[SPasse]

Hi All,

During recent meetings for the governing body that allocates/regulates domain names and the allocation of public internet IP addresses, countries like Iran and certain other African countries have been complaining about the way that the Internet is "dominated" by the English language.

As the internet is one of the forces pulling together the world into a single community, the subject of a "World Language" is being raised along with the fights (some would say tribalism) involved in the actual concept.

English would be a natural for such a universal language, but as mentioned above "not without a fight"

It looks like the move to a "Federation Standard" is going to be a "stormy" one.

Regards,

Scott

[Poseidon]

I have often wondered how long it would take to get to single language. I know this is still YEARS off, maybe even decades. I'll bet if we all spoke the same language, our conflicts would be easier to resolve.

[SPasse]

Mike,

English is such a good candidate because of its ability to "borrow" words from any language "as required"

It's also king of interesting to hear a Japanese technical discussion. English words are freely intermixed with the "native tongue"

Then you get into a discussion about computer programming in another language.

Another discussion is how culture effects the structure of language and its suitability for a "machine based programming language"

Sadly, the current "Ugly American" mood of much of the rest the world is putting a damper on the momentum the "English as the world language" had behind it.

Regards,

Scott

[Poseidon]

I agree English is a good choice. If the Iranians don't like the English on the net, they can develope their own, in Arabic...

[Ninong]

English is already the international language of commercial aviation. English is probably the most studied language by students in other countries, even Asian countries.

Why is this? Is it because of any inherent superiority of the English language or is it simply because English is the language of the world's current superpower and the previous superpower? Remember the old adage, "might makes right."

Would French be the dominant language today if the French had been more "successful" than the English in colonization?

Look at how the Greeks influenced the Romans. The Romans stole all of the Greek gods and godesses and simply gave them Latin names. Greek philosophers and mathematicians were studied by the Romans. Everything Greek was held in the highest esteem by the Romans even when they were already the world's superpower. Greek was studied and spoken by the educated classes in Rome. Caesar's last words were in Greek, not Latin as Shakespeare would have us believe, although the meaning was almost identical. Instead of Shakespeare's, "Et tu, Brute?," his last words according to Suetonius in De Vita Caesarum were "And you, my child?," but in Greek.

Latin supplanted Greek as the Western world's premier language mainly because of Roman conquests, just as English is today's premier language because of British conquests. That doesn't mean that English is the most widely spoken native language, obviously Mandarin is because there are so many Chinese, but English is the world's dominant language because of the power of the British before us and the power of the United States today.

English is a required second language in virtually all European school systems. Only Americans speak one language. Most younger Europeans speak at least one or two languages in addition to their native tongue.

English is already the dominant world language and probably the most widely spoken as a second language around the world. If you count everyone in the world who is fluent in English rather than just those whose native language is English, I think you will find that more people speak and understand English than Mandarin.

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by Poseidon

I agree English is a good choice. If the Iranians don't like the English on the net, they can develope their own, in Arabic...

Arabic????

Why not Farsi?

P.S. -- Farsi (Persian) is the native language of Iran. Iran is not an Arab country.

[Poseidon]

Originally Posted by Ninong

Arabic????

Why not Farsi?

P.S. -- Farsi (Persian) is the native language of Iran. Iran is not an Arab country.

I knew that was not right, but didn't take the time to find the right one.... I guess I had an "ugly american moment."



HTML code looks like a WHOLE 'nother language to me, I can't even fathom code being in something other then english.

Besides, what is wrong with being a super power!?

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by Poseidon

Besides, what is wrong with being a super power!?

The answer depends on your perspective. Obviously Winston Churchill and Mohandas Gandhi had different views on the virtues of British "protection."

[SPasse]

George,

" English is already the international language of commercial aviation. English is probably the most studied language by students in other countries, even Asian countries."

Granted, but for how long?

The new dynamic is the internet.

I can't think of a parallel in history of a force that might unite, on a communications level at least, the whole world. Maybe mass media in general, the Internet in particular.

Even the "universal influence" of great empires of the past were isolated by the realities of travel.

Computer languages are based on compliers, and an Arabic (or Farsi) based C Complier is probably a stretch. Certainly a mathematics system that doesn't translate to binary would be an issue. I guess you could talk about translation tables next…

My company employs a lot of Indian, Chinese, Malaysian software programmers. For them, learning English was implied in learning to be an engineer.

Still, will there ever be a time when the world will only teach a single language to our children?

Regards,

Scott

[Ninong]

I think English is fast becoming the language of international commerce already and I don't see any way to stop that. English is the most widely taught second language in virtually every country in the world right now, even in China.

