That Does Not Compute

Originally posted by CosmicEgg
reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

 

A friend here is a PhD and researcher of sociolinguistics, specifically interested in language change and pragmatics. She's American as well, and interested in the influence English has on other languages. Obviously in this case, Finnish. Finnish, as well as being stiff and dry, is also very harsh. For example, in Finnish there is no word for "please". It has been adopted from English as "pliis" but its meaning is not so much for politeness as much as for actual pleading - something a bit detached from its use in current English.

First time I hear Finnish language called "stiff and dry". The difference between modern formal Finnish, daily spoken Finnish, countless dialects and early poetic Finnish (like the one used in Kalevala) is quite huge. For example Tolkien loved Finnish language and admired it in many aspects. But I do agree that Finnish can sound harsh, rough or rude to foreign ear, but because of the huge number of grammatical cases and tenses etc. it's still very fluent language - and pretty awesome for poets, song lyrics and other lyrical pieces.

What comes to words like "please", indeed we don't have a word that directly translates to it. But we do have several phrases which do the same job. "Pliis" is practically only used in spoken language (and mostly by teenagers and young adults) and very informal written language (once again, young people when they communicate using email/chats/facebook etc). Nowadays we're borrowing new words from English all the time. Some are used in their original forms, some are given "a Finnish" translation", mostly by spelling it as it's pronounced (for the Finnish ear) and then often modified a bit more to make it more... conjugatable? (easier to conjugate?). The "original" formal Finnish language already had a huge % of borrowed words, from Swedish, German, Latin, Russian etc. languages.

I don't mind the English influence myself at all. I use phrases like "Oh please...", "Come on", "Do you mind?", "Let's go" and similar almost daily. But I also write a lot of formal Finnish for school projects and work, and I love writing poems and song lyrics in Finnish. The fear that I share with OP is that young people this days don't have a clue how to write proper text even in Finnish. They have mostly zero knowledge of punctuation, proper conjugation, tenses etc. (And call me a language police if you wish, but not using capital letters makes me sigh daily, no matter what's the language.). This leads to cases where people get misunderstood more frequently. The last few years, I've seen a huge number of formal papers in which somebody has used (both Finnish and English) language so badly they have managed to say the very opposed thing that they intend to - causing a LOT of havoc, minor annoyance or extra work for a LOT of people.

In general, I don't mind language to evolve and change as much as anything else does, but I don't think it's an excuse for using crappy language or not bothering to learn how to make things right. I'm in favor of first learning how to do things "right" or "the old way" properly, before going all anarchist and chancing them.

At the moment I seem to be on the losing side (as usual). My messenger shows about 2 people online nowadays instead of 30 just a few years ago. So I let people enjoy their facebook and communicate "on their level" so to speak. I'm happy with the few people who remained and who bother to open MSN every now and then and write a whole (proper) sentence to me, instead of saying 'wazzup!?!?' on some crappy social media thingy, not even slightly interested what my respond will be. (And yes, I'm sure there are a lot of people who use facebook and similar things, who can write and communicate just fine, no matter what the language..)

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


How long do you think stupid people want to live?

Why is the world always doomed in your eyes? Do you want the world to end?

Originally posted by CosmicEgg
reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

 

Indeed that is so. I live in Finland now and have done for more than half my life. I was already an adult when I moved here and when I was younger I was much better at speaking Finnish than I am now. Odd, right? Not so much, when you think about it.

Finnish is a very dry, stiff, regimented language. It flows nicely for (some of) the Finns and perhaps the odd outlanders who happen to be into that sort of thing for some reason or another. Overall though most will say that it's a stodgy language with little flexibility. The longer I'm here, the less I like it. Oddly again, it is fading from my mind. Not because of age (how dare you!? lol) but more because it just isn't relevant.

Two of my three children are grammar nazis. One speaks five languages and the other has seven so far. All three will agree that Finnish is cold and hollow. Given a choice, they will use any other despite having been through the normal Finnish schools and having Finnish friends.

Finns work very hard to keep their language alive. It's a losing battle though. Five million people cannot do it. It will pass, and rightly so. Language cannot be shackled.

