Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier wrote:
On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 12:08 PM, Piotrek Juzwiak <piotrek.juzwiak@googlemail.com> wrote:
As a matter of fact most of technical stuff got it's names in English first :) Maybe i used too harsh words but beauty of a language is it's ability to express yourself in as many words as possible right??
For me, the utility of a language is whether it allows you to express your meaning as precisely as you wish, but also have nuance and subtlety.
Now -- I don't consider myself an expert on language, so take this with a grain of salt: But I think English is very effective in this regard. You can say something and be clear on more than one level. (Note that I'm thinking of literature here, not technical documentation -- which are two different things indeed.)
Having one word for many things makes it really poor (just my opinion, you don't have to agree with that), i do like using English because there is always place to improvise but still it's going into wrong direction in my opinion. The worst thing i see is usage of english words in our native languages, this sounds at least silly. Being in germany last time i see increased usage of english words instead of "native" german words which i find "brutal" but hey, media are enforcing this on us that way. Looks to me, that in 50 years we will all talk a mixture of english and our native language (if by this time everyone won't talk english only) .
Heh. Well, English is largely composed of words from other languages, so it's only fair that we give some back. :-)
English as spoken today is a "mutt" language -- parts Latin, French, German, and so forth. It has mutated a lot over the years and there's really a rich history embodied in the language that I find fascinating. I could, literally, spend a day reading the Oxford English Dictionary -- and might just do that on my next vacation. :-)
I'm not sure there's "right" or "wrong" in languages, though -- and while it's easy to look at a language's development and say "this is/isn't the way it should be," the fact that the common usage pushes language in a specific direction may mean that is the evolution that's the best for communication among the widest group of people.
This reminds me a bit of a conversation I had with a NetBSD developer around 1999 - he was ticked at Linux because he said that a lot of the system wasn't elegant -- in particular, was criticizing the IDE stack at the time, saying NetBSD's was better, more robust, etc. Maybe doing things "exactly right" wasn't the right answer, as getting it done first and improving over time seems to have worked pretty well for Linux.
The English language may not be as 'elegant' as other languages, but it works - and its ability to evolve rapidly may be why English words keep popping up in other languages.
Best,
Zonker
Well, all i can say is Joe 'Zonker" Brockmeier hasn't been chosen by a mistake :-) You really are the right person on the right position. Good we have You on our front and not against us ;-) Best Regards Piotrek Juzwiak -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+help@opensuse.org