What's up with "words"?

Zekrom Black

Zekrom Black

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Everyone writes and speaks with words, but what's up with them? For example: fork. Think about it, "fork", doesn't it sound kinda wierd when you really think about it? If you take the time to think about words, and how they are pronounced, spelled, and sometimes, there are no true ways to pronounce words. Like data. This may sound dumb, but why did the people who made those words 1,000's of years ago decide how they are spelled and pronounced? And there are many different languages, but why not settle on just one? I'm not saying everyone has to follow the same religeon and everything, but why can't we all speak one main language? It would be kinda hard to change, but children who are born after this decision will grow up learning this language that the peopleon Earth decide on, and the other languages will become forgotten languages like Latin. Words are very wierd if you think about it. In fact, the names of Pokemon wouldn't be the same if they were different, as most Pokemon names are based off of words.
 
Most words are from Latin or Greek origins (which have very similar spellings/meanings). It's unknown how the Romans and Greeks came up with the words back then, but most modern day words are derived from some sort of foreign word.

I dunno, that's all I got. For all we know, they could have done the "Garbodor Method".
 
Sure, it would be vastly more practical to have everyone speak the same language, but no one is going to agree with which language. Combining languages won't work either.
 
Not everyone would agree to it. Sure, it'd be simpler, but language is a major part of culture in many different ethnic groups. Only speaking one language would really get rid of one of the very important parts of our history.
 
^I agree. It would be simpler, but everyone would want their own language, because they wouldn't want to have to learn a new one.
 
Well to be honest on the language note.
I believe in most countries, English is being taught more and more in school and I think is even compulsory in some Non-English speaking countries?
I believe some time in the future their will be one language used around the world.
 
Most words derive from their Latin or Greek counterparts. Also if the world only had one language, it would be hard for people born before this change to adapt and learn the language (It is pretty hard to learn a language,) and I would know I'm learning French!

Pipe Bomb said:
Not everyone would agree to it. Sure, it'd be simpler, but language is a major part of culture in many different ethnic groups. Only speaking one language would really get rid of one of the very important parts of our history.
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I agree so much of our culture depends on our language, books, games, movies, all of these things depend on it, so what would happen if we changed all of it? We would lose so much!
 
One language isn't what this thread is all about!!!! I didn't even mean for anyone to really notice that. And by the way Reshiram36, one word: subtitles.
 
Zekrom Black said:
One language isn't what this thread is all about!!!! I didn't even mean for anyone to really notice that. And by the way Reshiram36, one word: subtitles.
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We'd only know one language. How would we be able to read subtitles?
 
The subtitels would be in that language, so we won't have to dub everything! One language isn't even the point of this thread!
 
I've always thought the world should use one universal language. But with that, 2 problems arise. First, everyone would be vying to make their native language the universal language, and second, so much art and expression would be lost. I think business and other official things should use one language. English is THE language for all pilots. They can't have two planes crashing because of language barriers. I think this concept should be applied to more things in the world.
 
Each countries language is to important to be lost, so much history would be gone.

NidoJosh said:
Well to be honest on the language note.
I believe in most countries, English is being taught more and more in school and I think is even compulsory in some Non-English speaking countries?
I believe some time in the future their will be one language used around the world.
Click to expand...
Yes indeed. In most countries English is being taught as a main subject. Since English is such an important language I think that we really don't need to learn a new one if most people are already learning English.
 
I always thought the whole language thing was from natural sounds when gesturing to an object. For instance, the pasifier to me at age 3 was called the "foo foo." It does sound weird right? But that's what I called it. Whenever I said "foo foo" I got a pasifier should my parents be near. This is how I think language started out on simple terms.

I hope I'm understanding the topic. I always wondered too, how it came about, and people always said we get our words from other languages. But where did those words come from?
 
Mr. Tea said:
I always thought the whole language thing was from natural sounds when gesturing to an object. For instance, the pasifier to me at age 3 was called the "foo foo." It does sound weird right? But that's what I called it. Whenever I said "foo foo" I got a pasifier should my parents be near. This is how I think language started out on simple terms.

I hope I'm understanding the topic. I always wondered too, how it came about, and people always said we get our words from other languages. But where did those words come from?
Click to expand...

Yeah it's interesting how a language came to be.
I believe that the earliest languages would have been like grunts and used body language (pointing etc) to get their point across. Soon more people got used to associating stuff with certain sounds and then it started to develop more and more.

Languages even now are always changing
 
Honestly, the title of this thread is something someone high on cannabis would say, just saying.

I have to agree with Mr. Tea. If you don't know words, and you want something, you're going to say whatever your mouth can manage. Some Latin guy thousands of years ago saw a strawberry bush and called the berries "fraga". From then on, "Fraga" were those red berries that grew on green bushes. Then some people left there homes and traveled. These people eventually became the French, and words evolved a bit. "Fraga" became "Fraise". Some other guys also left and became what is now the Italian. For these guys, the "fraga" or "fraise" were changed to "fragola". Spaniards somehow derived from the Latins too and "fraga", "fraise", and "fragola" became "fresa".

Meanwhile, some Austrians, or Norwegians or someone like that, eventually branched off to become what we call Olde English. Their language came to be the same way the French, Italian, and Spanish did, only with Dutch-ish ancestry instead of Latin. Then some French guys decided to take over these Olde English guys, and French became their new language. Though the Olde English still kept some Olde English language, they also adopted a lot of French into their language. The Olde English eventually simply became the English, or British.

Once English was the spoken language, they eventually left Great Britain to find North America. ( Lots of other European countries did too, mainly the French, Spanish, and Italian. Though the only remnants are French, English, and Spanish.) Over time, Canada, and the United States of America (and Mexico) were formed. The English language hardly changed, but still changed nonetheless. Mainly just the accent changed. Us English-speaking North Americans added a few words to the American English language from other languages, such as "pizza", or "Sasquatch". Those words have Italian descent, and Native American descent, respectively.

More modernly, a lot of Greek and Latin came into our speaking. Most words with "ology" in them have Greek and Latin origins. For example, sociology ( the study of society) comes from the Latin socialis ( living with others ) and ology comes from the Greek logia ( has to do with speaking and lectures).
 
Language has simply grown naturally. When someone needed to describe something, a word came from either the qualities of that object (based on previous words or sounds) or out of the imagination. It simply spread and distinct languages became. It's weird when you think about it at a very basic level, but analytically, it makes total sense.

One universal language has actually been attempted before, but no language would ever gain steam- people are too encased in their own cultures to want to initiate a global language. There's simply not enough incentive to have an international language, particularly with the level of translating technology we have now.
 
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