I don't think there is any battle going on really for (our) language. I have met a huge amount of people who are very "fluent" with several languages, but every single one of them prefers to use only one for "serious" discussion. It's mostly the language they have raised with. If they're naturally bi-lingual (pretty rare), they mostly use the one they communicated with their parents with.

I would say I'm reasonably fluent with English language, but I hate every single minute I have to communicate with it, if the issue is very complex or delicate. And the reason is obvious - I cannot possibly formulate my ideas as good with English as I could with Finnish. I'm sure it's also a matter of taste, but I'm still arguing you're not being true to the Finnish language. My humble opinion is that there isn't probably any language in the world that cannot be used gloriously to make listeners stand in awe and being touched by the words. But it always requires both the speaker and the listener to be very fluent in the language or to resonate deeply with the subject and words they hear.

To be able to understand and speak several languages is always a richness. I don't think personally any language's "worth" can be measured by the amount of people speaking it. Even if only 2 people in the whole world speaks it, if they understand each others, the language has done its job well.

Some languages die, some evolve to others, but so do people and they always will. Every "hateful" second that I need to use English for difficult subjects, I don't hate the language. I just hate that I cannot master it well enough to tell other people what I really think - or understand what they really meant by their words.

reply to post by PilgriMage


I'm an avid reader. I've read quite a few of your Finnish authors and none have the richness in any sense that I find with English. Granted, you may be correct in *my* assessment of the language, but what then of my children? My children are truly and genuinely bilingual. Their father is Finnish. I am American. They went through normal Finnish schools and have normal Finnish friends. But English is *the* language for them.

As I mentioned previously, Finnish is a regimented language. There is no mercy given for grammatical errors. I mentioned too that two of my children are grammar nazis. I have one other and she has dysphasia. Read up on that in case you are unfamiliar with it. There is no language where she is comfortable. She makes mistakes up and down the line of language. Nothing fits. Think what sort of drama it's been for her here! Her kind find no love here whatsoever.

When discourse is inhibited as much as in this particular language, something will have to give somewhere. Let's hope that it's the grammarians who give here. Finnish is no less cobbled together than any other language. They are all fragmented bastards and orphans of untold relationships. No language is pure. When we realize and accept this, it will free us yet further to unify and clarify our human communications.

I, for one, do not feel that language divisions add any richness to the human experience whatsoever. I feel they are yet another divisive element. Holding onto such a thing for no good reason is sentimental folly at best.

Originally posted by CosmicEgg
reply to post by PilgriMage

 

I'm an avid reader. I've read quite a few of your Finnish authors and none have the richness in any sense that I find with English. Granted, you may be correct in *my* assessment of the language, but what then of my children? My children are truly and genuinely bilingual. Their father is Finnish. I am American. They went through normal Finnish schools and have normal Finnish friends. But English is *the* language for them.

As I said previously, most prefer the language they communicate with their parent(s) with. Most swedish-finnish people in here use primary Swedish at home, so it's natural the children prefer using it too when with other 'of their kind'. Even most Finnish people don't either like or understand poetic/lyrical Finnish language, so it's no surprise if bi- or tri-lingual people don't get the language. I still believe that no language is more rich or better than others. People have borrowed words and phrases from other languages and dialects probably as long far back as the history goes. Most people don't benefit from the richness of their language (whatever it be), because they don't care or know how to use it. They use very limited vocabulary, hardly know any rare words and lack a proper usage of the grammar.

As I mentioned previously, Finnish is a regimented language. There is no mercy given for grammatical errors. I mentioned too that two of my children are grammar nazis. I have one other and she has dysphasia. Read up on that in case you are unfamiliar with it. There is no language where she is comfortable. She makes mistakes up and down the line of language. Nothing fits. Think what sort of drama it's been for her here! Her kind find no love here whatsoever.

I know about dysphasia (I worked with special class for one year in a primary school, many of the students had reading and writing problems of various levels). But as you said, she is not comfortable with any language, be it Finnish or English. But I would think she still prefers one language over other most of the time? I don't quite fully agree with your comment about there being no room for grammatical errors in Finnish. Most sentences are perfectly understandable with bad grammar as well, but it especially makes the language non fluent and harsh, if proper form is not used. Most common problem that foreign people have with Finnish is the proper conjugations of words. It will take years and years before your "ear" helps you to conjugate words without knowing all the exact rules how it is supposed to work. I don't think myself it makes the language less or more rich than others - it just makes it different.

