Communism and Language

[Leo]

So no matter what someone says, what's coming out of their mouth is patriarchal?Evidently not. The point is that social relations shape languages, and patriarchy being the oldest class relation has shaped languages the most. English is an Anglo-Saxon language, but not every word we speak has Anglo-Saxon roots. All languages are patriarchal in this sense. This doesn't mean that everything we say is patriarchal, it means languages have been heavily shaped by patriarchy when it comes to the most basic relationship of human beings, that is men and women, and that the point is not to pick words to use and not to use in order to be politically correct in our daily lives, but to combat patriarchal relations and their sexist ideology politically.



There are more problems about the existence of languages: they also nationalistic at the moment, simply because there are so many languages a significant amount of which serve as the basis of nationalities.

I'd like to hear your solution to this "problem".

"Problem"? You think it is not a problem that there are members of the same species who can't communicate with each other? Do you have any idea how difficult it is for people to learn English as a second language even when they are kids but especially when they are older?

The natural evolution of human languages is towards a single, unified languages. Languages are dying as we speak, but not without leaving a mark in other languages and thus in the world. I would expect there to be a single human language in communism which emerges as an organic consequence of the classless social relations without nationalism, sexism, oppression, patriarch and so forth. A language perhaps grammatically and structurally based on contemporary English because due to the combined historical success of British and afterwards American imperialism, the English language seems to have become closest to being the international language, however a language far richer and far more encompassing than the English of today, including the influence and the expression capabilities of all the widely spoken languages of today. A language capable of expressing much more than contemporary English or any of the other languages of today, a child of communism so to speak. The way I envisage it, such a language can only develop naturally, not without it being enforced on the different populations of the world.

[manic expression]

the point is not to pick words to use and not to use in order to be politically correct in our daily lives, but to combat patriarchal relations its sexist ideology politically.
Agreed.


"Problem"? You think it is not a problem that there are members of the same species who can't communicate with each other? Do you have any idea how difficult it is for people to learn English as a second language even when they are kids but especially when they are older?You can always communicate in one way or another, with hand gestures or sounds or what have you. Thinking of human communication as only in verbal terms is quite a narrow perception of the matter I should think. Further, learning to speak English isn't very hard in comparison to the other major world languages, especially when you take into account how widespread its media is.


The natural evolution of human languages is towards a single, unified languages. Languages are dying as we speak, but not without leaving a mark in other languages and thus in the world. I would expect there to be a single human language in communism which emerges as an organic consequence of the classless social relations without nationalism, sexism, oppression, patriarch and so forth. A language perhaps grammatically and structurally based on contemporary English because due to the combined historical success of British and afterwards American imperialism, the English language seems to have become closest to being the international language, however a language far richer and far more encompassing than the English of today, including the influence and the expression capabilities of all the widely spoken languages of today. A language capable of expressing much more than contemporary English, a child of communism so to speak. The way I envisage it, such a language can only develop naturally, not without it being enforced on the different populations of the world.The statistically high extinction of minor languages doesn't even vaguely suggest that we're going to have to adopt some single universal tongue, it merely suggests that very small languages are being overtaken by larger ones. We're talking about Wichita and hundreds of tongues few people have ever heard of, not the end of language diversity in itself. Tell me, is Portuguese in trouble? How about Japanese? Polish? Bengali? Vietnamese? Even Welsh has been on the upswing in recent years. This vision of an era of massive language extinction across the board has no evidence behind it.

But this "solution" to the problem (even if it were feasible) is quite undesirable, for it would be the destruction of everything that makes a people unique. In short, you claim to want to enrich humanity, but in reality this would impoverish it beyond measure. You might as well propose a single style of music and a single sport while you're at it. An international auxiliary second language? That's fine, but that's very different from your vision.

[Искра]

He actually said that there would be universal language which doesn't mean that all languages would die out. For example I live in Croatia and I speek Croatian, but still I know my local language...

[manic expression]

It wasn't completely clear, if I misinterpreted the point then that's my mistake. But I agree with what you're saying, something like Esperanto would be welcome, so long as it's neutral and doesn't replace any languages.

[dodger]

I wish I had a penny for every man who called me darling sweetie bootiful or sweetheart at work. Up 'till now I had never given it much thought. If a female collecting fares on the bus asked" Where are you going ,my lovely?"...Angel...sweeetheart et al, one would not even blink. Just smile back, I guess. "Let's get the train girls," uttered to a group of leathery cheeked track workers. Cant think why there could be a downer on a nations language, surely any hope of coming together within the boundaries of a nation, speech is required for social cohesion. Senseless bickering at least keeps the rest of us amused, plenty of cheap gags. Nobody, is listening to language police, nobody. After all it is the business of the Greeks what system they choose to strive for, in Greece. Their language and their culture. That is to say , not mine. So be it. Vive L A difference! Anyhow no good going up and down, about it, like a big girls blouse.

[Leo]

You can always communicate in one way or another, with hand gestures or sounds or what have you. Thinking of human communication as only in verbal terms is quite a narrow perception of the matter I should think.Surely, hand gestures or sounds are not in any way comparable in their capacities for expression to even the most basic of language. What tends to happen when two groups who speak different language have to interact on a more or less continuous basis is that a new, hybrid language develops (such languages are called pidgin languages). However a language appearing as such only within a life-time is bound to be weaker in its capacity for expression and eventually develops into a new language of its own in several generations (called creole languages).


