Goram?
POSTED BY: impulsivelad
UPDATED: Tuesday, July 8, 2025 03:53
VIEWED: 62002
PAGE 3 of 6
Hi Jasonzzz,
It might help you to know that not only am I Chinese and speak Mandarin as well as Cantonese (and have been helping with the translations), but it's only one of five languages (Japanese included) that I speak.
With the perspective that gives me, it's very difficult for me to imagine that English is a language that's "lazier" than others or has a corner on the market when it comes to people speaking it differently. It's just another language, and it is treated like any other language when it's spoken (speech recognition programmers have not singled out English as the one language they can't work with, while reveling in others). There's no such thing as natural "precision" when it comes to speaking/pronouncing a language (words tend to run together and geography tends to encourage and maintain dialects and accents)--there may be artificially/socially designated forms that are considered precise, like the "Queen's English" or Mandarin as it's spoken in Beijing by native speakers, but that's quite different from saying English, as one example, is special in the laziness of its speakers (language itself not being able to be lazy).
Again, my apologies if my explanation and example didn't work for you. As we were discussing "gorram" and the implications of a future where Chinese will be used alongside English, it seemed the best example at hand for me to use when it came to the hypothesis that "gorram" was a Chinese-influenced modification of the word "goddamn."
My point was never that Chinese speakers could not hear the "L" sound at all, especially in their own language. (I stated so in my post that you quoted!) My point (also in my post that you quoted) is that hearing (differentiating) a sound made in a language foreign to a person, despite the presence of the sound in that person's language, is oftentimes difficult.
I'm not sure where your disagreement or question lies. Perhaps you're saying that you don't believe that native Chinese speakers have a difficult time hearing the "L" sound when it is used in English. Fair enough. If that's the case, I'm curious to hear your explanation for the difficulty in making the "L" sound in English for native Chinese speakers, and just to keep this thread somewhat on topic, your idea for how the word "gorram" came about.
Regards,
Quixote13
Quote:
Originally posted by Jasonzzz:
I agree with you about those linguistics principles in general. But using the "L"
sound with the Chinese and Japanese language
is not a really good example. Most Chinese
I know can pronounce the "L" sound just find
and they can recognize the same sound in
their own language. Japanese people on the
other hand often have difficulty with the "L"
sound exactly b/c their language has no "L"
sound in it and they are completely unfamiliar
with it.
The "bh" sound is a much better example, although using any language to compare with the sounds in the English language is terrible. English is the laziest language in the world. The sounds are completely imprecise and varies greatly depending on each person.
Ivan Chan Studio: Invite Beauty: www.ivanchan.com
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Quixote13:
Hi Jasonzzz,
It might help you to know that not only am I Chinese and speak Mandarin as well as Cantonese (and have been helping with the translations), but it's only one of five languages (Japanese included) that I speak.
With the perspective that gives me, it's very difficult for me to imagine that English is a language that's "lazier" than others or has a corner on the market when it comes to people speaking it differently. It's just another language, and it is treated like any other language when it's spoken (speech recognition programmers have not singled out English as the one language they can't work with, while reveling in others). There's no such thing as natural "precision" when it comes to speaking/pronouncing a language (words tend to run together and geography tends to encourage and maintain dialects and accents)--there may be artificially/socially designated forms that are considered precise, like the "Queen's English" or Mandarin as it's spoken in Beijing by native speakers, but that's quite different from saying English, as one example, is special in the laziness of its speakers (language itself not being able to be lazy).
English is lazy and the nuiansances are the most difficult to learn because it is based in so many different roots. You have words that are traced back to French, German, Russian, Latin, Spanish, Greek, plus about 23 other roots. Things don't make sense b/c when you've learned one set of rules to apply the proper roots and the pronounciation to go with them, you also need to learn the 46+ other odd exceptions to each of the rules. Consider the the differences between Latin and English. Latin has hard and fast rules when it comes to verb conjugation. In basic Latin, there are about 27 different types of conjugation, but that's it, there are exactly 13 verbs that do not follow those rules - irregular verbs. There are no irregular nouns in Latin. If you learn those, that's it. In English, there are many more unexpected ones. English is easy to just speak because it's lazy and you can just mumble your way thru it, but it is difficult to learn the nuisances.
