The Future of English

Rule-meister   Thursday, December 23, 2004, 22:11 GMT
1a. Using or able to use two languages, especially with equal or nearly equal fluency. b. Using two languages in some proportion in order to facilitate learning by students who have a native proficiency in one language and are acquiring proficiency in the other: bilingual training; bilingual education.
2. Of, relating to, or expressed in two languages: a bilingual dictionary.

http://www.activehands.org/bilingualism.htm

Usually means equilingualism. Mostly useless anyway.

Your ivory-tower too.
Ved   Thursday, December 23, 2004, 23:55 GMT
Oh, but you quoted a dictionary entry, didn't you?

As a linguist who specializes in bilingualism, I was talking about the technical definition of the word.

Bilingualism useless? Easy to say if you're a WASP American. Otherwise... ahem.
Rule-meister   Friday, December 24, 2004, 01:27 GMT
As a linguist you might have your own convenient definition for the sake of your arguments but the keyword you used and I'm desputing is "usually". Bilingualism is usually meant to mean equalingualism hence the dictionary entry. Yes indeed an endorsed dictionary entry is more useful to me than someone's word on a forum. Anyone can recall a few useful phrases in another language. It doesn't make them bilingual.

Mostly useless is my response to this comment of yours: "Around half the world's population is bilingual" which is inaccurate. Most of these so-called bilinguals (though they are not) are not obliged to learn or use their second language as would be the case for those requiring it in their community or vocation. This is often the case for those who speak a foreign language exclusively at home.

I don't see how your racist attitude relates to the argument. I am not a WASP.
Ved   Friday, December 24, 2004, 04:42 GMT
There are 5000 - 6000 languages and how many countries? 300? Obviously, that creates the need for most of teh world's population to be bilingual.

The estimate that I quoted is conservative and it is not mine. It comes from Grosjean, one of the big cheeses in the field.

You are right that being able to recall a few useful phrases in a language does not make you a bilingual, but being able to communicate in it most certainly does.

Like I said, in my field (an objective science), a bilingual is not an equilingual, just like a spider is not an insect to a biologist, although it might be an insect to a layman. Layperson, that is.

I apologise for having assumed you were a WASP. However, your negative attitude toward bilingualism does say "American". Sorry. I don't mean all Americans are negative toward multilingualism, but it is also true that not ALL Americans vote for Bush. Which (again) does not mean you vote for Bush.

Anyway...
Cro Magnon   Friday, December 24, 2004, 05:14 GMT
Many Americans are negative toward multilingualism for a very good reason: because we don't NEED to speak other languages. Speaking Spanish would come in handy for some jobs, but not for others (including mine). And I AM a monolingual WASP American, but I try not to be close-minded.
Rule-meister   Friday, December 24, 2004, 05:18 GMT
"There are 5000 - 6000 languages and how many countries? 300? Obviously, that creates the need for most of teh world's population to be bilingual."

Not necessarily and especially not if many of these languages are spoken by a relative few.

"Like I said, in my field (an objective science), a bilingual is not an equilingual, just like a spider is not an insect to a biologist, although it might be an insect to a layman. Layperson, that is.

"bi-" conveys a sense of symmetry. I too work in a field of objective science, but this doesn't change how the word "bilingual" is used or defined. I'm happy the way this word is usually used as linguistics are unable to define it precisely either:
"The narrowest definition is perhaps linguist Leonard Bloomfield’s classification that a bilingual person has “native-like control of two or more languages, “ (Bloomfield in Åkerlind p. 7). According to this definition, the number of bilingual persons would be quite limited, since most people with knowledge of two languages are often still dominant in one of them (Hyltenstam & Stroud in Åkerlind p. 9). "
http://www.svenskamammor.com/uppsats.htm

I'm not American so this doesn't concern me nor what you think " "American" " should or could imply. In fact, Bush supports bilingualism, with a penchant toward the Spanish language, so you are contradicting yourself.
Ved   Friday, December 24, 2004, 09:52 GMT
Bloomfield died in 194...what? Eight? Nine? Seven? Anyway, that was a time when modern linguistics as a science was not at all what it is today. The way we think about language has changed drastically since then. In fact, he would probably have to take a whole new undergraduate degree in linguistics these days. Sorry.

Let me underline this again: you are talking about equilingualism, not bilingualism, i.e. you are doing something like saying that all mammals are human, to use another zoological analogy.
Ved   Friday, December 24, 2004, 09:55 GMT
"Bi" does not convey a sense of symmetry. It conveys a sense of more than one and fewer than three. That would be because it means "two", as in "bisexual". No symmetry there, eh?
Rule-meister   Friday, December 24, 2004, 11:11 GMT
Well, it depends who you talk to, who you read and how you look at things. Most agree bilingualism requires a reasonably high level of proficiency in two languages. I'd hardly call the majority of high school students bilinguals for having studied a second language.

No, the zoological analogy isn't at all the same because the term "bilingual" can't be defined unambiguously, the way "bisexual" is.
Dwayne   Friday, December 24, 2004, 20:04 GMT
Someone,
>>> The day when a computer can translate better than a person with a bachelors degree in the language they're translating from will not be arriving any time soon. <<<
Sure, but I was talking about the day when a computer can translate good enough to put this translation in practical use without further correction in the cases when a high quality trasnslation is not necessary.
Actually, even today some people who need to read and write in English but do not know it good enough actively use computer translators. Also I've heard that some professional translators use computer translators -- they say it reduces the time spent on typing, they need only correct text. Of course, the quality of such translations is not very high, but they can keep the price very low and attract many customers.

Sanja,
>>> It's hard to imagine that computer can translate better than a human, simply because it doesn't have a real intelligence. <<<
Not so long time ago, many people thought that it's difficult to imagine that computers can not play the chess better than human, because computers do not have intelligence. A bit more than twenty years ago, when first chess computers emerged on the scene, they did not play any better than today's computers can translate text. Today, computers can play definitely better than most people. Of course, they do not play the chess in the way people do, but whatever works...

Perhaps in this case the progress will be not so impressive as for chess computers, but computer translators may become good enough to turn many ordinal people to them, especially in countries where learning foreign languages never was very popular.
Dwayne   Friday, December 24, 2004, 20:09 GMT
Correction:
Not so long ago, many people thought that it's difficult to imagine that computers can play chess better than human, because computers do not have human intelligence.
arnold schwarzenegger   Friday, December 24, 2004, 20:39 GMT
i think for the majority of the world the choice is obvious when they set out to learn another language. for the american though it is not. we already speak the obvious choice. should we learn spanish? french? german? italian? chinese? japanese? russian? etc etc. whatever choice you end up making is going to limit what oppertunities you have, should you go on to use that language professionally.
Sanja   Sunday, December 26, 2004, 16:39 GMT
"Not so long ago, many people thought that it's difficult to imagine that computers can play chess better than human, because computers do not have human intelligence."

But I think there is a final number of combinations in chess, while in translating it is much more complex.
Ved   Sunday, December 26, 2004, 21:18 GMT
I would agree with Sanja that it is much more difficult when it comes to translation, but I am sure that it will be possible one day. Just like flying or defeating TBC, both of which used to be thought of as unthinkable.
Easterner   Monday, December 27, 2004, 18:53 GMT
Dwayne,

Do you think a computer will ever be able to interpret the implied meaning of a text, that is, "read between the lines"? I personally doubt that. This skil is often required to translate a text properly, but it definitely needs a human mind.