Lyzko
9 Jun 2022
Language / A study on how bilingual Polish-English speakers think [86]
To downshift for some of us, (Rich, this means you LOL) all I meant was that NO language, and this includes of course machine or artificial languages, is the "best" or "the perfect" or, heaven knows, the so-called "easiest" language in the world!
If ease of "communication" is the gold standard here against which all languages must be somehow judged, English loses hands down, buddy boy!! It's a no brainer, dude. Look, English spelling's a nightmare, pronunciation or phonemic vs, graphemic correlation's a livin' mess, and the language is sooooo bleedin' pluracentric that even the term "English" has to be qualified in order to make any sense whatsoever.
There's Americanlish, English, Franglish, Canadlish, Indlish, Poglish, Germlish, Russlish and so forth and so on, I couldn't even begin to keep count.
French possibly makes some sense as a candidate for a world language. Chinese is ONLY spoken by Chinese native speakers since they never colonized and Spanish never quite achieved either the cache or the renown she felt she deserved.
However, back at last to the thread topic, and a fascinating one at that! Authentic bilingualism is, although not quite a myth, almost a sort of chimera, since no two people whom I've met, are absolutely 100% at home in more than one language.
I grew up hearing German first, English second. Yet, English, not German was the priniciple language of instruction until I was seventeen, and I only lived in Germany for just shy of a year. That was a long time ago, even if I'd been back to Germany practically twice a year from '85-'01.
Those here or elsewhere who claim they are bilingual and are always seeking to prove it, often teasing those who conversely claim to know foreign languages, probably are quicker on the GoogleTranslate key:-) Even the top spies who can infiltrate into another country and "fool" the people for a stretch, in nearly every case trip themselves up at some point.
To downshift for some of us, (Rich, this means you LOL) all I meant was that NO language, and this includes of course machine or artificial languages, is the "best" or "the perfect" or, heaven knows, the so-called "easiest" language in the world!
If ease of "communication" is the gold standard here against which all languages must be somehow judged, English loses hands down, buddy boy!! It's a no brainer, dude. Look, English spelling's a nightmare, pronunciation or phonemic vs, graphemic correlation's a livin' mess, and the language is sooooo bleedin' pluracentric that even the term "English" has to be qualified in order to make any sense whatsoever.
There's Americanlish, English, Franglish, Canadlish, Indlish, Poglish, Germlish, Russlish and so forth and so on, I couldn't even begin to keep count.
French possibly makes some sense as a candidate for a world language. Chinese is ONLY spoken by Chinese native speakers since they never colonized and Spanish never quite achieved either the cache or the renown she felt she deserved.
However, back at last to the thread topic, and a fascinating one at that! Authentic bilingualism is, although not quite a myth, almost a sort of chimera, since no two people whom I've met, are absolutely 100% at home in more than one language.
I grew up hearing German first, English second. Yet, English, not German was the priniciple language of instruction until I was seventeen, and I only lived in Germany for just shy of a year. That was a long time ago, even if I'd been back to Germany practically twice a year from '85-'01.
Those here or elsewhere who claim they are bilingual and are always seeking to prove it, often teasing those who conversely claim to know foreign languages, probably are quicker on the GoogleTranslate key:-) Even the top spies who can infiltrate into another country and "fool" the people for a stretch, in nearly every case trip themselves up at some point.