Further, learning to speak English isn't very hard in comparison to the other major world languages, especially when you take into account how widespread its media is.That depends on the native language of who is learning though. For someone in the Middle East (except in Iran and in Kurdistan) or in the Far East, it is extremely difficult to learn to speak English properly, because the languages spoken in these parts of the world speak languages with entirely different roots, especially if they haven't learned them as children. Evidently it would be considerably easier for speakers of Western European languages in particular and Indo-European languages in general.


The statistically high extinction of minor languages doesn't even vaguely suggest that we're going to have to adopt some single universal tongue, it merely suggests that very small languages are being overtaken by larger ones. We're talking about Wichita and hundreds of tongues few people have ever heard of, not the end of language diversity in itself. Tell me, is Portuguese in trouble? How about Japanese? Polish? Bengali? Vietnamese?Today? No. However it is necessary to look at the general direction, not the contemporary one. Where these languages historically came from tells us more about where they are going to compared to where they are going. And loads of languages died over thousands of years to make all these languages what they are today. There was a time when each tribe had a language of its own, and a time when each ethnicity had a language of its own. The era of the nation-states gave us, not entirely but mostly, languages of nation states. A different era, and different conditions will cause a different outcome.


But this "solution" to the problem (even if it were feasible) is quite undesirable, for it would be the destruction of everything that makes a people unique. In short, you claim to want to enrich humanity, but in reality this would impoverish it beyond measure.Why? You presume that a single world language would mean declaring a contemporary language to be the world language. The language of the French nation state today is richer and gave us more than the different languages of different tribes of Franks taken one by one, even though it is a great mix of those languages with lots of elements from many more. All languages, in order to increase their capacity to express, have to mix with and borrow from other languages. Languages merging with each become richer. We are not mourning after the languages of the tribes of the past. Why should our children mourn after the languages of the nation states?


You might as well propose a single style of music and a single sport while you're at it.Why? Music and sportsmanship are not dividing concepts anyway nor are they divided themselves like languages - as a whole they, by their very nature, encompass all humanity and can be enjoyed by everyone. If anything, communism would mean a flourishing of the different styles of music and sportsmanship, as much more music and much different types of sport will be available to all. It would rather mean, in regards to what you are saying, and end to industrial music and industrial sportsmanship, so no commercial football teams and no big clubs.


He actually said that there would be universal language which doesn't mean that all languages would die out. For example I live in Croatia and I speek Croatian, but still I know my local language...
It wasn't completely clear, if I misinterpreted the point then that's my mistake. But I agree with what you're saying, something like Esperanto would be welcome, so long as it's neutral and doesn't replace any languages. An international language would be a must for the period of transition, although I don't actually think it will be Esperanto - initially I imagine it would probably be English for practical reasons. What I am saying is that in communism, so centuries after the death of the members of our generation, these languages will evolve and merge into a single human language, for the single human community naturally - this means without, in any way, being forced. If there is a revolution in our lifetimes, obviously we will keep speaking our native tongues. This is simply my personal prediction regarding how things will turn out.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to split this thread if this discussion about languages continues.

[manic expression]

Surely, hand gestures or sounds are not in any way comparable in their capacities for expression to even the most basic of language. What tends to happen when two groups who speak different language have to interact on a more or less continuous basis is that a new, hybrid language develops (such languages are called pidgin languages). However a language appearing as such only within a life-time is bound to be weaker in its capacity for expression and eventually develops into a new language of its own in several generations (called creole languages).
IMO they are comparable, I think that human communication is human communication whether it's epic poetry or eye contact.

What very often tends to happen is that one group with more power pushes its language into the daily life of another.


That depends on the native language of who is learning though. For someone in the Middle East (except in Iran and in Kurdistan) or in the Far East, it is extremely difficult to learn to speak English properly, because the languages spoken in these parts of the world speak languages with entirely different roots, especially if they haven't learned them as children. Evidently it would be considerably easier for speakers of Western European languages in particular and Indo-European languages in general.True enough, difficulty does depend on familiarity, but then again IMO learning to speak Russian is harder than learning to speak (speak) Mandarin is for a native English speaker. The grammar in Russian is exponentially more challenging than the minimal (at most) grammar of Mandarin. Once you get a good feeling for the 4 tones you're well on your way.

Most languages will require a good deal of effort, though. I think native Spanish speakers can get a grasp of Italian or Portuguese easily enough, but outside of those sorts of examples there aren't too many free meals as it were.


Today? No. However it is necessary to look at the general direction, not the contemporary one. Where these languages historically came from tells us more about where they are going to compared to where they are going. And loads of languages died over thousands of years to make all these languages what they are today. There was a time when each tribe had a language of its own, and a time when each ethnicity had a language of its own. The era of the nation-states gave us, not entirely but mostly, languages of nation states. A different era, and different conditions will cause a different outcome.I think you're in danger of projecting a trend that doesn't exist. The general direction you speak of is picking off very small, very minor, almost entirely unsupported languages. They don't have educational systems behind them, they don't have courtrooms employing them, they don't have TV stations. The sample size you're using to determine this "general direction" is staggeringly small in the view of total speakers. Most languages with more than 500,000 speakers aren't going to feel the effects of this very much.

