LANGUAGE FACTOR

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NEWER ENGLISH ‑‑ SCRAMBLED COMMUNICATION -- THE WORD TRAP -- POLITENGLISH

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 NEWER ENGLISH

In the traditionally correct English, if the statement: "George invited Jane" may elicits the question: "Who?” it is clear that the answer is: "George", just as the answer to: "Whom?" would be: "Jane".

 Today's "intellectuals", however, decided that "whom" is obsolete. They believe that "who" should be used also in the place of "whom".

Thus, the question: "Who?", to the above statement, is no longer clear. Does it mean: "Who did George invite?" (to be precise: "Whom did George invite?"), or: "Who invited Jane?".
Confusing? Want more?

A well known advertisement that wants to convey the message: "Dentists prescribe more Brand XXX than any other mouthwash" says instead:
"More dentists prescribe Brand XXX than any other mouthwash", that is: "More dentists than any other mouthwash prescribe Brand XXX".  

Now, try to get a mouthwash to give you a prescription of any kind...

The decay of the language is so insidious that most people don't notice it.
Now, even public speakers say: "This is going to affect you and I", or: "Like I said...", "Strictly speaking...".

The use of "it's" for "its"  is spreading like an epidemic.
Recently I saw this printed sign in a store of a famous nationally book-selling chain: "Every book must be returned to it's shelf".
It was not improvised by hand by some temporary employee, but professionally designed and printed in colors for the whole bookstore chain...
Behold: it was a BOOK STORE, not a plumbing store, where poor language sophistication would be as (temporarily) forgiven as poor plumbing knowledge sophistication in a book store.

The sentence: "Everybody doesn't like eggs", instead of "Not everybody likes eggs" is another example of deteriorated English.
If average people don't see that the former sentence means: "Everybody dislikes eggs", we have plenty of proof that the language sophistication of English speaking people is losing its sharpness.
Which also induces us to suspect that an intellectual decay is underway, probably the harbinger of a more extensive decline.

The sentence: "He knows (or: he wonders, he asks, he doubts, etc.) whether I can talk to him" is now becoming: "He knows if I can talk to him". With the "if", the meaning should more properly be: "If I (= in case I) can talk to him, he is (becomes) able to know".

Of course, the present "equal rights" fad is trying to enforce the "politically correct" ugliness of "he or she", "his or her", "In the name of the Parent, of the Child and of the Holy Ghost or Ghostess", "Our Parent, who art in Heaven", "the chairperson", "Dear gentlepersons", "the history of personkind", "the personhole" in the street...

A local newspaper of April 1, 1995 reports a constitutional amendment proposal of the "Legislative Reference Bureau" to rewrite the Wisconsin Constitution "...to replace masculine pronouns such as "he" and "him" with neutral pronouns...”. . .”... removing unnecessary references to masculine gender".  Example supplied: "Article I, Section 3, now begins, "Every person may freely speak, write and publish his sentiments on all subjects. Proposed change: "Every person may freely speak, write and publish their sentiments...”
Who are the other two or more persons the sentence refers to?

Here, "political correctness" (determined by culturally illiterate persons) was already satisfied with the word "person".
The use of "his" is merely a peculiarity of the English language, in which words have no gender of their own. Other languages have removed correspondence of gender between words and their meaning. For instance, "person" in German is: "Person", feminine, "persona", feminine, in Italian, Spanish (persona) and Portuguese, the feminine "personne" in French. But we also have the neuter "Mädchen" and Fräulein, in German, for "girl" and "miss". "Wall", "sex", "virtue" and other non-biological words, for instance, have indiscriminately masculine, feminine or neuter gender in Western languages (I don't know Asiatic or African languages)...

References to the general categorizing word are in the gender of the word, whereas those referring to a particular person have the gender of the individual person. This is hard to understand without considering the subtlety of what would be the linguistically "correct" form for the Wisconsin amendment: "Every person may freely speak, write and publish its sentiments on all subjects...” Here, "its" cannot refer to any other word but "person", and it would be grammatically correct, but conventional people feel uneasy: it seems -illogically- it must refer to an impersonal entity that has nothing to do with a "person"...
Presumably, that is why the other languages adopted the "usage gender" for every word, regardless of sexual/gender connotation.