Quote:
Originally posted by Quixote13:
Again, my apologies if my explanation and example didn't work for you. As we were discussing "gorram" and the implications of a future where Chinese will be used alongside English, it seemed the best example at hand for me to use when it came to the hypothesis that "gorram" was a Chinese-influenced modification of the word "goddamn."
My point was never that Chinese speakers could not hear the "L" sound at all, especially in their own language. (I stated so in my post that you quoted!) My point (also in my post that you quoted) is that hearing (differentiating) a sound made in a language foreign to a person, despite the presence of the sound in that person's language, is oftentimes difficult.
I am quite interested in what literature it is documented that Chinese speakers (whether it be Mandarin or Cantonese) has a difficult time hearing or speaking the "L" sound in Chinese or in English. The word for the number 0 - ling0 - has that sound. I have no doubt that people who are not used to tonals or the difference between aspirated and non-aspirated sounds (and other linguistic nuisances present in other languages) have difficulty detecting them - such as the hoarse throat clearing sound that Korean people make when they want to emphasize (It actually sounds like the sound that the French make with thei "Cr" sound) an emotion. But I really don't
think Chinese people in particular have any difficulty at all hearing the "L" in their own or in other people's language.
Quote:
Originally posted by Quixote13:
I'm not sure where your disagreement or question lies. Perhaps you're saying that you don't believe that native Chinese speakers have a difficult time hearing the "L" sound when it is used in English. Fair enough. If that's the case, I'm curious to hear your explanaNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Hi Jasonzzz,
"English is lazy and the nuiansances are the most difficult to learn because it is based in so many different roots."
It sounds to me that it's not a "lazy" language if there are so many difficult things to learn about it. (And do you mean "nuances" or "nuisances"?) Again, the idea that an actual language can be lazy is like saying a hammer is lazy. It's the person who's using the tool that determines how the tool's used.
"Consider the the differences between Latin and English. Latin has hard and fast rules when it comes to verb conjugation."
First off, Latin is a dead language. The rules for it are extrapolated (and therefore questionable to the extent that it's a language with rules that may be greatly imposed by artifice rather than natural grammatical development). It not being a living language, the opportunity for it to evolve through use by different speakers/cultures--to develop a flexibility that doesn't involve hard and fast rules--is missing. Try looking at a living language--Italian, for example. It wasn't organized into a standard form until relatively recently, and some "dialects" (there's one in Sardinia, I think it's called Sardu, but I'm not sure) are considered the closest to Latin as it was spoken centuries ago. I think there are some Gypsy languages that also show a closer kinship to Latin than say, modern Spanish or Italian. Anyway, my point is that Italian is highly irregular and reflects how the language has been used and shaped over the centuries. It can be called "lazy" because there are contractions and arbitrary rules (when I was learning it, a lot of the times I would say something technically correct, but was considered grammatically wrong because it "just wasn't how you say it"), although in my opinion, I found this to be a difficult--or "hard-working"--language due to its nuances.
"English is easy to just speak because it's lazy and you can just mumble your way thru it, but it is difficult to learn the nuisances."
Just because someone "mumbles" their way through a language doesn't make the language "lazy." That's the oddest piece of reasoning that I'm having difficulty understanding from you. If your name is Jason, and I mumble "Jezzin"--does that make your name lazy? People mumble but that's wholly different from how people run their words together when they speak. All people run their words together when speaking, even when they are enunciating. It's why speech recognition is so difficult, because the human brain can tell when one word ends and another begins (usually), but a computer hasn't developed that sophistication yet. The only time a person isn't running words together is. If. They. Speak. Like. This.
Regardless, I'm going to let this discusion on the laziness of English go. It's obvious we're not understanding each other, agreement or disagreement aside.