When discourse is inhibited as much as in this particular language, something will have to give somewhere. Let's hope that it's the grammarians who give here. Finnish is no less cobbled together than any other language. They are all fragmented bastards and orphans of untold relationships. No language is pure. When we realize and accept this, it will free us yet further to unify and clarify our human communications.

I, for one, do not feel that language divisions add any richness to the human experience whatsoever. I feel they are yet another divisive element. Holding onto such a thing for no good reason is sentimental folly at best.

I agree with you about different languages making divisive walls between people and nations and cultures. But I also feel that language is an important part of the culture itself. There is no use forcing the culture nor language to change. It happens naturally during the years. That's why I totally feel one "common" language would be awesome for everyone to learn. I think English is the language most people feel to be best for common language, but I'm sure it's because of cultural heritage and dominance of English speaking nations, not because the language itself is so awesome and rich. It has a huge number of problems within it - starting from way too loose grammar to illogical pronunciation of most of the words, when compared to written language.

I would prefer that English would be taught a lot more in Finnish schools instead of Swedish, but it's a slow change that is happening all the time and has happened for the last 20 years. I have nothing against Swedish language, but for obvious reasons I think we would get more benefits from having a very fluent English than speaking poor English and even worse Swedish - which we hardly never ever use in actual daily life. (And I also agree 100% with you that no language is pure, nor does it have to be).

What comes to OP and proper language, I find it weird that often non native speaking people use both more rich and better grammar when using english than most of the native speakers.

Originally posted by Wertdagf
reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

 

How long do you think stupid people want to live?

Why is the world always doomed in your eyes? Do you want the world to end?

I am not sure how long stupid people want to live, perhaps you could tell us.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


IF smart people want to live longer than dumb people then an immortal society of intellectuals will be the inevitible remainder of any sentient species.

But without technology making everyone dumb or murdering everyone what would we have to talk about? The bright side isnt as interesting to the suicidal.

Originally posted by Wertdagf
reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

 

IF smart people want to live longer than dumb people then an immortal society of intellectuals will be the inevitible remainder of any sentient species.

But without technology making everyone dumb or murdering everyone what would we have to talk about? The bright side isnt as interesting to the suicidal.

None of this has anything at all to do with this thread. I can appreciate how threads will take on a life of their own and veer off in interesting directions, but come on!

This thread is addressing education institutions proclivity to rely upon algorithms and machines to grade sentence structure and writing. Can you somehow relate what you're trying to say to that topic?

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


Your claiming that advancements in education and changes in grading are making kids less educated. I see no evidence for that. You seem to hint towards this being a destructive spiral that ends in the death of everyone but it sounds more like an old man yelling at kids for listening to their newage music too loud. Languages change or they die.... to assume that a langage will never change and will ONLY get progressivly worse is ignorant.

Everythings getting worse... everythings dieing... the planet hates us... kids are going down the gutter... taxes are too high.. waahhhhhhhhh. Have you seen nothing to give you hope? Nothing at all?

reply to post by Wertdagf


I am claiming that this computer algorithm called e-reader is dumbing students down. I have made no other claims of "advancements" in education in this thread and given the woeful state of education in America today to make a claim of educational advancements would be laughable at best.

Apparently it is not just writing skills that are being given short shrift in education today, and reading comprehension skills are lacking as well.

Further, you keep pretending I am some sort of doom and gloom prognosticator in this site, which only further suggests you have serious reading comprehension problems. While I am certainly willing to call a spade a spade and point to problems that do exist, I do not generally take up doom predictions. Why you keep insisting I do only you know. How long do stupid people want to live, by the way?

As to your final question, a simple search of my own profile would have answered that question for you.

Of course, what is the likelihood you will join that thread and give it a bump to enjoy the attention those kids deserve? I wonder...