It is revealing, for instance, how well-intentioned feminists, politicians and other activists are interpreting the "...all men are created equal...” of the Declaration of Independence as only referring to "property owning white males". Therefore, it should be corrected.

I disagree. It is true that the times favored the white male in many ways, but the Declaration was a human document about human rights in general, not concerned about its legal and bureaucratic application.
If the document wanted to exclude women, blacks and people without property, it would have had to specify something like: "... all white property-owning males...”, because the word "men" was used to designate the human species (not "race", as many say) at large, without any limitation of gender, race or whatever.

Bible people know from Genesis: "And God created Man, male and female".
The Sanskrit (primary of Indo European languages) "man" or "manu" designates the human being, whether male or female, just like the German "Mensch".
Latin, originally the most universal of Western languages for at least 1500 years, used the word "homo" to designate man and woman, not "homo et mulier" (man and woman). So did the philosophers, historians, legislators, priests, leaders and all learned people use the word 'man" to designate both male and female centuries before, during, and after the eighteenth century.
Therefore, those who interpret "men" of  "all men are created equal" as it were only the males, are either ignorant of history or biased by an ax to grind. 

Also the word "mankind" has always -as well as now- designated all races and both genders, but political zealots abhor it in favor of "humankind" (or even "personkind"). The healthy tendency of the English language to use shorter words will also help to go back to "mankind", as well as to "he" and "his" (from "he or she" and "his or her") when the anti-male (also anti-white-male) fanaticism subsides. 

If we don't accept the clever, clean, all-purpose English and American usage of "he", "his", "man" for official and other expressions, "she", "her" for countries, machinery, equipment, precision instruments, and numerous things dear to "man", we will have to homogenize English to a counter-producing political correctness that smells too much like a humiliating leftist masochism.
We cannot debase our culture to "political correctness".

Our leftist politicians, present primitive  "academics", social engineers, media writers or speakers, legal gurus, religionists, ultra-feminists, equalrightniks and their allies should not be allowed to contaminate the English language with the germs of decay.
 

SCRAMBLED COMMUNICATION

‑ The English spelling and pronunciation of the vowels always puzzled me and millions (or billions) of other people.
The English alphabet is really the Roman alphabet, since the Romans created it. It has been adopted and used as such for about 28 centuries by virtually all Western cultures and many other languages in all continents.
With the alphabet, the pronunciation of the vowels, for instance, remained substantially the same.
Only English deviated drastically from the universal pronunciation of the vowels.
Internationally and in the languages from which English derived, the correct pronunciation of vowels is:

Original and Latin, or Italian, or international pronunciation:                                       

"A" like "a", as in car, far, bar. Like the  "A" and "a" in "American"
"E" like "e",  as in bend, bet, let, pen. Like the "e" in "American"
"I"  like "i" , as in ski, pizza, Gina, Bikini. Like the "i" in "American".
"O"like "o",  as in gold, mold, cold, roll.
"U"like "u",  as in truth, full, lute.

Instead, the English language pronounces "A" as in "late" with the two sounds of "e" (as in "bend") and "i" (as in "ski"), which defeats the purpose of any letter to reproduce only one sound.
But even that inconsistency is made worse in the actual pronunciation of words like CALL, FAT, FATE, CAT, MALL, WAR, BASE, BALL...,   

It pronounces "E" like the original "i". Thus we have the distorted pronunciation as in EVE, SHE, instead of the original "E" in bEnt.

It pronounces "I" like the original "ai", (two sounds: "a" and "i"). Incongruence: BITE, FIRE, BIRTH, DICK, etc., instead of the original "I" in pIzza.

Only "O" is fairly consistent with the original pronunciation, but we still have: TO, MOVE, TWO, instead of the original "O" in nO.

"U" is in English "ee-oo", unnecessarily composed of the two original sounds "i" and "u". Yet: CUT, CUTE, BUSH, LURID..., instead of the original "U" in rUde.

If we wanted to pronounce the word "AMERICA" according to how we we pronounce each single  vowel in the alphabet, we would say (with the international designation of the sounds) "EIMIRAIKEI"....

 (There are still more peculiarities, but mentioning all of them here would only confuse the issues in this context).