A common language is usually considered a prerequisite for a common government. It is difficult to govern effectively when the people being governed speak several different languages, which is why China has made Mandarin the official language. That doesn't mean that the people in Hong Kong won't still speak Cantonese for decades to come but Mandarin is taking over.

In the same way that a common language is critical to the assimilation of new immigrants into the culture of their new adopted country, a common language will speed the transition to a one-world government. I don't think we're going to see a one-world government anytime soon, but a common language would certainly be helpful in expediting a transition from nationalism to one-world government.

My best guess is that we're a minimum of 100 years away from that and more realistically 250 years away. Maybe longer. But we're moving in that direction. European countries have already started to abandon nationalism for a European Union. Right now we're still in the early stages of a one-world economy. You aren't going to have a one-world government until you first have a more equal distribution of wealth and natural resources. That could easily take 250 years.

In the good old days, wealth, land and resources were redistributed among nations by wars of aggression. Nowadays the same will be accomplished by free trade. China's economy has been growing at more than double the rate of any Western country ever since they began to embrace capitalism. Developing countries like China and India have a lot of problems to solve but as long as their rate of growth exceeds that of the developed countries, they will eventually catch up.

In the meantime, the individual countries will have to deal with terrorism caused by religious extremists and dwindling natural resources. There is always the potential for wars of aggression to control energy supplies popping up before a one-world government has been established. I still think the long-term trend is towards a single worldwide economy, a single worldwide language of commerce (English) and, eventually, a single worldwide government, but that's as far away from us today as we are from George Washington's time.

[SPasse]

George,

"…You aren't going to have a one-world government until you first have a more equal distribution of wealth and natural resources. That could easily take 250 years."

You are also going to need to have some natural resources left when we get to this level of social evolution. This means, population control & alternative energy/resource development.

"…I still think the long-term trend is towards a single worldwide economy, a single worldwide language of commerce (English) and, eventually, a single worldwide government…"

Now all we need is faster than light propulsion and Star Trek, here we come.

Regards,

Scott

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by SPasse

Now all we need is faster than light propulsion and Star Trek, here we come.

That's not going to happen! Ever!

We need to get over ourselves. We're not Masters of the Universe.

[SPasse]

George,

"That's not going to happen! Ever!"

Well it's certainly an interesting discussion:

Here is one of many…

Faster than Light Starflight

If "getting over ourselves" limits our possibilities… I say don't

Not masters of our universe? Sounds like an argument for the existence of God. I know, perhaps no life forms are.

Regards,

Scott

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by SPasse

George,

"That's not going to happen! Ever!"

Well it's certainly an interesting discussion:

Here is one of many…

Faster than Light Starflight

From that article:

Landis: What are the physical possibilities we can see, using present-day knowledge, as to how we might be able to accomplish faster than light travel? Is it possible, and if so, how?

Cramer: So if wormholes are a real possibility, then they represent a real opportunity for faster than light travel.

Benford: I think that the most probable way of traveling about the galaxy at FTL, at the moment, must be the rather low probability of discovering wormholes.

Landis: We've talked about wormholes. What would it be like to travel through a wormhole? What would you see, and what would you feel, and what would the trip be like?

Benford: It would be like the New York subway, only worse [laughter]. There would be none of the homeless, and apparently very few graffiti, very narrow, and very quick. Surprisingly, getting from here to Alpha Centauri might involve scooting down a wormhole that might merely be the length of a football field. The trick about wormholes is to realize that they are shortcuts, that they are things with an enormous energy density, and therefore have an exorbitant price.

Read the part that I highlighted in bold. End of discussion right there! I don't understand why so many people are fascinated with wormholes. Assuming they exist and assuming they would take us where we want to go, unless we reinvent the laws of biology and the laws of physics, we would not survive the journey.

Theorizing about the use of wormholes as a means of faster than light transport is the same as theorizing about spacetimes in more than the 3+1 dimensional one that we inhabit. Mathematicians may be able to conjure up space with more than three dimensions and with more or less than one time dimension but we couldn't exist in it. In a space with more than three dimensions, there would be no traditional atoms or stable structures as we know them. We couldn't be observers in anything other than unidirectional time.

"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality." -- Albert Einstein

If "getting over ourselves" limits our possibilities… I say don't

I'm all in favor of achieving our potential but I think we have to realize that not everything is possible. Some things really are impossible.

Not masters of our universe? Sounds like an argument for the existence of God. I know, perhaps no life forms are.

That depends on your definition of "God."

"What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticims." -- Albert Einstein

"What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world." -- Albert Einstein

"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms." -- Albert Einstein

[SPasse]

George,

"Read the part that I highlighted in bold. End of discussion right there!

Should I or shouldn't I…

OK I Should.

Faster Than Light

Again more doubting Thomas's…

However, only two relativity simple engineering advances must be made.