I love to write, however I do not always follow proper grammar. Sometimes my thoughts flow better, and sound better when read allowed, it they do not adhere to such strict rules. I really hate those green squiggly lines in Word, they make me feel like I'm being graded on my use of the English language. It is like an annoying teacher who doesn't get your highly entertaining, creative and artfully crafted short story, but instead draws all over your paper complaining on why this or that sentence should be structured differently, while completely missing the actual content of the story.

I also love to make up words, or merge some words together. And why not? The making up of words is how our language got to where it is today!

Cool OP.

reply to post by PilgriMage


Getting the Swedish thing out of the way: Keeping Swedish is the most stupid thing ever. I mean, Sweden ruled Finland ages ago and were pretty damn brutal too. Russia ruled for a century until independence in 1917. For some reason, Finland keeps Swedish as the second national language. It makes no sense. And frankly, having to live with two useless world languages is not fun for anyone - especially foreigners. Time to move on.

My dysphasic daughter prefers English, naturally, but it's still difficult for her. Recently she's made huge strides in vocabulary and accurate usage. This is apparently due to her having read several hundred volumes of early 20th century comic books. Whatever works, eh? I've never been able to get her to sit down to classic literature. I guess the ends justify the means.

I'm not quite with you about fluency in Finnish though. I have been here for 26 of my 49 years. I do not feel this language. It is alien to my heart and it just doesn't fit this country. The entire country would be better to lose it.

In all my years here, I have met only three foreigners who really adopted the language. One is a Belgian who just simply has it for languages, another is an American who came here as an exchange student, and the last (who was the first here) did so because he had a business to run. I've known a lot of people over the years to come here and eventually leave. One solid reason has been the language. It's just not user friendly.

Finnish poetry is absolutely shocking. That's truly horrible stuff. LOL

As for English and its foibles: Good on it! That's exactly what we need! Yes, the spelling could be cleaned up and made more logical. It's a pain for most. The thing is though that language should be free and flexible. It must flex according to the user's needs. When we force language that is unnatural, we also force mental and emotional constraints on a person. Language must allow expression of the soul. When it doesn't, can't or won't, you will inevitably end up with problems. I've often felt that this is one of Finland's unexamined reasons for the high crime rate and interpersonal strife among the population.

Originally posted by CosmicEgg
reply to post by PilgriMage

 

Getting the Swedish thing out of the way: Keeping Swedish is the most stupid thing ever. I mean, Sweden ruled Finland ages ago and were pretty damn brutal too. Russia ruled for a century until independence in 1917. For some reason, Finland keeps Swedish as the second national language. It makes no sense. And frankly, having to live with two useless world languages is not fun for anyone - especially foreigners. Time to move on.

Even if I do get your point(s), I still don't agree. 5 Million Finnish and around 9½ million Swedish people get along just fine with their/our language. As I said earlier already, I don't think the importance or usefulness of language should be measured by the amount of people using it. It serves us just fine, but most of us totally agree we should kick out the silly Swedish in favor of some more common languages, be it more English or maybe Russia, Spanish, German or Chinese.

I'm not very sensitive person (what comes to sharing opinions), but saying your language is useless/not rich/harsh/dry/stiff sounds both rude and thoughtless into my ears.

My dysphasic daughter prefers English, naturally, but it's still difficult for her. Recently she's made huge strides in vocabulary and accurate usage. This is apparently due to her having read several hundred volumes of early 20th century comic books. Whatever works, eh? I've never been able to get her to sit down to classic literature. I guess the ends justify the means.

Yes, it's all about the motivation, as with other things (and especially school subjects) too. I think learning better language is good, no matter what's the source. If she's not into classical literature (most teenagers aren't), by all means find something that suits her better. You never know if she starts to enjoy more "sophisticated" books later in her life. And if not, it doesn't matter, as long as she can express herself the way she wants.

I'm not quite with you about fluency in Finnish though. I have been here for 26 of my 49 years. I do not feel this language. It is alien to my heart and it just doesn't fit this country. The entire country would be better to lose it.

It's part of our history and culture and even if the "official" Finnish and written language (and rules) was "invented" just about 500 years ago (By Agricola), we "fought" for hundreds of years under Swedish and Russian rule to have a RIGHT to use our own language. And the history of the language is much older than our history as a country. As a country we're (still) pretty succesful in many ways and I think being able to use our "own" language has a lot to do with it. If you've been here for over 26 years now, I would think you've realized we have a myriad of different dialects, which sounds very different. Eastern and Western accents and dialects sound very different, but we found it to be richness, not a problem - because we still understand each others well.

In all my years here, I have met only three foreigners who really adopted the language. One is a Belgian who just simply has it for languages, another is an American who came here as an exchange student, and the last (who was the first here) did so because he had a business to run. I've known a lot of people over the years to come here and eventually leave. One solid reason has been the language. It's just not user friendly.

I can totally relate. I have a LOT of foreign friends and to be honest, none of them speaks any good Finnish at all, even the ones who have been here for 10+ years. Not an easy language to learn and master. But our literacy rates are top notch in the world (99.0% at the moment), so obviously it's perfectly manageable for native speakers, when learning is started early. And of course it tells something about our school system, which is praised all over the world as well. (Thou I hate the whole western and modern school system myself).

Finnish poetry is absolutely shocking. That's truly horrible stuff. LOL

I love Finnish poetry, both old and new. But I also argue that for them you need 90+% perfect skill in the language, to actually understand it and allow it "to express the soul". We have tendency of melancholy and a lot of cultural problems, but I would never in a million years blame it on the language. I (and my soul) have been touched by Finnish words hundreds of time during my life, more often than with English. But like in music, I often get touched by melody and harmonies too, even when I don't understand the words - I think it's the ultimate secret of voice, music, language and human speech.

Originally posted by seeker11
I love to write, however I do not always follow proper grammar. Sometimes my thoughts flow better, and sound better when read allowed, it they do not adhere to such strict rules. I really hate those green squiggly lines in Word, they make me feel like I'm being graded on my use of the English language. It is like an annoying teacher who doesn't get your highly entertaining, creative and artfully crafted short story, but instead draws all over your paper complaining on why this or that sentence should be structured differently, while completely missing the actual content of the story.

I also love to make up words, or merge some words together. And why not? The making up of words is how our language got to where it is today!

Cool OP.

edit on 9-5-2012 by seeker11 because: (no reason given)

Maybe you would love Finnish language, it's notorious for combined words and making up new words by morphing 2 or more words together and then conjugating them. In that sense I would say it's superior to English, thou it makes the words long and very hard to conjugate in same cases - especially for non native speakers.

But I agree with you totally, there's no need to suppress the natural evolution of language, as long as you know what you're doing and get your message heard and understood. I never use proof reader in my texts, no matter what language I use (Finnish, English or Swedish). For scientific texts I understand the need to be exact and follow the rules so that there is no fear of misunderstanding, but for any other texts, I embrace creativity in writing too.

I would think proof readers and other language filters are meant to be a suggestion only - for either lazy people or people who are not very good with type writing (read: slow). But I would think for people with dysphasia or people using foreign languages it can be a big help. I would think, when used properly, you could even LEARN language and proper writing with programs like that. But for serious and fluent writers I don't see the need for them.

reply to post by PilgriMage


I know all of the history and all the rest. I know why Finns are so flipping house-proud of all things "Finnish" (none of which are any more than anything else, btw). I dislike any form of nationalism or any other -ism. You may find my disdain of Finnish offensive, and that is naturally your right, but I've been here probably longer than you have. Your perspective is not going to be quite as objective as mine. When I say that the language(s) are useless, I mean in the global arena, not in your backyard. And when Finland tries so hard to be a model student in all things (to compensate for their insecurities, obviously), it's silly to expect foreigners to spend our lives studying two *worthless* languages. I hope you see that word for what it means in context. It is meant *in context*.

This is now going too far into the off-topic zone so it ends here with regard to Finnish and Finland. It's been jolly.

Originally posted by CosmicEgg
reply to post by PilgriMage

 

I know all of the history and all the rest. I know why Finns are so flipping house-proud of all things "Finnish" (none of which are any more than anything else, btw). I dislike any form of nationalism or any other -ism. You may find my disdain of Finnish offensive, and that is naturally your right, but I've been here probably longer than you have. Your perspective is not going to be quite as objective as mine. When I say that the language(s) are useless, I mean in the global arena, not in your backyard. And when Finland tries so hard to be a model student in all things (to compensate for their insecurities, obviously), it's silly to expect foreigners to spend our lives studying two *worthless* languages. I hope you see that word for what it means in context. It is meant *in context*.

This is now going too far into the off-topic zone so it ends here with regard to Finnish and Finland. It's been jolly.

Yeah, a major off topic, but always fun to share opinions. And no, I don't find your "disdain" offensive because of Finnish language, but for all the other languages as well. I agree with you, that one common language would be awesome - but I would never be so insensitive as to say someones language is useless or better than worse than someone else's. Obviously Finnish language for a Finnish man is subjective, so I can only say that I'm more objective towards English/Swedish/w'ever other language. And I'm 35 years old btw. so I've been using Finnish for about 35 years, English for about 23 years and Swedish for.. umm.. 21 years.

And I don't think we are any more or less proud of our national "things" than others.. I'm not nationalist at all in my opinion, but I don't have any reasons to be ashamed of being Finnish either. I'm foremost a person, secondly a man and maybe thirdly a Finn. (There may be some other things on the list before that too.). We all (nations) have our silly things, deeds, sins and history to carry - hopefully we're not too stubborn to prevent them from us evolving.

Thanks for your opinions! (And sorry OP for the sidetracks..)

Cute article on grammar

www.courthousenews.com...

sample

"Reference," for example, is a noun. It is not a verb. If one wishes to "refer" to something, one "refers to" it. One does not "reference" it. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT, ALL YOU SEMILITERATE LAWYERS WHO I HAVE TO READ YOUR STUFF DAY AFTER DAY AFTER DAY?!?!? "Reference" is not a verb! It's a noun. It may, rarely, be used as an adjective: i.e., reference room. BUT IT'S NOT A @#$%*&! VERB!

We really ought to be aware of the difference between form and essence, or syntax and semantics. A poem could violate every single rule of English grammar in the book but still hold meaning. On the other hand, one could construct a grammatically correct sentence with no meaning at all, such as "colorless green ideas sleep furiously."

But English is an interesting case. Almost all users of English are aware of only some basic rules of grammar and spelling, yet communicate with each other (somewhat) intelligibly. English as we know it has loose rules, flexible structure, and some degree of error tolerance. This is why it is so suited as the pidgin language of the entire world.

I might point out mistakes in someone else's writing, but at the same time I might have violated grammar taboos in someone else's eyes. And that's why I don't do it. There must have been a reason for using poor grammar or spelling, such as typos, lack of editing, lack of education, or by intention.

Writing is complex form of communication precisely because of what we call language. Language is dependent upon the use of the symbols we call words, which have no meaning other than the meaning assigned to them by the one who is experiencing the communication of thoughts, ideas, and concepts through the use of symbols.

Language is basically a social agreement that can be agreed or disagreed upon in many ways, depending upon the social environments of the users. A dictionary is a social agreement, as is a spelling program, as well as neighborhood slangs. Intelligence is not dependent upon these social agreements, just as social agreements are not dependent upon intelligence.

Intelligence may be communicated in many ways other than the spoken or written word.

Such proverbial gatekeepers; the not-so-self-aware so called God's of Grammar; cannot yet comprehend the very profound nature of which we humans communicate. While a baseline understanding of the language we speak and write helps a society achieve semblance of continuity, it cannot be seen to restrict the evolution of our natural ability to communicate!

For instance -- in style and substance -- I utilize a lot of breaks: semi-colons, dashes, ems, ellipses and other means to create what I want to communicate; it would be my guess that a grammarian would be aghast at my poor use of such. To them I say hogwash and poppycock!

While this form of writing I have been developing, experimenting with, and testing isn't what I wrote or utilized while I was a child -- it is because I have moved past the confines of "formal" education and onto the wide-world of real life. Where the deaf create their own style in sign language that has as not so standard movements as it does personal flair. Where I see children, before their chain's are shackled upon their creativity, communicate with such beauty it almost astounds me as to why we even send them off to obtain an education.

The thought that kids today are being tested or graded upon their actual ability to critically think, to communicate, or create in this world but by their mere ability to follow a simple set of instructions is a sad state of affair.