Take, for example, the word "alumni", a Latin for "pupils" or "students". Its original pronunciation is (with the present dictionary  spelling designations): "ahloomnee", but the English pronunciation, explained in the original  (and  international) pronunciation, is rendered as "elamnai.

The Spanish speaking people, for instance, has adopted the word "beisbol" for "baseball", "futbol" for  "football", to render the proper pronunciation evident to non-English speakers, who are the rest of the world. The French, the Italians, German, Brazilians, most Europeans and too many more to enumerate here would also use the word "beisbol" to render (precisely or approximately) the correct pronunciation.

Confusing? Let's resume the above in a table of alphabetic pronunciation sounds:

Thus, pronunciation in English has no logic. Pronunciation of words like TOUGH, GLOUCESTER, DIAGNOSIS, and thousands more must be memorized from the dictionary, not deduced from grammatical rules.

When English adopted the Roman alphabet for those vowels and consonants , why did it change their pronunciation (especially the vowels)?
English scholars took words from Latin, when it was the European common language for over 1600 years, but they neglected to teach the uninformed public (mostly illiterate) how to pronounce them.   
If English had adopted the original vowel pronunciation as it was, today's children (and adults) would have no trouble at all learning to write and read, because they would not have doubts how to pronounce the vowels. The consonants have been distorted to a much lesser extent. Restoring the original and similar sounds to at least the written vowels would be the best solution, especially for children and foreigners who then would learn the language much more easily.

If we had kept the study of Latin in our basic education, the above problems could have been easily obviated and Western Culture  would have been enormously reinforced through the marvelous intercommunication and thus enhanced culture.
Abandoning the teaching of Latin in the public schools is the least understood blow to the Western culture. This is made still worse by the insufficient number of teachers who could remedy this problem.

20th century pope John XXIII decreed that Latin was no longer the international official language of Catholic liturgy, thus delivering a probably mortal blow of fragmentation to the vitality of Latin as the unifying communication means not only of Christianity (even if formally limited to the Catholics), but of many fields of knowledge.
This event comparatively reinforced the monolithic strength of Islam, which promotes and uses Arabic not only in the Koran but in most communications among different Muslim nations and ethnic groups.

Western culture is now prey of its new fetishism: fragmentation, in the name of liberty, individuality and freedom of expression.

Scholars have some explanations, but they don't obviate the consequences of accepting the status quo.
It is like a diagnosis that neglects the appropriate prognosis. Therefore, the patient may perish in the long run.

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Years ago, I read an amusing example of English spelling, according to the spelling/pronunciation suggested by other words.

It was about the noun "FISH"

The proposed "logical" spelling for FISH was "GHOTI", from the pronunciation logic used in:

"GH" in "enouGH" ( for "F" in Fish),

"O" in "wOmen" (for "I" in fIsh) and

"TI" in "moTIon" (for "SH" in fiSH).

The immortal English writer George Bernard Shaw (1857-1950) is said to have left a large sum of money to be used for the elimination of the above mentioned nonsense in the English spelling, but that legacy was cynically ignored.

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This peculiarity is in such glaring contrast with the original and general use especially of the same vowels in any other language, that it could be considered the Trojan horse of the English language. 

Moreover, in this respect, as in most others, the cybernetic requirements of the computer age are inescapable.

First of all, all languages should undergo radical transformations to become coherently grammatical for computer-friendliness, let alone the consequent enormous facilitation of world communication, commerce, records, peace....
Not vice versa, otherwise the illogical deformation of pronunciation will complicate understanding beyond human/computer tolerance...
The computers are already doing everything possible to become language friendly.
The irrationality of English pronunciation and spelling is an awkward  hurdle that could marginalize the English language and transfer the deciding advantage to languages like Spanish, which has a remarkably consistent (or least illogical) spelling and pronunciation among the languages I know.

A good example of an almost irritating (to me and many others) example of difference from our language is the Russian Cyrillic alphabet, introduced about 12 centuries ago by two Greek monks in Russia. I found it much more daunting to learn than the Greek alphabet, because of its much more different (from the Roman alphabet used in English) characters. However, after my laborious familiarization with that alphabet, its congruity of pronunciation with the written word made Russian much easier to read with correct pronunciation than English (even if my poor Russian doesn't understand the word meaning).

