Poll: One world language... that isn't yours.

[Kejui]

-snip-

But french is a language with so many irregularities in its grammar... je vais aller...j'irai... ugh lol and mandarin is also pleasing to the ear imho, and is nowhere near as hard to learn as people make out...

And back to chinese (mandarin) with simplified characters it has improved the literacy rate of mainland china by over 20% and i'm no good at maths but over 20% of 1.3billion is a big number... Yes you are right with the change of meaning in some mandarin words... the radical for meat in old chinese ÔÂ, which now, for example is used in ÐØ £¨chest£© ÄÔ £¨brain£© is actually the character for moon. There was a regard to meaning with the simplification, as the same simplification was applied to all simplified characters...

Although saying that it was envisioned in China that they would embrace a romanised form of Putonghua called Pinyin in the 60's and 70's...

I get you with French grammar; but, I believe all language has irregularities and weird quirks. I've found it more pleasing than Spanish, or any of the other romance languages, or Beijing Mandarin (which sounds like a bunch of squawking pirates, haha)...If we're going by sound alone, and the language is one that exists, I hope we can go with something like German or Frisian.

My choice was because they forced me to pick a language that wasn't my own, and didn't give me an "other" option! Also, I can't think outside the box and come up with another language if I'm given a set number of options.

Again, with Chinese, I used to make that mistake, but there is a subtle difference between "meat/flesh" and "moon":
肉 - the radical form resembles month (&#26376, but the top line is diagonal (top left, bottom right [\], and the bottom line the opposite (bottom left, top right [/]))
月 - the radical is identical to the character

Simplified makes no distinction between the two, decreasing meaning. There was some regard, but the main purpose was to make it easier to write; less focus on meaning, more focus on ease of memorization (which, for me, made it harder to memorize...larger shapes are easier, for me).

 

[Mechsoap]

Russian would be very cool to learn.

 

[Vykrel]

Spanish is the closest to English, so i choose that, because id probably be able to learn it the easiest

 

[superbatranger]

I always enjoyed the sound of Italian. But, I also would like to learn Japanese. Ah, I can't decide.

 

[Keela]

I'd pick either Russian or German, just because I find so much inherently cool about both of them. And my voice is, like, crazy deep for my age, so I sound like a total badass whenever I say anything in either dialect.

 

[Android2137]

I chose Esperanto for no reason other than I have no idea where it comes from or what it sounds like.

 

[Sporky111]

I chose Japanese. I think it's a beautiful language already, and I actually do plan to learn it someday.

Though, I'd be happy with Latin becoming a The Common language. I'd also be happy with Russian, but I hear it's a really difficult language to learn.

 

[Snowpact]

Strange, I can't choose English, even though it's a language other than my own (Dutch).

 

[wfpdk]

I vote Latin or old Norse, because noone speaks it.

 

[Jacob Haggarty]

Esperanto, after all it was DESIGNED for eveyone to understand it.

Next in line i would have put french, as it is the only one i have a basic understanding of.

I dont get why people are so in love with japanese. Its no more elegant or flowing than french, its hardly anymore practical than english or german, Its just another language. Yet people seem to really like it, and i dont understand why

 

[Cat Cloud]

German, my second language. I like the way it sounds. If not that, then Mandarin, my third language.

 

[Nemesha]

Since i'm Dutch, English would be my choice. But since that's not available i'd go with Spanish, which i'm learning now. Besides if you don't count Mandarin (which you call chinese) English is the worlds most used language followed by Spanish.

 

[FollowUp]

You made a bit of a mistake not allowing an "Other" choice, but I'd choose Russian anyway.

 

[ZleazyA]

German seems like a good choice for me. Unlike in English and some other languages, German letters always sound the same even in different contexts. Plus German is also incredibly close to English at times, so it would be really easy to learn.

 

[MagnetoHydroDynamics]

I'd take any con-lang that comes close to Marian from The Culture

 

[Forgetitnow344]

Write-In: Arabic, mofo.

I studied it for a year, and it was extremely natural-feeling. Once I have the free time, I'd love to go back and study it again for recreational purposes instead of for a grade.

 

[Yankeedoodles]

Spanish is the closest to English, so i choose that, because id probably be able to learn it the easiest

Actually no. English is in the Germanic language family while Spanish is in the Romantic language family. And while both are in the larger Indo-European family both also have a lot of other languages that they are much closer to.

The closest language to English is a nearly dying language spoken in northeastern Netherland and northwest Germany called Frisian/Fries. After Frisian English's closest relative is either Dutch or German.

 

[GrinningManiac]

Hindi

Why?

Because I'm already learning it!

BWAHAHAAAAAAHAHAAAAAA

Meim Hindi Bolti hai, magar jyada nahi hai.

 

[Jroo wuz heer]

Lets all speak Chinese. If we're all going to be speaking the same language, we may as well speak a language that doesn't exist.

I think the op means mandarin
uhh, german I guess, cuz it has a lot of cognates to english

 

[Enemy Of The State]

German or Russian would be so badass sounding. Every conversation would sound like a bad war movie!