The mere fact that languages do not match up to countries is an important one. It shows us that language is tied to nationality, which is not necessarily tied to a given country. The Basque nation, for instance, has no "nation state", and yet it is still a nation with a distinct language. The political state of Spain does not make the Basque nation Spanish.... What this tells us is that a.) the "era of the nation-states" was just the creation of new modern states around pre-existing nationalities and b.) boiling it down to its political formation misses the point. The basis of language, as you yourself already pointed out, lies not in a country (aka "nation-state") but in something far older than that.

But the most important point is of what the new era will bring. Communism means the end of states and their borders, but not the end of differences between different people and different nations. You say that the end of a country means the end of a national identity, but I would point out that you miss the fact that any given nationality preceded the country and has been proven to outlast it. The foundation of a nation, part of which is language, is not at all the target of working-class revolution, and it is instead the confirmed role of the working class to constitute itself the nation, to redefine the nation for a new era.


Why? You presume that a single world language would mean declaring a contemporary language to be the world language. The language of the French nation state today is richer and gave us more than the different languages of different tribes of Franks taken one by one, even though it is a great mix of those languages with lots of elements from many more. All languages, in order to increase their capacity to express, have to mix with and borrow from other languages. Languages merging with each become richer. We are not mourning after the languages of the tribes of the past. Why should our children mourn after the languages of the nation states?I don't recall French being mixed with all that much Occitan or Burgundian or Breton. In reality, French simply displaced a lot of those languages, and it isn't something to mourn as much as recognize and counteract. The proven way to keep the human experience richer isn't to hope that English absorbs a few words from Welsh (which it won't), it's to keep Welsh a strong part of the life and identity of the Welsh nation. That's also how we address the dignity of the Welsh people, that they can master and employ their own words in everyday life and at the highest levels of their own government.

Now, I want to be clear on this next point because it is often ignored. I have no problem with languages evolving...it's not only a useful process (especially because it usually simplifies grammar) but an unavoidable one. Languages change over time, and they do so alongside others...I neither deny nor object to this. What I do have a problem with is the language of a nation being driven to extinction by economic convenience. Sure, it happens sometimes and that's how it goes, but I would submit that there is no known occurrence of this that has objectively benefited mankind.


Why? Music and sportsmanship are not dividing concepts anyway nor are they divided themselves like languages - as a whole they, by their very nature, encompass all humanity and can be enjoyed by everyone. If anything, communism would mean a flourishing of the different styles of music and sportsmanship, as much more music and much different types of sport will be available to all. It would rather mean, in regards to what you are saying, and end to industrial music and industrial sportsmanship, so no commercial football teams and no big clubs.Music and sportsmanship are most certainly dividing concepts. Soccer players congregate with soccer players and basketball players with basketball players. The labyrinth-like divisions between music subcultures is enough to make your head spin. I can't count the times I've seen people not get along well because of music tastes. Sh*t, most high school groups (a good example of petty division between otherwise similar human beings) is predicated upon music or sports or both.

So why not propose one style of music and one sport? It would serve the exact same purpose as proposing a single language.


Perhaps it would be a good idea to split this thread if this discussion about languages continues.Yes, I was about to propose the same thing...I seem to be agreeing with you a surprising number of times on this thread. :D

[Leo]

IMO they are comparable, I think that human communication is human communication whether it's epic poetry or eye contact.

Well, communication is communication on a wider level though, and we know that humans are capable of communicating with animals also without the use of language, and animals are, who presumably do not have any language whatsoever (although there are varying opinions on this I really don't want to split the thread again so I won't go into them), are capable of communicating likewise. So, what then separates humans communication from animal communication if not having language? I think the difference between the level of human communication and that of animal communication too great to be merely recognized as a quantitative one.


What very often tends to happen is that one group with more power pushes its language into the daily life of another.

Yes, this is obviously true. It is no small part of the reasons why human languages have had a tendency to die out, although not the only one.


True enough, difficulty does depend on familiarity, but then again IMO learning to speak Russian is harder than learning to speak (speak) Mandarin is for a native English speaker. The grammar in Russian is exponentially more challenging than the minimal (at most) grammar of Mandarin. Once you get a good feeling for the 4 tones you're well on your way.

Possibly, but you are comparing extremes here. Russian grammar is, as far as I know, one of the most complicated ones, whereas Chinese grammar is one of the simplest ones. Also, obviously learning the Russian alphabet would be immensely easier than learning the Chinese alphabet, which is so difficult that it probably closes the gap.


Most languages will require a good deal of effort, though. I think native Spanish speakers can get a grasp of Italian or Portuguese easily enough, but outside of those sorts of examples there aren't too many free meals as it were.

Turkish and Azeri, Kurdish and Farsi, German and Dutch, French and Italian, Norwegian and Swedish and Danish and so on and so forth. Yet these are the really close languages. However for a French speaking person to learn German or Norwegian would be easier that learning English is for a native Turkish speaker.