The advantage of English is its very simple grammar and the beautiful simplicity and versatility of its verbs (without sacrificing anything), the most versatile article (for instance, the article  "the" does the same job as the 16 cases-forms of the German articles), the adjectives (without different genders, cases, and plural endings to concord with the nouns), and no need to learn the gender of each word, which is necessary in languages like German, French, Spanish, Italian and many more..
As to the verbs, the backbone of our languages,  English is at the same time the most powerful, the most versatile, the richest and the easiest Western language.

However, if English does not standardize spelling and pronunciation rationally, it may become history.
Hopefully, it will accept some obvious logic.

On the other hand, the concomitant American resistance against adopting the simplicity, logic, power and practicality of the international metric system of measures is hard to believe. International and American Science, for instance, must use the metric system worldwide to function and progress.

THE WORD TRAP

The evolution from grunt to speech was a gigantic step for mankind, but only like a step from mile 0 to mile 1 in a 1000 miles path.

Grunts did not permit any communication beyond a general disclosure of presence, pleasure, alarm, menace or some simple warning.

Words, alone and in groups, permitted the kind of communication with the articulation of concepts, images, actions and attributes.
Words were even able to communicate meanings that did not exist in our minds before hearing the new words.

Now, we have quite a revolution into cybernetics (=communication control  science).

We learned to comprehend and apprehend even abstract concepts and their super-abstract explanations. That is, not only complex concepts like truth, pleasure, suffering, necessity, but arcane abstractions like epistemology, ontology, immanence, entropy, metaphysics.

Words acquired a special life from which one's own thinking depended.
Definitions became word strings that created concepts and images as components of our personality.

Words gave us the most powerful notions we live by, like God, right and wrong, justice, peace, war, love, freedom...
However, those notions remained trapped in the words that defined them.

It is true that we can imagine a god beyond the words that convey the concept of God to us, but too often we cannot find the words to describe our image of "Him". 

When I was a little child, I couldn't help imagine the baby Jesus as a baby in fetal position immersed in a 5-liter bottle of red wine, from the Italian words "Bambino divino" (literally: baby divine), in which "divino" was pronounced the same as "di vino", which meant "(made) of wine". Silly, but real, even knowing that that image was merely an artificial words play.
Also a lot of adult images can be equally tainted by illogical and subconscious images, which can be dignified beyond recognition by intellectual contortions. Psychiatrists could help there.

Thus the image is lost, consciously or not, because it cannot be rendered and preserved in words (let alone the fact that we have not the faintest idea what that image is).
We have no photograph of God. And a word is not a photographic image.
Worse yet, people become isolated from each other when the limits of speech possibilities are reached.

When people believe they are united by a common faith or conviction, they sooner or later find that they are separated by different interpretations of the word representing the concepts they think they are united by.

If the common belief is God, they soon find out that each person had a different interpretation or image of what God is.
The same applies to "unifying" concepts like freedom, equality, rights, common cause, fatherland, justice.
The problem remains that words like "freedom", God", "justice" are no more than symbols of concepts that are understood in virtually as many ways as there are individuals.
There is no language that is sufficiently clear and descriptive for all our thoughts, images and concepts.

If words could describe God, we would not have so many religions, sects and denominations  (let alone philosophies, theories, ideals and political systems) which keep spawning like bacteria.
If they could understand and describe freedom and justice properly, we would not have despotism and injustice.

Thinking and words have become so interdependent that much of our thinking is impossible without word‑defined concepts.
But even so, our thinking is muddled by the fact that everyone has a different understanding of a concept, even if we agree on its definition.    

In other words, our thinking and progress may be severely limited by the words we use to reveal and introduce them.

A classical example is our embarrassment with the concept of God.
We all claim to understand the meaning of God. But God is a word that limits our understanding of God.

It starts with the disconcerting use of the pronoun "He".
Why not "She", or, better yet, "It"?
Then, why "in Heaven"? We are all in heaven, for we dwell on the Earth, which travels in heaven.
There must be other words. On the other hand, no words could exist for concept we cannot conceive, comprehend or understand.
When we say that we understand God, we confuse God's meaning and essence with any interpretation of the word "God".

