Who is in charge of Language?

[RoJoHen]

And then religion was invented telling him that, actually, he would turn out to do exactly that. For eternity.

But was religion invented first? Or did it happen later?

Where did dead people go before religion was invented? Hmm?

Can't you read, man? First there was nothing, then came man, then there was neither time nor place for the dinosaurs, so men invented letters and grammar rules. And then cavemen. Somewhere. Before or after the apple and the sin. Convention of majority?

Someone should make a movie about this!

 

[Me-Ike]

^ Only if enough people are for it and the movie follows the rules of money. It's how we work.

 

[ManOnTheWave]

You may find this to be of interest. Or you may not.

There was an accompanying documentary, but it doesn't seem to be available on DVD.

 

[Amaris]

I think we can all agree that regardless of modern historical consensus, nothing existed before cake.

J.

 

[AdAstra]

There is a cooperation between the Netherlands, Belgium (half of it anyway) and Suriname called "De Nederlandse Taalunie" (the Dutch Linguistic Union) that concerns itself with the Dutch language, education and literature.
As is usual with Belgium and the Netherlands it's overly complex and institutionalised. =)

 

[Kirk's_Tights]

Who the hell invented silent letters? If you can't hear it, why is it even there?

 

[RJDiogenes]

Who decides how words and names from languages with non-Western alphabets are spelled? Like Nguyen. Who decided on that?

 

[captcalhoun]

that was the first translators back in like 18something.

the French have a language council that gets all snobby about things like Le Internet, La Ipod and all that stuff.

in Britain, it largely comes out of who ever writes the Oxford English Dictionary, these days. they say a word gets into the OED if it's used widely enough. if, like 20 different sources use 'staycation' it goes in.

so, if there's a word like that you hate: stop using it!

i did hear that 'febuary' is like to be added to the dictionary in a few years, as the 'commonly accepted' spelling for february, just because of people misspelling it. now, if only we could get rid of that first damn N in environment...

 

[RoJoHen]

now, if only we could get rid of that first damn N in environment...

Which N? I pronounce all 3.

 

[captcalhoun]

shit, i meant the second. i say 'en-vi-ro-ment'

 

[RoJoHen]

Well, you're saying it wrong.

 

[captcalhoun]

i'm English, therefore i pronounce EVERYTHING the correct way. even 'yur' and 'gurl'

 

[Alidar Jarok]

You may find this to be of interest. Or you may not.

There was an accompanying documentary, but it doesn't seem to be available on DVD.

I own it. I haven't really watched much of it, but from what I saw and remember, it was pretty interesting.

 

[EnsignYoshi]

There is a cooperation between the Netherlands, Belgium (half of it anyway) and Suriname called "De Nederlandse Taalunie" (the Dutch Linguistic Union) that concerns itself with the Dutch language, education and literature.
As is usual with Belgium and the Netherlands it's overly complex and institutionalised. =)

More about it here