I think you're in danger of projecting a trend that doesn't exist. The general direction you speak of is picking off very small, very minor, almost entirely unsupported languages. They don't have educational systems behind them, they don't have courtrooms employing them, they don't have TV stations.

Yes, indeed exactly. They are dying because they've been left out of the linguistic world of capitalism. My point is that the languages of the nation states of today will be going through the same natural process - when the nation states have been abolished by communism, their respective languages they will be integrated into the world of communism.


The mere fact that languages do not match up to countries is an important one. It shows us that language is tied to nationality, which is not necessarily tied to a given country. The Basque nation, for instance, has no "nation state", and yet it is still a nation with a distinct language. The political state of Spain does not make the Basque nation Spanish.... What this tells us is that a.) the "era of the nation-states" was just the creation of new modern states around pre-existing nationalities and b.) boiling it down to its political formation misses the point. The basis of language, as you yourself already pointed out, lies not in a country (aka "nation-state") but in something far older than that.

Yes this is true, languages evidently predate the nation states. Languages incidentally, predate nationalities, ethnicities and, incidentally, even tribes. The problem with the scientific research regarding the development of human languages is that it is rather difficult to gather empirical data since spoken languages by their nature can't leave them. However the fact that different language families exist suggests that initially there were certain language families of human bands (or clans) which, as these bands grew expanded, came into contact, came into conflict, and simply varied due to different experiences brought by immigration. So the linguistic evidence suggests that initially, that is for the thousands of years which was primitive communism, the number of languages in the world actually increased. However following the emergence of class societies, and thus with the transformation of bands into tribes, this situation begun to change. The bigger the groups got, the less languages were necessary. And as tribes merged, the languages of the tribes merged, and with the creation of ethnic groups, ethnic languages started developing. Empires made their initial ethnic languages universal as far as the lands they controlled, which had its effects on languages of the tribes which weren't empires yet. This in turn shaped the development on these tribes, and eventually as they became ethnic groups themselves within the old empires. The languages of the tribes in Eurasia who couldn't become ethnic groups died. However the newer ethnic groups pushed the rise of a new society based on a different class from the ashes of the old (I would recommend Barbarians by Terry Jones and Alan Ereira for a very good alternative history of the collapse of Rome in regards to this), the world of feudalism which eventually had imperial monarchies of its own, eventually. Obviously, the transition from feudalism to capitalism is much better known. To sum up regards to languages, capitalism having developed out of feudalism and having expanded to the whole world as a mode of production, the remaining tribal languages of the world are rapidly dying whereas the remaining ethnic languages of the world are slowly dying. Languages like Basque and Kurdish among others are not ethnic languages anymore but national languages. Ethnic groups in locations capitalism developed when the capitalist social relations were still on the rise, but which did not manage to create nation-states in the same period have actually managed to become nations without nation-states. These became the parts of the world in which the capitalism system was particularly a horrible failure in the 20ieth century, with endless wars, massacres and conflicts. Yet, their languages are, in most cases, living ones, which makes the problem much, much more real. However, this is actually the exception. Today there are 6,900 languages left in the world - and more than half of the world's population speaks 12 languages.


But the most important point is of what the new era will bring. Communism means the end of states and their borders, but not the end of differences between different people and different nations.

To me, it means the development of a single human community of free and producing individuals.


You say that the end of a country means the end of a national identity, but I would point out that you miss the fact that any given nationality preceded the country and has been proven to outlast it.

Yet nationhood and nationalities, these are ideologies of national bourgeoisies and nation-states later on when these classes take power. What meaningfully precedes the nation-states and nationalities and nations, is what they replaced, extinguished or are extinguishing, that is ethnicities or tribes.


I don't recall French being mixed with all that much Occitan or Burgundian or Breton. In reality, French simply displaced a lot of those languages, and it isn't something to mourn as much as recognize and counteract.

No, but it integrated words, concepts and ideas from these languages, surely.


The proven way to keep the human experience richer isn't to hope that English absorbs a few words from Welsh (which it won't), it's to keep Welsh a strong part of the life and identity of the Welsh nation. That's also how we address the dignity of the Welsh people

I don't think we have anything to gain by trying to incite nationalism in Welsh workers, and I am not sure how many people really care about the Welsh language. A native Irish-Gaelic speaker friend of mine (Devrim from revleft, incidentally) sounds pretty sure that Irish-Gaelic is destined to die out, for example, and pretty soon.


Now, I want to be clear on this next point because it is often ignored. I have no problem with languages evolving...it's not only a useful process (especially because it usually simplifies grammar) but an unavoidable one. Languages change over time, and they do so alongside others...I neither deny nor object to this. What I do have a problem with is the language of a nation being driven to extinction by economic convenience. Sure, it happens sometimes and that's how it goes, but I would submit that there is no known occurrence of this that has objectively benefited mankind.

And I want to be clear on this next point because it is often ignored as well. I have no problem with people wanting to learn their native languages, nor do I think think suppression or the assimilation or any other form of consciously forced extinction are in any way positive or progressive. Given my background, this is incidentally something from which both myself and lots of my loved ones have suffered from, quite a lot. What I'm trying to do is to analyze how languages developed in history from a scientific point of view, and the reason I was originally interested in this is probably mostly because of my own personal background.


