Languages

Just to answer Mr. Perkins' question in class today, if one language is better than another. In my opinion, major languages such as English, Chinese, French, Spanish... are about the same level. These languages have been spoken and translated by many different races. Through learning and understanding other languages, countries can perfect and develop their own language. Chinese words like Fengshui has also become an English word. After chocolate was introduced in China, they kept the word with a similar pronunciation (Chinese: chao ke li). Americans and Chinese developed and perfected their language by learning from each other. Japanese is basically a combination of Chinese (kanji), English (katakana) and Japanese (hiragana). Kanji are Chinese characters and katakana follows the English pronunciation. Before the Japanese create their own writings, they learned Chinese and began to write in kanji. Then they wanted to create their own language, which is the hiragana. When the English speaking countries began to grow more powerful, many new western ideas were introduced to Japan, so they added the katakana. Japanese is a perfect example of languages learning and developing from each others.

Not all languages are at the same level. Some languages are better than others. Celeste Biever's research describes the language of a Brazilian tribe. Their language, Pirahã, contains only “one, two, many” for numbers. Two is highest number they can count, the rest: 3~infinite, are simply categorized as many. Even though the Brazilian tribe does not often need to count, their language is inferior than most languages. The limit of their language also limits their thoughts. People from the Pirahã tribe can hardly tell the different between 4 things in a row and 5 things in a row. They get more confused as the numbers grow. If the Pirahã tribe made connections to major languages such as English, they might be able to develop their language.

For more detail, here is the link http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6303.html