biggest tragedy for each language?

Guest   Sat Aug 22, 2009 9:29 pm GMT
People who practize urban nudism in Barcelona are middle aged and fat lesbians. Don't think that they are like the baywatchers, haha.
Surrealism   Sat Aug 22, 2009 10:23 pm GMT
Xie   Sun Aug 23, 2009 10:56 am GMT
For Chinese culture, there are a few of them:

Mongolian subjugation: you may say yes, since it's the first time that a united China was ruled by another race... well, the race that originated from a place that we were all supposed to be from. You can add Manchu subjugation too, for the permanent loss of traditional costume.

But what's more, Japanese invasion was the most destructive foreign war, at least more so than the Mongols/Manchus.

But in terms of culture and language, the cultural revolution and the simplification reform before it would be the WORST. For some of us, this year is the 60th anniversary of the loss of freedom of China. It sounds, however, exaggerated to me. China didn't have freedom too before 1949 under the nationalists and the Japanese, and earlier, not even under warlords and the Manchus and so on...

After the Manchu rule had gone, China was just a country that went through civil wars, invasions, destruction (especially under Mao) non-stop until the 1980s. No matter how much you complain about my country, at least I can see China has been going through more normal, steady (economic) development for almost 30 years, although it sucks completely in the political aspect. As I can remember, the Japanese spent 27 years to modernize their country and defeat us, and 10 years more to defeat Russia. And China? China spent almost 30 years just in order to rebuild its economy, and is still struggling forever with growing social unrest and stuff like that.
Cat   Sun Aug 23, 2009 2:32 pm GMT
For Spanish: obnoxious rude ignorant Hispanic trolls and spammers on Antimon.com
Komtu   Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:17 pm GMT
English: The "Great" vowel change. Would've been a better language if it weren't for that.
Spanish: Loss of the sounds of "j" and "x"
Woozle   Wed Aug 26, 2009 12:48 am GMT
"English: The "Great" vowel change. Would've been a better language if it weren't for that."

That, or they should've reformed the spelling back in the 1700's. Too late for that now.

It's kinda silly to call it a tragedy, anyway.

For others re the Great Vowel Shift: 'time' in the middle ages used to be pronounced like 'team' today, and 'team' was pronounced like 'tem', but with a long 'e'. 'House' was pronounced 'hoos' and 'stone' - 'stawn'.

English had a somewhat complicated but phonetic spelling.
Hello   Wed Aug 26, 2009 4:15 am GMT
All dialects of Chinese: utilizing tones. The tones make Chinese speakers sound so harsh and angry.
Hongkonger   Wed Aug 26, 2009 4:18 am GMT
the biggest tragedy for Chinese is damn Simplification of Characters...
Caspian   Wed Aug 26, 2009 8:49 am GMT
<< The worst tragedy experienced by the English Language was the Norman Invasion of 1066. >>

Hear, hear!
caspiansucksballzor   Wed Aug 26, 2009 10:21 am GMT
<<<< The worst tragedy experienced by the English Language was the Norman Invasion of 1066. >>

Hear, hear! >>


Here, here!
Colette   Wed Aug 26, 2009 11:01 am GMT
I think that if it wasn't for the Normans, England would be a backward country nowadays and English an obscure Germanic language like Icelandic, not studied by anybody oustside from England. The Anglosaxons evolved due to the French culture carried by the Normans.