Music and sportsmanship are most certainly dividing concepts. Soccer players congregate with soccer players and basketball players with basketball players. The labyrinth-like divisions between music subcultures is enough to make your head spin. I can't count the times I've seen people not get along well because of music tastes.

Never happened to me either with sports or with music. The only thing that happened to me was not getting along with someone because me and them supported different football teams, but that's rare in the extreme.


So why not propose one style of music and one sport? It would serve the exact same purpose as proposing a single language.

No, it wouldn't. Proposing one style of music and one sport would have the same purpose as proposing a single paragraph to be repeated and repeated. Music and sportsmanship are human activities, language isn't a human activity. Had there been several different note systems with better and worse aspects, I could propose a synthesis of the best elements of all, but I think that would be all.


Yes, I was about to propose the same thing...I seem to be agreeing with you a surprising number of times on this thread.

Yeah, well, maybe the world is going to end in 2012 after all.

On a serious note, it is positive that we are managing to have a discussion without insulting each other on both sides, I think.

[The Dark Side of the Moon]

I skimmed the thread.
if we pick a language, it should be a phonetic language. i hate spelling in English and french

[Jens]

One of the startling things about languages is the human ability to learn multiple languages when young, and become easily bi- tri- or quadri-lingual without much problem.
In evolutionary terms, this might have something to do with the emergence of exogamy, which would mean that all children as a matter of course would know two languages, that of their mother and of their father.
Although I agree with Leo that in communism there would be a tendency towards the fusion of all existing languages in one world languages, as a true human community emerged and nations disappear, we might also see the emergence of new languages for specific interests and purposes, so humanity would in fact become multi-lingual.
Some short points to illustrate this.
In the ICC's English section, we once had a Welsh comrade who told us about his anarchist days distributing leaflets in Welsh to factory workers. His conclusion was very funny: Welsh is a wonderful language if you want to talk about sheep, green hills, and sword fights, but if you want to talk about class struggle, all the words (strike, working class, fctory) are English. The same is true for Woloff for example.
In fact, the "Welsh" working class is in large part not Welsh but English, Indian, Pakistani, etc...
The same is true in Catalonia for example, where perhaps the majority of the working class is not Catalan but comes from all over Spain and speaks Castilian (ie Spanish). And in China, where local dialects are disappearing in favour of Mandarin as migrant workers have to talk to each other.
In Catalonia, the attempt to enforce Catalan as a language takes on a directly nationalist, anti working class flavour: the Catalan Generalitat passed a law a few years back, forcing all state workers to learn Catalan on pain of losing their jobs, and of course if they succeed in encouraging Catalan at the expense of Castilian, then that will have the effect of cutting off the workers in Catalonia (Barcelona being one of the main working class concentrations in Spain) from workers in the rest of Spain.

[Welshy]

The natural evolution of human languages is towards a single, unified languages. Languages are dying as we speak, but not without leaving a mark in other languages and thus in the world. I would expect there to be a single human language in communism which emerges as an organic consequence of the classless social relations without nationalism, sexism, oppression, patriarch and so forth.This state has no basis at all with in reality. Languages are in a constant state of changes. And new languages form because these changes don't happen in every part of the language and eventually these differences build up until these dialects become mutually unintelligible with each. Yes there are social influences on where they changes spread to, but they tend to confined to specific regions. An example is the one of the most recent changes in a dialect of American English, Inland North dialect (basically the dialect around the Great lakes, excluding Minnesota and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan) where they was a big vowel shift that took place starting in the 1950's. So despite the nationalism in the US and even the use of the dialect that was spoken there pre-vowel shift as the basis for the standard American dialect (General American) the language still changed. Also this happened despite the increase level of education and exposure to media. One day in the future there will probably be many new languages descended from English based on the geographic divisions we can currently see and the dialects spoken in those areas now a days. If anything nationalism tends to force language death, rather than language birth.




A language perhaps grammatically and structurally based on contemporary English because due to the combined historical success of British and afterwards American imperialism, the English language seems to have become closest to being the international language, however a language far richer and far more encompassing than the English of today, including the influence and the expression capabilities of all the widely spoken languages of today. Lingua Franca's come and go and with the decline of the US, you will probably have a new language that will be used in international communication.



A language capable of expressing much more than contemporary English or any of the other languages of today, a child of communism so to speak. The way I envisage it, such a language can only develop naturally, not without it being enforced on the different populations of the world.

I'm happy that you recognize that international languages can't really be created. This is one of the things that annoys me about esperanto speakers.

I would also like to mention that with the expansion of our knowledge of how languages function, communications technology and translators will improve vastly and will probably overcome most of the issues that we have with them now a days.