But why wait for words when images and concepts are what we need?
Because we can long for, but not express, anything which is not inside a word.  

As long as we think that our God doesn't know how to bring the Jews across the Red Sea without parting the waters and drown who knows how many thousands hapless Egyptian soldiers (did Enterprise's captain Kirk know more than God?), we have a deplorably ignorant (and dangerous) god indeed.

How do we see God? As a Lord (Lady), a father (mother, parent), a Spirit, dressed with a white blanket (for what reason? Besides, why would a god wear any dress, suit or costume?), or naked, in a light halo, or invisible, jealous and petty as in the Bible, thunderous or gentle, wrathful or loving... How else?
What words should I use to describe what He/She/It appears to be in my image of Him/Her/It?
Indeed, with and without the proper words, we are at a loss.

Just as this cannot be explained, we are not even aware about the countless interpretations we attribute to the concept God.
Yet, we act as if we all agreed on a shared vision of the same God...

Words, words, words... 

The next development in man may be cybernetic: as close as possible to the open and unlimited communication that we expect from an imaginary telepathy. 

‑ Language is a mirror of the past, present and future of a people. It also reflects the possibilities and limits of a nation.

Limiting languages are an impediment to the development of a culture. One could consider English the most versatile and rich, German precise, French and Italian aesthetic, Spanish proud, Portuguese powerful...

The challenge is how to properly analyze a language. 

‑ Nations used to have individual languages.
Latin America presents us with a new situation: the largest group of contiguous countries with the same language in the largest area.
The unsuspected consequences will reach beyond our present imagination.

Like religion, language unites nations into vaster cultures.
From this perspective, we are convinced that English is the most spoken of all languages in the world.

We hear that English is becoming the world language or "interlingua", but it is not supported by evidence; in fact, it is not spoken by more than 92% of the world population.

According to the World Almanac and Book of Facts, the percentages of world population speaking the major languages were, from 1958 to 1992:      
                                                          1958              1992
                                    Arabic             2.7                3.5
                                    Bengali            2.7                3.2
                                    English            9.8                7.5
                                    Hindi               5.2                6.4
                                    Mandarin       15.6              15.2 
                                    Russian            5.5                4.9
                                    Spanish            5.0                6.1

Thus, if we want to increase the global popularity of the English language, we must first improve its spelling and pronunciation, then make it more logical and predictable.
                 
Latin, the language of the ancient Romans, became the official and gradually everyday language of all Europeans, at the same pace as the Romans first conquered the primitive Europeans, civilized them and made them full Roman citizens (interestingly, no other nation in the world did it before and after). That was the greatest unifier of the Europeans into a compact system of laws, culture, communication, literacy, commerce etc. In lasted until the 17th and 18th century.
Even when nations replace d Latin with their native dialects and languages, Latin and its predecessor ancient Greek continued to be taught in the schools in order to communicate with other nations and to preserve the cultural enrichment of their own cultural roots.
The Catholic church kept preserving the tradition of the Latin language to maintain international uniformity in the religious rituals, until pope John XXIII decreed that local Catholic churches should officiate in their native languages.
That appeared to be a sign of decadence in the eyes of many Catholics, as a crack in the monolithic structure of the Church.

The Americans and Europeans have committed the same (or at least similar) error in eliminating the study of Latin in the public schools. Depriving the Western World children (and adults, obviously) of absorbing assimilation of their language roots causes a serious cultural loss that is invisible to most only because the have consequently lost the possibility of perceiving it.
The previously described mess of the English spelling and pronunciation is greatly due to the lack of connection (continuity) with our cultural past.
That Balkanizes the Western World, while the Muslims are united by the enforced tradition of the Arabic language.
 

POLITENGLISH

Languages, like almost everything else, are influenced by the times. The times are influenced by the prevailing trendsetters.
Today's trend is set by both politicians and the media.

Average and loaded words like JUSTICE, SEX, RACE, TERRORISM, DEMOCRACY, RIGHTS, FREEDOM, EQUALITY, HERO, VICTIM, LOVE, TRUTH, RICH, POOR,  NORMAL, and so on, are so distorted by politicians, bureaucrats, media and other interested parties, that their original meaning is lost and forgotten. We are at a point that we can no longer find new words to express the lost meanings.