"I am quite interested in what literature it is documented that Chinese speakers (whether it be Mandarin or Cantonese) has a difficult time hearing or speaking the "L" sound in Chinese or in English."
Look it up on the internet or talk to a linguist. I did, but that was years ago.
"The word for the number 0 - ling0 - has that sound."
It's actually "ling," second tone. And once again, yes, Chinese has the "L" sound. I've written this repeatedly, and you've quoted me writing it, so you must have read it! I've also told you that I speak Chinese (both Mandarin and Cantonese), so I'm fully aware of this sound's existence in that language. I don't understand why you insist on not hearing me when I acknowledge (and preemptorily state) that there is an "L" sound in Chinese. So, for my sake if not this thread, I'm dropping this part of the discussion as well.
"I have no doubt that people who are not used to tonals or the difference between aspirated and non-aspirated sounds (and other linguistic nuisances present in other languages) have difficulty detecting them - such as the hoarse throat clearing sound that Korean people make when they want to emphasize (It actually sounds like the so
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I'm sure most chinese people (including me) could tell you that the mixup between R's and L's is not uncommon. I'm not exactly sure why, but I think it has something to do with the way L's are pronounced in Mandarin by certain groups of people, in that they actually say something that comes out in between the English "R" and "L" sounds. So depending on the kind of Mandarin they speak, the mixup is more or less pronounced.
One thing I'll always remember (for some reason) was back when we were kids, one time at the swimming pool my mom asked if we needed a towel, and it came out "tower", and we kind of made fun of her for that.
Anyways, here's a joke for you all that has to do with this topic:
What do you call a girl with only one leg?
Eileen
What do you call a chinese girl with only one leg?
Irene
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I can assure you that English is NOT an easy language to learn. I work with a majority of Spanish-speaking 2nd graders and they have a hell of a time with all of the different phoneme (sound) to letter correspondences we have. Spanish has *almost* a one-to-one correspondence.
There are also plenty of sounds in other languages that English speakers have a near impossible time with. The un-aspirated /p/ of Hindi leaps to mind or most of Hindi's palatal sounds (those made on the roof of the mouth; it has about 3 times more than English does, depending on which segment of the palate the tongue hits) English speakers also have trouble with the glottal fricative of semitic languages and the alveolar fricative of Spanish (the rolled "r").
Last fall I had to take a very interesting linguistics class called Language and Culture. Among linguists, the only certainties about language is that 1) Languages *will* change over time and 2) Those changes are entirely unpredictable.
Any type of qualitative descriptor for languages are considered culturally biased by linguists. Languages are not "simple" or "primitive" or "lazy". They are also not "advanced" or "civilized". They are different and have different sounds, word formation, sentence formation and meaning. Our instructor once asked us why we consider people who take shortcuts in other aspects of life to be "efficient" but someone taking a shortcut in language is "lazy". If it is mutually intelligible then it serves its primary function.
--Kala
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
BTW, "Goddamn" is actually on the "Big Six" list of things you can't say on network television. It was the "Big Seven" up until about five or six years ago when they removed "bitch".
As puritanical as our roots are, I would be willing to bet the "f" word is allowed long before they let you say "goddamn" on American TV.
--Kala
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Kalathena,
THANK YOU! :)
Take care,
Q13
Ivan Chan Studio: Invite Beauty: www.ivanchan.com
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Fine... if particular regions or segments of Chinese people do have difficulties forming the "L" sound in English, whether it's b/c they have trouble understanding their own "L" sound, or they can't hear the "L" sound in another language, or some other personal reason. It's all fine. But let's stop perpetuating the myth that *ALL* chinese (native chinese, not necessarily chinese people, since the language difficulties are learned and not necessarily genetics - that is short of actual physiological defects) have difficulty doing the "L" sound. There are 52 major dialects of "Chinese" and 200+ some minor ones with that many different types of people speaking them. I make the statement that I don't think Chinese people have difficulty speaking the "L" sound b/c I have never ever met a single one. They might have misspoke - as any one can do when their tongue trips over, but they have a good chance of murdering any other syllables as well. Let's just leave it at that. Since mandarin is spoken differently for every 100 yards you walk, I have no doubt that there *are* in fact mandarin speakers who have difficulty with forming the differences between and "R" and "L" sounds.