Also here is how I imagine the future of languages. Because we can't really avoid the death of the 3,000 some moribund languages by the time communism comes into place will have a lot less languages at the beginning than we do now (I'm going to guess somewhere in between 1,000-2,000). But with the advent of communism society that encompasses all of human society, most of the factors that caused language death (economic pressure, nationalistic/ethnocentric government policies) the death of languages and dialects will slow down a lot.. We will also more likely than not have more cases of multilingualism (especially in english speaking groups as I don't think english will be the lingua franc any more in the future), this won't really be anything new as for most of the world multilingualism is really normal.
Then over the next couple hundreds of years there would probably be an explosion in new languages and thanks to the vastly improved communications technology and educational system, this won't negatively effect communication as most people will be fluent in the lingua franca or translation software will be able to reliably translated from one language to another.

EDIT: Also I should note, I don't think that one should force a language on group of people for nationalistic reasons like you see in Europe, but if a group of people (like native american tribes) wish to keep their language alive and gain more native speakers among their group then the resources should be available for them to do so. This isn't contradictory as it wouldn't be a situation of lets say the Navajo forcing everyone who lives in their region to speak the language, but instead it would be the members of that tribe deciding as a group that they want to learn the language.

[Rafiq]

Should the dissaperence of language occur, it would, regardless of making it a priority of abolishing languages itself.

What I am trying to say, is that, if it was really necessary to create a universal language, than we shouldn't try to make it a priority at first, we should wait and see as to whether it would be necessary to adjust our languages to the material conditions that would be created in a world society.

[Welshy]

What I am trying to say, is that, if it was really necessary to create a universal language, than we shouldn't try to make it a priority at first, we should wait and see as to whether it would be necessary to adjust our languages to the material conditions that would be created in a world society.

The issue is that it is incredibly difficult (if not impossible) to make a universal language that would be truly neutral enough to not raise one group (which is in the past has been europeans) above other groups. Languages are just so incredibly varied that you can't have a language that wouldn't be more like one linguistic group. It would be a lot easier and would take less resources to develop and improve translation tools and then just let a lingua franca naturally develop.

[Rafiq]

The issue is that it is incredibly difficult (if not impossible) to make a universal language that would be truly neutral enough to not raise one group (which is in the past has been europeans) above other groups. Languages are just so incredibly varied that you can't have a language that wouldn't be more like one linguistic group. It would be a lot easier and would take less resources to develop and improve translation tools and then just let a lingua franca naturally develop.

Should the material conditions demand a world language (I don't mean to treat conditions like a conscious being, but if it is of uttermost necessity) then let her cry be heard.

Look, this whole thread sucks. We shouldn't be talking about hypothetical communist societies, it's a waste of time. The issue of a universal language will arise after, you know, the capitalist state of things are abolished. Until then, why don't we stop wasting time and discuss things that are actually relavent.

If not, why stop at language? Let's talk about how people will wipe their ass in communism!

Okay, so here is the question:

Is toilet paper really that efficient (Wastes trees) or should we develop a kind of spray hose next to our toilets (Next topic: Are toilets efficient for communism?) that we can use?

such a topic is just as useless as this one. Because we can go on for days talking about all kinds of problems that would arise, or what kind of solutions we can offer to everything. It's useless.

Like I can literally start a discussion right now as to whether we should continue the production of Chicken McNugget's under communism. Or if Air Planes are. Etc.

[Welshy]

Should the material conditions demand a world language (I don't mean to treat conditions like a conscious being, but if it is of uttermost necessity) then let her cry be heard.

If the past can tell us anything then a lingua franca will naturally develop in such a situation. Though it would be interesting to see how one would develop in a communist society.



Look, this whole thread sucks. We shouldn't be talking about hypothetical communist societies, it's a waste of time. The issue of a universal language will arise after, you know, the capitalist state of things are abolished. Until then, why don't we stop wasting time and discuss things that are actually relavent.
Agree that talking about this topic is pretty stupid. This is specific issue is one that will most likely work itself out on its own with out much intervention. This entire discussion is probably one of the most utopian things I have read in a while.

[manic expression]

Well, communication is communication on a wider level though, and we know that humans are capable of communicating with animals also without the use of language, and animals are, who presumably do not have any language whatsoever (although there are varying opinions on this I really don't want to split the thread again so I won't go into them), are capable of communicating likewise. So, what then separates humans communication from animal communication if not having language? I think the difference between the level of human communication and that of animal communication too great to be merely recognized as a quantitative one.
I think one of the troubles with identifying human communication so closely with speech is that many of our fellow humans communicate all sorts of ideas through sign language, morse code or even through palm-writing. Scientifically, we are animals, albeit intelligent ones, so I don't have too much of a problem accepting that communication on even the most primitive level is still human. The basic stuff might even be the most human form of communication...everyone understands the sound of someone in pain.


Yes, this is obviously true. It is no small part of the reasons why human languages have had a tendency to die out, although not the only one.
I've never quite answered whether it's just a regrettable but natural part of progress or if it's an injustice that needs to be fought by all progressives. Given the choice I'd opt for the latter, even though materialism sometimes suggests the former.


Possibly, but you are comparing extremes here. Russian grammar is, as far as I know, one of the most complicated ones, whereas Chinese grammar is one of the simplest ones. Also, obviously learning the Russian alphabet would be immensely easier than learning the Chinese alphabet, which is so difficult that it probably closes the gap.
True, which is why difficulty is so hard to pin down. Coincidentally, the English "r" and the Mandarin "r" are probably closer to one another than most other languages you can find. I've also heard that Swedish-speakers have an easy time with Chinese tones because Swedish is such a sing-songy language.