Some words have become so absolutely "politically correct" ("de riguer") that no one dares not to use them. Examples:

"AFRICAN AMERICAN"  for "black". First, this is embarrassing and cumbersome simply for being a seven-syllable definition in a language in which such long pompous sounds are an undeclared but valid anathema.
Second, Egyptians, Libyans, Tunisians, Algerians, Moroccans, in North Africa, plus other ethnic groups throughout Africa are many millions of non-black ("white") African natives. Since "African American" is used by culturally illiterate politicians to designate black (non-white) Americans, the designation becomes not only ridiculous, but at least misleading toward any immigrant from Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco etc.
Third, blacks immigrated from non-African countries obviously need other designations, since they are not "AFRICAN".
Fourth, if I, as an immigrated and naturalized white American, feel  American American (especially after "9-11"),  all American-born black American are, by birth alone, more, or at least not less, American-American than I (or anyone born abroad), to say the least. Therefore, the designation "African American" is an abusive distortion of the English language by wronging black Americans with a designation destined to be ridiculed and discarded as soon as vote-scavenging race pimps vanish from the American scene.
Moreover, judging from the culture they use from birth and education, black /Americans are much, much more "European-American" than "African-American", besides being more "American-American" than a non-American-born American-American of whatever race or color.

"MEN AND WOMEN" for "soldiers" or "people". How long will we endure calling sailors, marines, soldiers, air-force fighters, submariners, pilots, members of unions, associations or just common people etc. "Men and Women" just to please the ultra-feminists and the equalrightniks? It is almost frightening to realize that virtually no one dares to publically address, or refer to, the marines, the soldiers or any group of humans etc. as other than "Men and Women".
Moreover, the obsessions of mentioning "men" and "women" with such a maniacally accurate (and implicit adversarial) separation invites more backlash-awareness of the danger of being disapproved by the "feminazi" Inquisition.

"HE OR SHE", or "HIS OR HER", for the generic "he" or "his"... This continues and exaggerates the artificial, "politically correct", adversary separation of male and female.
Man and woman are COMPLEMENTARY, NOT MUTUALLY HOSTILE OPPOSITES.

"HERO" is now anyone in a dutiful function we want to mention without the risk he may not vote for us. Two soldiers end up on a wrong path by mistake, are caught by the enemy just like policemen catch an intruder on private property.
We call them "heroes", the ubiquitous Jessy Jackson goes where it happened and turns back as a glorious mythical, legendary knight with the two hapless blundering immortal heroes...:
a slapstick-vaudeville operetta caricature that downgrades to a circus level all following real acts of heroism, patriotism and epic sacrifice.
Any unaware hapless individual, even a dumb criminal, caught in a crossfire by mistake, becomes a "hero"...

"INVESTMENT" now mostly designates any wasteful tax proposed by a snake-oil selling politician who consults polls as aunt Mabel consults the Tarot cards.

"PROFILING" is a necessary tool of investigation that political pimps and vultures see as a perverse intrusion into some sacred rights of privacy and freedom.

"FREE SPEECH" is an obvious individual and collective freedom that political maggots call whatever insulting lie and accusation they throw at the opponent, while the free speech of the opponents is called slander, hate crime and worse yet.

We could write an impressive dictionary of words that have lost and/or prostituted their meaning. Consequently, we are losing the ability to describe the concepts they used to represent.

Where are the absolutely needed "people who must get together and unite" to save us from the worst?

I absolutely refuse to say "men and women who must get together and unite" etc.
For those who still don't get it:

What if we find only men or only women capable for the job? Or 70% more men or women? Then we lose the focus and the purpose, because finding the pattern that satisfies hyper-feminist and other deviant specifications becomes more important than the original purpose, which consequently gets lost. That is what is happening now in our nation.

Put together a team of, say, 120 people to solve a fateful national problem.
What if politicians decide we must balance races, genders, ethnic and political diversity? They do it now.
To be perfect, could we add a balanced number of geniuses, morons, diabetics, radiologists, rocket scientists, obese ballet dancers and skinny sumo wrestlers?...

Crazy? Says who?

040102

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