So, let's just say that: "Some mandarin speakers have trouble distinguishing and learning the "L' sound in English".
Lazy - I didn't specify that any other language is Lazy - I called English lazy as a language, but not with the same connotation that everyone seems to like - stupid and dumb. Let's not get too worked up or carry over. I didn't call any culture or entire race lazy. English as a language allows it's speakers to "take it easy" and slur and mumble their way thru not only the sounds, but the structures and constructs and still be understood. Most English speakers allow these slurring and mumbling and "taking it easy" on sounds and structure b/c the language allows them to. The language is filled with ambiguities on mooses and meeses, there lacks hard and fast conjugation rules to determine tenses, gender, places in time.
I never eluded to anything about English being superior or inferior. The language is probably lazy is you called me "Jazzin" instead of "Jason" and I still allow it and it's understood. Maybe I should call it "Relaxed", but then I run the risk of people thinking I am calling it "loose fitting" or maybe "ill fitting".
Good luck being understood in a romance language if you misconjugated any other thing than "Can I have another beer?"
That's what I mean when I say a language is "Lazy".
Yes, Latin is a dead language and it might not be evolving at the same MTV pace that American English is. But it had a much further run during its prime *and* it is still being used extensively in academic pursuits. Learning Latin is important b/c of it allows us English speakers to learn the basic roots, constructs, and a good set of principles within the confines of a good set of rules. I have mentioned before, English has more exceptions than rules. Often times, no one agrees with the exact usage of some of its constructs.
Let's not get too technical at it, the entire field of linguistics is made up anyways, it's all based on approximations of the sounds and constructs. People learn thru passing it from person to person. Yeah sure, it's done a lot of good documentating and studying; and it has a lot ancillary uses in other anthropology and medical fields. But it's ruined a couple of good languages as well. But then it might not be the techniques, it's probably the people doing it. I found the constructs help clarify and categorize concepts, but you can't lean on them too much, otherwise you are always arguing about which romanization system is better, or if Cantonese actually use 8, 10, 12, or 16 different tones. Bah!
Quote:
Originally posted by Quixote13:
Kalathena,
THANK YOU! :)
Take care,
Q13
Get unstuck. www.AllThingsBetter.com]
Like Fireflyfans.net?
Haken needs a new development system. Donate.
http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=5&t=3283NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Quote:
Originally posted by Jasonzzz:
Fine... if particular regions or segments of Chinese people do have difficulties forming the "L" sound in English, whether it's b/c they have trouble understanding their own "L" sound, or they can't hear the "L" sound in another language, or some other personal reason. It's all fine. But let's stop perpetuating the myth that *ALL* chinese (native chinese, not necessarily chinese people, since the language difficulties are learned and not necessarily genetics - that is short of actual physiological defects) have difficulty doing the "L" sound. There are 52 major dialects of "Chinese" and 200+ some minor ones with that many different types of people speaking them. I make the statement that I don't think Chinese people have difficulty speaking the "L" sound b/c I have never ever met a single one. They might have misspoke - as any one can do when their tongue trips over, but they have a good chance of murdering any other syllables as well. Let's just leave it at that. Since mandarin is spoken differently for every 100 yards you walk, I have no doubt that there *are* in fact mandarin speakers who have difficulty with forming the differences between and "R" and "L" sounds.
So, let's just say that: "Some mandarin speakers have trouble distinguishing and learning the "L' sound in English".
Lazy - I didn't specify that any other language is Lazy - I called English lazy as a language, but not with the same connotation that everyone seems to like - stupid and dumb. Let's not get too worked up or carry over. I didn't call any culture or entire race lazy. English as a language allows it's speakers to "take it easy" and slur and mumble their way thru not only the sounds, but the structures and constructs and still be understood. Most English speakers allow these slurring and mumbling and "taking it easy" on sounds and structure b/c the language allows them to. The language is filled with ambiguities on mooses and meeses, there lacks hard and fast conjugation rules to determine tenses, gender, places in time.