Turkish and Azeri, Kurdish and Farsi, German and Dutch, French and Italian, Norwegian and Swedish and Danish and so on and so forth. Yet these are the really close languages. However for a French speaking person to learn German or Norwegian would be easier that learning English is for a native Turkish speaker.
That's one of the reasons why I think bilingual education would be so enormously beneficial. If you can get younger people strong in a completely different linguistic area from their native language, it automatically opens up so much for future learning. Teach a young English-speaker Turkish and all of a sudden agglutinative languages aren't so intimidating.


Yes, indeed exactly. They are dying because they've been left out of the linguistic world of capitalism. My point is that the languages of the nation states of today will be going through the same natural process - when the nation states have been abolished by communism, their respective languages they will be integrated into the world of communism.
That's true, but does integration into world communism mean anything more than entry into a new system?


Yes this is true, languages evidently predate the nation states. Languages incidentally, predate nationalities, ethnicities and, incidentally, even tribes. The problem with the scientific research regarding the development of human languages is that it is rather difficult to gather empirical data since spoken languages by their nature can't leave them. However the fact that different language families exist suggests that initially there were certain language families of human bands (or clans) which, as these bands grew expanded, came into contact, came into conflict, and simply varied due to different experiences brought by immigration. So the linguistic evidence suggests that initially, that is for the thousands of years which was primitive communism, the number of languages in the world actually increased. However following the emergence of class societies, and thus with the transformation of bands into tribes, this situation begun to change. The bigger the groups got, the less languages were necessary. And as tribes merged, the languages of the tribes merged, and with the creation of ethnic groups, ethnic languages started developing. Empires made their initial ethnic languages universal as far as the lands they controlled, which had its effects on languages of the tribes which weren't empires yet. This in turn shaped the development on these tribes, and eventually as they became ethnic groups themselves within the old empires. The languages of the tribes in Eurasia who couldn't become ethnic groups died. However the newer ethnic groups pushed the rise of a new society based on a different class from the ashes of the old (I would recommend Barbarians by Terry Jones and Alan Ereira for a very good alternative history of the collapse of Rome in regards to this), the world of feudalism which eventually had imperial monarchies of its own, eventually. Obviously, the transition from feudalism to capitalism is much better known. To sum up regards to languages, capitalism having developed out of feudalism and having expanded to the whole world as a mode of production, the remaining tribal languages of the world are rapidly dying whereas the remaining ethnic languages of the world are slowly dying. Languages like Basque and Kurdish among others are not ethnic languages anymore but national languages. Ethnic groups in locations capitalism developed when the capitalist social relations were still on the rise, but which did not manage to create nation-states in the same period have actually managed to become nations without nation-states. These became the parts of the world in which the capitalism system was particularly a horrible failure in the 20ieth century, with endless wars, massacres and conflicts. Yet, their languages are, in most cases, living ones, which makes the problem much, much more real. However, this is actually the exception. Today there are 6,900 languages left in the world - and more than half of the world's population speaks 12 languages.
Very interesting summary, I agree with a great deal of it. For instance, a language like Bavarian has been declining for some time, and has been more and more replaced by Hochdeutsch German...I see that as a pretty natural and expected evolution. As you alluded to, this sort of process has always occurred with the coming together of groups in concert with growing economies.

If I might offer my own prognostication, I think those 12 languages you mentioned point towards the future. I think it's far more likely for a dozen-so truly world languages to develop (with perhaps one, two or three of them as the most common) as lingua francas...each holding some affinity to the first and second languages of the vast majority of the world.


To me, it means the development of a single human community of free and producing individuals.
This might be semantics, but do you think that an undivided community is necessarily a single (ie uniform) one? We need not toss aside what makes us different in order to be free.


Yet nationhood and nationalities, these are ideologies of national bourgeoisies and nation-states later on when these classes take power. What meaningfully precedes the nation-states and nationalities and nations, is what they replaced, extinguished or are extinguishing, that is ethnicities or tribes.
I thought we would encounter this disagreement. As I'm sure you know I don't see nationality as an ideology of the bourgeoisie. Nationality came long before the bourgeoisie (Italian nationhood did not begin with the Risorgimento) and so surely it is not the bourgeoisie's invention. Nationality has nothing to do with the workings of capital, it has to do with language and history, and so surely it is not the bourgeoisie's object. They may control nations through their states, yes, but they also control industry and science and libraries and everything else. If we don't brand those as part-and-parcel of the bourgeoisie then I don't see a reason to do the same with nationality.


No, but it integrated words, concepts and ideas from these languages, surely.
Well, I don't know that much about the development of French but I hadn't heard that. I'd be surprised if French took anything from Breton (I know that wasn't your original point but it is a neighboring language that's been encroached upon by French).