Antimatter containment and matter-antimatter combination to create local "warped space" Should see that in about a hundred years.

I do agree that we should probably think about keeping our own planet habitable for a few more centuries.

But as soon as we can travel FTL, We can "be fruitful, multiply and replenish" the entire universe.

Regards,

Scott

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by SPasse

Should I or shouldn't I…

OK I Should.

Faster Than Light

Again more doubting Thomas's…

However, only two relativity simple engineering advances must be made.

Antimatter containment and matter-antimatter combination to create local "warped space" Should see that in about a hundred years.

You're right, you probably shouldn't have linked to that article if you were looking for support:

"Hawking says that wormholes would simply be unstable and therefore unusable."

He also says that even if wormholes could be made usable, the amount of energy required would be astronomical. Obviously he's basing that observation on the current understanding of physics. He's still alive and he hasn't changed his views as far as I know.

"To keep a wormhole open, regions of negative energy would be needed. Misner and Thorne have suggested using the Casimir effect on a grand scale to generate the negative energy while Visser has proposed a solution involving cosmic strings. These are very speculative ideas which may simply not be possible. Exotic matter with negative energy may not exist in the form required."

"The subject remains a fertile area for thought experiments which help clarify what is and what is not possible according to known and suggested laws of physics."

Suggested laws of physics is a pretty broad term. In that sense, anything is possible provided you suggest accomodating new 'laws of physics.' No doubt 2,000 years from now today's science will seem as outdated as Aristotle's geocentric cosmos did to Coppernicus -- maybe even 200 years from now. In the meantime, we have a lot of work to do before we will be ready or able to colonize anything beyond our solar system.

"A warp drive would be a mechanism for warping space-time in such a way that an object could move faster than light. [...] The main catch is the same one that may stop us making large wormholes. To make it you would need exotic matter with negative energy density. Even if such exotic matter can exist it is not clear how it could be deployed to make the warp drive work."

Just suggest new laws of physics that would make it possible.

"Many things such as shadows can go FTL but not in a useful way which can carry information."

OK, I admit that I haven't given shadows much thought but why would they "go FTL" rather than exactly the same speed as light? Is this a real or merely an apparent FTL speed and does it vary depending on the perspective of the observer? I wonder where I could find a complete listing of the "many things" that can go faster than light? If we're talking about quantum mechanics on the subatomic level, I don't consider that FTL travel.

I do agree that we should probably think about keeping our own planet habitable for a few more centuries.

Our planet will remain habitable for life as we know it for perhaps another 500 million years at least. That's not to say that our species will be around that long. In fact, who's to say that our extinction would not be a good thing for the other species that survive us?

But as soon as we can travel FTL, We can "be fruitful, multiply and replenish" the entire universe.

Sort of like a virus breaking out of it's natural habitat? Should we bring along our small pox-infected blankets to hand out to the natives?

Naturally all of this is dripping with sarcasm but my point is that we're nowhere near ready to colonize the universe. We are still a highly immoral, belligerent, aggressive species that has shown a very limited capacity to "play well with others." What if our behavior is normal? If so, any encounter with a more advanced species could lead to our extermination or enslavement, or perhaps they would simply construct a nice new H. sapiens exhibit to house us at their zoo. After all, we ourselves have experience in all of those areas.

[SPasse]

George,

Looking for support? No just having fun.

You do realize that some of my posts are strictly mental exercises as opposed to dogma…

Allow me to reiterate one point; “I do agree that we should probably think about keeping our own planet habitable for a few more centuries.”

Should have said “Habitable by humans as some level of development at or exceeding our current level”

“Naturally all of this is dripping with sarcasm but my point is that we're nowhere near ready to colonize the universe. We are still a highly immoral, belligerent, aggressive species that has shown a very limited capacity to "play well with others." What if our behavior is normal? If so, any encounter with a more advanced species could lead to our extermination or enslavement, or perhaps they would simply construct a nice new H. sapiens exhibit to house us in at their zoo. After all, we ourselves have experience in all of those areas.”

Sounds like the plot of “The day that the earth Stood Still”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Earth_Stood_Still

(Got to love Wikipedia)

Also explained in Star Trek lore… Third World War, (Atomic) then shepherding by a “First Contact” alien race.

Now I can go into my story about how my parents were time travelers, on a spaceship that crashed on earth. (I am half Vulcan, after all)

Regards,

Scott

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by SPasse

Now I can go into my story about how my parents were time travelers, on a spaceship that crashed on earth. (I am half Vulcan, after all)

Doesn't that make you eligible to start your own church and claim tax-exempt status? Or do your ancestors have to come from Planet Xenu?

[SPasse]

George,

I speculated about starting a church. My conscience won’t let me fleece people for donations though.

Regards,

Scott