each other will no longer be a ble to communicate. To some degree, language must be preserved to insure that lines of communication do not break down over time.
Alternatively, if we started using the word kimchi to mean race car in another country, Koreans would think that we have completely misused their language. They would also ask what right we have to invent new words using Korean words.
English will only remain an international language if people continue adhering to the rules. If it becomes a free-for-all we wont understand each other.
French Canadians and the French are having an increasingly difficult time communicating because of the adoption of many English words. This is the reason that people are trying to enforce a standard for French. If the language splinters off then it will become increasingly irrelevant.
PS. this leaves me wide open for people to make fun of my structure and spelling! Have fun! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
