Thursday, March 26, 2015
Everyone understands Everyone
So, my question is what would happen if all languages converged into one that everyone was able to understand. How would this affect people, would it change our cultures or diminish the diversity of the world. Would this be beneficial to the world or take away from the complexity of Earth. What are your views on this concept, and please further explain your feelings.
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That would be tragic. We would lose so much culture and diversity. Taking away the complexity of Earth would result in a less interesting world. It has been said that people's personalities have changed when they speak different languages. There are ways to convey things that cannot be said correctly in other languages. You cannot sing a song translated from latin because it loses its beauty. It would be cool to understand everyone but I don't think it would be worth it.
ReplyDeleteI agree and I think you worded this wonderfully
DeleteYes, it would be tragic in so many ways. Maybe if everyone grew up learning one language for their culture and one universal language.
DeleteI guess I would ask a question in response are we talking about everyone having complete understanding of everyone else? Or are we talking just language?
ReplyDeleteStrictly language is what I was trying to convey
ReplyDeleteThen I would agree with Katie language holds a lot of culture and loosing that culture would be ashame but if you were referring to complete understanding then I would say the pros of that out way the cons.
DeleteI literally was just thinking about this a few hours ago before I saw this post. Based on the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, a culture is based upon its language. I agree with Katie that the world would be less cultured because we would essentially have only one culture based on this theory. The different languages we have definitely play key roles on our personalities, and they affect us in ways we are sometimes not aware. For example, people find pride in their nation and national language, thus impacting their self-concept and outlook on others.
ReplyDeleteHowever, sometimes this can be negative. People's nationalism may be so intense that their ability to perceive others and try to understand their culture may be clouded. For example, I watched a documentary that I believe was made by National Geographic called "Taboo." This documentary showed the culture of asian countries that kill animals you would never have though of eating, like dog or freshly killed snake. They specifically showed a snake being ripped open as a man dragged a knife through it--the snake still alive. There were also clips of the people's homes with bottled up animals saturated in juice--yes, the blood. There were bears, jaguars, birds, and more that were killed and placed into jars with a special juice because these people's culture believes that drinking the juice with the animals sitting in it will increase health. Very strange indeed, but that does not mean it is wrong just because we think it's weird.
Moral of the story, these cultures are crucial to the diversity of this world. We find ourselves and our identify with certain aspects of what little we see of the world day-to-day, but even with this knowledge, we must learn to understand that it is important that there are cultures existing that we don't understand. This is how we survive: unity in diversity, a mantra sitting above the House of Blues and one that has truly inspired me.
And as per usual, with every comment of mine emerges a series of grammatical corrections.
Delete*thought, which I spelled wrong in the second paragraph.
And I also forgot to add that the "unity in diversity" sign is above the stage in The House of Blues in Chicago.
It would be both terrible and awesome! I'm not sure how to explain it but people wouldn't be able to have secrets. Every military strategy wouldn't be a secret. Although you'd be able to have a conversation with people though out the world.
ReplyDeleteIt would be really cool, though, to be able to go wherever you want and to be able to understand each other. And think of all the different accents there would be. Also, when a person who say is fluent in Spanish knows little English, they are limited to the words they know, and its harder to understand them as their diction is so much smaller than ours (which some may see it that they are less intelligent than us which is obviously not true). Yet, if they were able to speak Spanish and we understood them, their vocabulary overwhelmingly changes as they would use more words that carry variety and depth. If everyone understood each other in this way, we would be able to describe so much more and talk about more things without the limits of not knowing a certain language.
ReplyDeleteOkay, if everyone speaks the same language, does that mean I'd have to learn this new language or would everyone speak English? Because I DO NOT have the patience to learn a second language. I remember when I was in 8th Grade and I had no choice but to take a quarter of a Spanish class, and the only thing to get me to try to pass the class was that every week I did well in the class was to have my mom buy me tacos on Fridays. But anyway, I think if we all spoke the same language that the world all only have one culture and would all be like one nation. Hopefully that nation would be Great America(If you don't understand that, read my response to the last blog post.) and hopefully I would be president. I don't really have much more to say about this.
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ReplyDeleteI had two comments but they both didn't exactly say what I meant in the right way. Basically I don't really agree with this and I want to know why you do this but out of curiosity, not negative judgement
ReplyDeleteWait this was for Nolan!
DeleteThe advantage of a world that functioned under a single language would be that we would have a better understanding of each other not just as cultures but as people. The disadvantage would be that said culture would be lose some of its individuality due to the loss of its language.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Josh. While having cultural diversity is truly beautiful, being able to understand everyone fully could possibly be even more beautiful. Imagine the kind of world we could have if everyone could understand each other. Maybe there would be less hate? There really is no telling what life would be like if everyone spoke the same language.
ReplyDeleteYes, I am curious about what kind of feeling this gives you? This is another reason why I think it could be beneficial towards our society if we all spoke one language. People know when you are mocking them and if language barriers are what cause this mocking, then I don't like them.
ReplyDeleteMy original comments and words were "What kind of twisted satisfaction does this give you?" Blunt and not meant to be "bullying" at all. The only reason I deleted it is because I did not want to be targeted as a bully; however, everything you have said in this comment seems like bullying already. I wonder what "satisfaction" you get from the ridicule and belittlement of others in ANY way, subtle or not? I find it dehumanizing and I have the highest hopes that you refrain from repeating such actions.
ReplyDeleteSorry Nolan, but I disagree with everything you have just said entirely.
What you do does not define who you are, but it is who you are that defines what you do. With this in mind, I hope you give your actions a second thought in the future.
I respect you as a fellow peer, but I cannot imagine a world where someone as nice as you would do something so malicious as this.
Only you Nolan! I can only imagine you doing this to some poor guy. Makes me chuckle though
ReplyDeleteAs frusturating as it is when you are trying to communicate with someone who speaks another language, you have to remember the bigger picture. Our diversity makes us who we are and without it things would be very different. The different cultures in the world and different languages let us explore each other and learn how life is from different perspectives. I would hate to live in a world where we had one set language for all of man kind
ReplyDeleteI've never been one for comedy at anyone's expense. However, you have slightly persuaded me that your intentions aren't exactly what I first interpreted from your original comment.
ReplyDeleteTo be great is to be misunderstood.
ReplyDeleteThis is really hard. Well I think it would be good and bad. Like it would be awesome to be able to communicate with everyone, but then you lose the chance to actually learn that language and the customs that come along with it all. I feel like the world would be kind of boring if we didn't have anything like that to explore.
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