I never eluded to anything about English being superior or inferior. The language is probably lazy is you called me "Jazzin" instead of "Jason" and I still allow it and it's understood. Maybe I should call it "Relaxed", but then I run the risk of people thinking I am calling it "loose fitting" or maybe "ill fitting".
Good luck being understood in a romance language if you misconjugated any other thing than "Can I have another beer?"
That's what I mean when I say a language is "Lazy".
Yes, Latin is a dead language and it might not be evolving at the same MTV pace that American English is. But it had a much further run during its prime *and* it is still being used extensively in academic pursuits. Learning Latin is important b/c of it allows us English speakers to learn the basic roots, constructs, and a good set of principles within the confines of a good set of rules. I have mentioned before, English has more exceptions than rules. Often times, no one agrees with the exact usage of some of its constructs.
Let's not get too technical at it, the entire field of linguistics is made up anyways, it's all based on approximations of the sounds and constructs. People learn thru passing it from person to person. Yeah sure, it's done a lot of good documentating and studying; and it has a lot ancillary uses in other anthropology and medical fields. But it's ruined a couple of good languages as well. But then it might not be the techniques, it's probably the people doing it. I found the constructs help clarify and categorize concepts, but you can't lean on them too much, otherwise you are always arguing about which romanization system is better, or if Cantonese actually use 8, 10, 12, or 16 different tones. Bah!Quote:
Originally posted by Quixote13:
Kalathena,
THANK YOU! :)
Take care,
Q13
Ivan Chan Studio: Invite Beauty: www.ivanchan.com
Like Fireflyfans.net?
Haken needs a newNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
...there lacks hard and fast conjugation rules to determine tenses, gender, places in time.
At the risk of getting "too technical"...
English does have what is considered mostly an isolating type of conjugation. The conjugation is only actually done for tense and we add a second word (he, she, it...) for things like person and to denote gender. We also isolate for mood. And we have no case to our language; many eastern European languages have case (Lithuanian has 7, for example).
In the 19th century, there was a tremendous amount of research done in linguistics to make certain that the world knew that the more cases and tenses and the less isolating a language is, the superior the language and the more "civilized" it was. Guess what? Most of these studies were done by Eastern Europeans. Go figure. Remnants of those beliefs still exist today.
Quote:
Yes, Latin is a dead language and it might not be evolving at the same MTV pace that American English is. But it had a much further run during its prime *and* it is still being used extensively in academic pursuits. Learning Latin is important b/c of it allows us English speakers to learn the basic roots, constructs, and a good set of principles within the confines of a good set of rules.
This is not a good reason to learn Latin. Latin is a good language to learn because in and of itself, it has very interesting rules and structures. It is also very important to learn if you want to be able to understand any of the cultural nuances of the millions of works of literature that were written in Latin.
But to say that you need to learn Latin to understand the roots of English is like saying you need to learn Sanskrit to understand the roots of Japanese. English is a Germanic, not a Latin language. Because Latin was elevated to "superior" status for so long, many people still believe this. They have done things to "ruin" the language by proscribing stupid rules like "you can't split an infinitive" when English infinitives are made up of two words and Latin infinitives are one. Applying Latin rules to English is just rediculous.
Quote:
But it's ruined a couple of good languages as well. But then it might not be the techniques, it's probably the people doing it.
I'd be interested in knowing which languages the field of Linguistics has ruined.
I do agree that there has been misuse of the field. Every field has people who misuse the data. Misuse of the field of linguistics has also led to some pretty cool things sometimes, such as the independence of the Baltics, particularly Lithuania. If they had not discovered the connection of Lithuanian to Sanskrit and promoted Lithuanian as an "ancient" language, the nationalist movement may never have had the fuel it needed. (I apologize for my obvious bias here; my in-laws are Baltic...)
Disagreements within a field are expected. Actually, I think they're a good thing. If there were never any disagreements, there would not be a reason to study any further.
--Kala
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME