Small changes that can be made to The English Language to highly increase literacy.

Originally posted by abeverage
I like them house they more gooder!

edit on 28-6-2012 by abeverage because: (no reason given)

That doesn't make sense even with the language changes. Are you trying to say "I like those houses, they are better?", if so, that would be "I like those house, they more good", not "gooder" the whole point of the word "more" being there is so that you won't have to change the word "good" into "gooder".

Originally posted by Tadeusz
Speakers of Germanic and Romance languages already learn English very easily because over the years English developed into the "lingua franca" of Europe. Now one can see Swedes, Finns, Portuguese -- what have you -- speaking and writing English more fluently than "native speakers" living in North America. This has nothing to do with the lack of complexity in the English language, but rather the quality of education.

I have a small tip to offer. In this post I have avoided using a certain language feature which I believe -- while it has its place -- cheapens the language when overused. Can anyone guess what I avoided using?

The copula (is, am, are, be).

Originally posted by UKLionheart

What you are proposing isn't actually a new idea. In fact, Esparanto is actually Latin with all the verbs, plurals etc made regular.

The idea of an isolating English is not a new idea? I did much searching on the internet and I couldn't find people thinking of an isolating English where you would use "did", "will" , "do" instead of verb conjugations and the word "some" instead of the plural -s.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
reply to post by arpgme

 

I don't really understand how that is simpler? You are replacing the "to be" with another verb that needs conjugated anyway. In most of your examples the sentence became longer instead of shorter.

I never even talked about the copula (to be) in any of the reformation ideas. Unless, you are talking about changing "I am singing" to "I do sing" which actually has to do with the "ing" of "singing" rather than the verb "am".

Originally posted by getreadyalready

In most of your examples the sentence became longer instead of shorter.

Just because it is longer, but simpler.


Example:

good, better, best

good, more good, most good.

It is simpler because now you will not need to learn different forms of words.

Originally posted by getreadyalready

You seem to be wanting to limit the vocabulary, but our vocabulary grows every single day with additional words adopted from other languages and additional words to describe new things or variations of old things. Vocabulary is never going to get smaller, only larger and larger and LARGER!

What we really need is a better education system and higher expectations for our youth.

Yes, but only for limitations of French Latin borrowed words, in favor of English compound or native words.

instead of having a word like "consanguinity" which most people will not understand, we can use "samebloodedness" which most people will understand.

Originally posted by CynicalDrivel
I AM singing: this is what I'm doing right now.

Anything that you are doing now (-ing) will be "do" in the reformation.

Originally posted by CynicalDrivel

I DO sing: this is what I'm capable of doing.

capability will be expressed with "can", so it would be "I can sing".

Originally posted by CynicalDrivel

What could be done is drop the ing in the first sentence:
I AM SING: problem is that this means that either my name is Sing, or I embody singing.

So, so much for this working.

No matter what, there will be ambiguities, I already know this, the point is to lessen them. Just because there are still ambiguities does not mean that we should make no improvement at all.

Originally posted by getreadyalready


And you don't even need the "do" in that case.

Just, "I sing."

I am singing = I do sing.
I sing = I sing.

There is a slight difference.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
I think sing, sang, sung is pretty simple really, no need to reinvent the wheel.

No reinventing, just getting rid of what is not necessary. We can use "did" , "do", "will" instead of changing the verb for different times

Originally posted by JakiusFogg
reply to post by arpgme

 

I am sorry. I do not see it.

The conjugations you propose already exist but for a different context I.e. I am singing. means NOW

I do sing means you do, just not right now.

In the reformation:

I am singing = I do sing.
I sing = I sing.
I do sing. = I can sing or I sometimes sing

Originally posted by JakiusFogg
reply to post by arpgme

 

it is a relatively easy language to master,

Not really.

Originally posted by JakiusFogg
reply to post by getreadyalready

 

it would be doring if everything was the same and organiSed and always followed the same rules, Like French German and Spanish

Language is a TOOL for communication, your emotion of "boredom" is irrelevant. The only thing that matters in regard to language is if it is efficient, that is, easy to learn and able to be expressive.

reply to post by arpgme


I still don't believe it is made more clear with your changes.

"I do sing." What does it mean? You sing sometimes? You sing as a profession? You sing as a hobby?

Whereas "I am singing." clearly means you are singing at this very moment.

In my interpretation, "I do sing." and "I sing." are perfectly equivalent, but neither one of them means "I am singing."

reply to post by getreadyalready


That is why it is called a reformation. In this reformation "I do sing" mean "I am singing" and "I sing" just means "I sing". If you want to say "I can sing" or "I sometimes sing" then you can just say that.

reply to post by CynicalDrivel


You'll find no argument from me there. Thank the Gods the Saxons left when they did!

reply to post by arpgme


Therefore, by that very notion, you have to learn English in it's correct form in order to translate it to understand the reformed version.

And you say that English is "not really' easy to master. I beg to differ. My 4 year old some has it down pat! and he is fluent in Spanish also.

i think we are already seeing changes in the english language thanks to text messages.

dont get me wrong i dont mean acronyms (lol and lmfao are just plain annoying), im talking about phonetics, englis would be so much easier to learn if we wrote things the way that we say them, dont you think?

It's a funny thing i noticed on Youtube and basically every english languaged message board: The people from other countries, where english isn't the first language always try hard and give their very best to write as good and correct as possible, so they can be understood.

While especially americans tend to be lazy bums, not giving a # about how retarded they make look with their raped version of the english language. And whoever thought that replacing You with U or constructed crap like "could of been" instead of the correct "could have been" (one of my all-time pet peeves, i want to punch everyone who writes it wrong in the face ) should be shot.

As for the OP: Give it a rest, the english language has been gang-raped so many times in the last hundred years, it's nearly dead. No need to jump at the poor thing again and dumb it down even more.

Have you read 1984? Oldspeak vs Newspeak. The killing off of words and making it very very simple. You might find it interesting. No need for the word 'very' when 'plus or double plus' works just as well. So you kill the word 'very'. That kind of thing. No need for un' and 'non' and 'not'

So 'very good' becomes 'plus good' .
So 'not good' becomes 'un good'

Etc

Originally posted by JakiusFogg
reply to post by arpgme

 

Therefore, by that very notion, you have to learn English in it's correct form in order to translate it to understand the reformed version.

Of course you'd have to know English in order to translate it into the reformed version, just like you'd need to know Japanese in order to translate it into English...

That does not mean that you can't speak in the reformed version without learning so-called "Standard" English though.

Originally posted by JakiusFogg
reply to post by arpgme

 

And you say that English is "not really' easy to master. I beg to differ. My 4 year old some has it down pat! and he is fluent in Spanish also.

I highly doubt that he can fully express himself and read and write and understand big words...

Originally posted by DaveNorris
i think we are already seeing changes in the english language thanks to text messages.

dont get me wrong i dont mean acronyms (lol and lmfao are just plain annoying), im talking about phonetics, englis would be so much easier to learn if we wrote things the way that we say them, dont you think?

Yup, but if you change the spelling to make it the way that we speak, eventually, over time, it will not look like English. I agree that it would make more sense though.

Originally posted by ShadowAngel85

As for the OP: Give it a rest, the english language has been gang-raped so many times in the last hundred years, it's nearly dead. No need to jump at the poor thing again and dumb it down even more.

There is nothing "dumb" about replacing French and Latin borrowed word for actual English words in the ENGLISH language.

Originally posted by FlyersFan
Have you read 1984? Oldspeak vs Newspeak. The killing off of words and making it very very simple. You might find it interesting. No need for the word 'very' when 'plus or double plus' works just as well. So you kill the word 'very'. That kind of thing. No need for un' and 'non' and 'not'

So 'very good' becomes 'plus good' .
So 'not good' becomes 'un good'

Etc

Wasn't the intentions in that book to get people to stop being able to talk about certain things? I didn't read it so I may be wrong.

That is not my intention, it is just replacing words with actual English ones to facilitate learning.

For example, people will still be able to talk about astrology, even though that is a Latin, we'd just replace it with a more English one, "starlore" star (astro) + lore (ology / learning/ science)

reply to post by arpgme


Nah I was just messing with ya.

But yeah there should be an overhaul to the English language as supported by the Georgia Guidstones....

reply to post by ShadowAngel85


well, i think that as long as people understand what you are saying then it doesnt really matter how you put it.

so i fort id b anoyin n rite a lil bit o' txt speek 2 get u all gronin lol me finx u r gunna h8 me 4 this.
but i bet u al red it n understud exactly wot i ment. point wel made me thinx

reply to post by arpgme


Obviously at the age of 4 But he can express himself well enough. proving that it is not that hard to master. even when learning a second language at the same time!

Other than that I am convinced this is a wind up

and just for no reason heres a link that i think is appropriate for this thread
link

no seriously, its a serious link about the english language

here you go eveything you ever wanted to know about english

Originally posted by JakiusFogg
reply to post by arpgme

 

Obviously at the age of 4

Exactly, that's my point. If we would have used compounds so many more words would have been more understood, but since they are all in Latin and you have to decode them by going to the dictionary, and some are even difficult to pronounce, it'll be a while to learn these words.

4 years is a long time to learn 2 languages, but to most this seems normal because language was messed up by "feelings" and tradition instead of what it is for, efficient communication.

reply to post by arpgme


Ebonics is pretty over-simplified, adaptive, and timely for whatever social issues are going on in the community at the time. Perhaps we should just all speak ebonics?

We don't need to change the language to increase literacy.

We need to improve teaching methods.

Verb tenses, sentence structure; these things cannot be controlled by central authority.
In all languages, these have evolved naturally and collectively, with the unconscious aim of making language as easy as possible. Nobody will take any notice of central fiat.
As for "spell as you pronounce", we are already getting that, to some extent, from the more illiterate members of society (that is how "If you think that, you;ve got another think coming" was corrupted into the meaningless "You've got another thing coming"). It can make them unintelligable.