I don't think we have anything to gain by trying to incite nationalism in Welsh workers, and I am not sure how many people really care about the Welsh language. A native Irish-Gaelic speaker friend of mine (Devrim from revleft, incidentally) sounds pretty sure that Irish-Gaelic is destined to die out, for example, and pretty soon.
Not all nationalisms are created equal. When we think of people "inciting nationalism", that implies a right-wing species of national feeling: an exclusive nationalism, a nationalism of superiority over others and scorn for that which is different.

I do not promote that at all, what I think is gainful for the masses (those who are denied self-determination) is progressive national feeling, one that depends on the dignity of all. To see what I mean just listen to The Red Flag, it's all about different nationalities joining in common cause in different ways. Just because a Welsh worker recognizes the basic fact that s/he's Welsh and not English doesn't mean s/he's rejecting working-class solidarity with an English worker, it just means s/he's embracing the identity of her community.

The example of Welsh is very important because in the past few years Welsh has done the exact opposite of Irish, and with less official support. According to studies (http://www.byig-wlb.org.uk/English/publications/Publications/Welsh%20Language%20Use%20Surveys%202004-06.pdf) the use of Welsh in daily life has actually increased in recent decades and I've been told that even in the larger cities of Wales you can sometimes hear it spoken. An important part of this, IMO, is that a solid majority of speakers are fluent. Perhaps even more importantly, it's spoken across all ages. The document in the link also shows that workplaces are usually supportive of the use of Welsh in a professional environment.

But with Irish, yes, it is doing really badly, and if things don't turn around soon then who knows. Of course, even if it does die, dead languages have been revived so anything's possible.


And I want to be clear on this next point because it is often ignored as well. I have no problem with people wanting to learn their native languages, nor do I think think suppression or the assimilation or any other form of consciously forced extinction are in any way positive or progressive. Given my background, this is incidentally something from which both myself and lots of my loved ones have suffered from, quite a lot. What I'm trying to do is to analyze how languages developed in history from a scientific point of view, and the reason I was originally interested in this is probably mostly because of my own personal background.
Understood.


No, it wouldn't. Proposing one style of music and one sport would have the same purpose as proposing a single paragraph to be repeated and repeated. Music and sportsmanship are human activities, language isn't a human activity. Had there been several different note systems with better and worse aspects, I could propose a synthesis of the best elements of all, but I think that would be all.
There are infinite variations within a musical style and no two soccer games are completely alike, so it's not a matter of making everything exactly the same, it's the idea that (IMO) human expression/behavior/stuff inevitably treads across boundaries beyond which others cannot always communicate fully. Both working in the 20th Century, The Ramones and Debussy represent such different modes of making music that there is almost no point at which the two can meet at a common ground. Their music speaks entirely different languages that refuse to understand one another. And I think that's great. I think it's the human experience itself.

Taking it a step further, I'll be completely honest and say that I wouldn't want to promote a world where people speak the same language on the streets of Kyoto as they do in Porto. There would be less to discover, less to explore, less to make sense of. Now, is this the same instinct that wants to stop us from understanding the stars because the night sky would lose some of its mystery and in so doing some of its beauty? One might say so, but I disagree, if only because our topic is social, not scientific.


Yeah, well, maybe the world is going to end in 2012 after all.

On a serious note, it is positive that we are managing to have a discussion without insulting each other on both sides, I think.
Definitely...I sort of decided to try to not let all that sectarian stuff seep into unrelated discussions so I'm glad to see it's helping.

[Firebrand]

I think that what would probably happen is that there would be some kind of composite ligua franca developed through necessity and then there would be other languages spoken in more general situations. I do think that some form of common language is important, I personally find it slightly upsetting that there are thousands of people in this world i can't talk to.
I know that the roman empire isn't much of a role model, but in terms of language think of the way that latin became the main trading language which people learnt to communicate with people who didn't speak their language, but they still used their own languages where interlingual communication was unecessary.
Useful tip for those who are understandable but not fluent in foreign languages. If you get drunk you speak secondary languages better. The more alcohol you drink the more fluent you sound, it's brilliant.

[Vanguard1917]

I don't recall French being mixed with all that much Occitan or Burgundian or Breton. In reality, French simply displaced a lot of those languages, and it isn't something to mourn as much as recognize and counteract.


What would be the value of counteracting it? For what reason is it in the interests of the working class to artificially revive laguages left dead or dying as a result of the progress of history?

It's true that some anti-imperialist movements had a nationalist policy of language revival. But was that what made such movements progressive from a Marxist perspective? Was British imperialism reactionary because it brought the English language to India or Ireland, or for reasons quite unrelated to that? And when the celebration of the 'national language' exists outside of any real anti-imperialist project (as is the case with movements to revive Welsh), is it anything other than simple petit-bourgeois nationalism?

(There's also nothing inherent in a particular language which makes it central to the formation of a 'community' or to collective 'human dignity'. As you know, linguistic unity usually comes about after the formation of a 'national community'; it doesn't precede it. Before the French Revolution, for example, about half of France did not speak French, and much less than half spoke it 'correctly'. The same in Italy before unification: the percentage of the eventual country that used 'Italian' (essentially the Tuscan dialect) for everyday purposes was in the single figures before 1861. This is all quite promising for socialists. If language differences did not get in the way of building the bourgeois nation, they need not get in the way of building an international socialist 'community'! ;) )