Cultures

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capitol is correct,

spelled c-a-p-i-t-o-l
means the city in a country, state, province, etc. where the leadership or the government resides, the political center of the government

so sante fe is the capitol of new mexico

when spelled c-a-p-i-t-a-l
it means money available for investment, the root of capitalism, or the english translation of Marx's Das Kapital

 

[Styrbiorn]

?

spelled c-a-p-i-t-a-l
means the city in a country, state, province, etc. where the leadership or the government resides, the political center of the government


when spelled c-a-p-i-t-o-l
derived from Capitolium, a fortress in Rome. A capitol is the name of the building in which the legislature is seated in the American states.

 

[Dark Knight]

Styrbiorn is right. "Capital" can refer to either money for investment or a location serving as the seat of government. "Capitol" is the building where the US legislatures (the House of Representatives and the Senate) meet.

 

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No wonder I was confused and to think English is trying to be the unofficial language of the world. I feel bad for those who must learn it as a second language since I've been speaking it all my life and still can't get it right.

 

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The irony is sublime.

English is the Lingua Franca.

 

[unmerged(7225)]

No wonder I was confused and to think English is trying to be the unofficial language of the world.

English is no more or less inconsistant than any other language vis-a-vis difficulty to learn. Developmentally people learn their first language (the one taught from infancy) EXACTLY the same regardless of which language they learn. Noam Chomsky, and many others after him, have shown that in terms of rate of acquisition, all languages are picked up at the same rate by their native toddlers, and first language acquisition is developmentally identical in all cultures.

English is a good as any other arbitrarily chosen language to serve as a Lingua Franca.

 

[unmerged(7160)]

Originally posted by jayron32


English is no more or less inconsistant than any other language vis-a-vis difficulty to learn. Developmentally people learn their first language (the one taught from infancy) EXACTLY the same regardless of which language they learn. Noam Chomsky, and many others after him, have shown that in terms of rate of acquisition, all languages are picked up at the same rate by their native toddlers, and first language acquisition is developmentally identical in all cultures.

English is a good as any other arbitrarily chosen language to serve as a Lingua Franca.

Well I guess I would have to disagree. I think that a language that uses finetikal spelling and didn't have so many words that could be pronounced the same but spelled differently and have a different meaning but spelled the same, would be a more easy to learn Language, Especially for writing. The Malay language is a good example IMHO of a easier second language to use and learn and I'll stress again, especially for writing.

 

[Styrbiorn]

The problem it's just easier for a European to pronounce English than Malay.

 

[unmerged(7225)]

Well I guess I would have to disagree. I think that a language that uses finetikal spelling and didn't have so many words that could be pronounced the same but spelled differently and have a different meaning but spelled the same, would be a more easy to learn Language, Especially for writing.

Ah, so we're talking orthography here. Orthography (written spelling) has as much to do with language as recipies have to do with eating. That is, you can eat just fine, and meet all of your nutritional requirements, without using your "better homes and gardens cookbook" to prepare all of your food. Written english is only confusing to non-native writers because they don't understand the correlation between the symbols and the sounds. Like all languages, english has some inconsitancies between its pronounciation and its spelling; a fault of the fact that it's written using symbols developed for a foreign language (Latin) and the orthographic standards represent a standardization of pronounciation which is no longer in use. But the fact that reading or writing WRITTEN english is difficult is only a symptom of the the fact that non-native speakers are trying to use their own pronounciation for the symbols. which are often incorrect.

An example: French has a vowel sound represented by the letter "u". This vowel sound does NOT exist in english (pucker your lips as if to kiss someone and say the english sound "ee"). The problem many english speakers have with speaking french is that they see "u" and think the english "schwa" sound (unaccented neutral-position vowel). There's nothing inherently difficult about the french sound, it's just that the Latin character set does not have enough letters to make a distinction between the two, so the spelling confuses. But as a spoken language, English (or french or mandarin or Esperanto or Hebrew) is no harder to learn than any other.

 

[unmerged(7160)]

Originally posted by jayron32


Ah, so we're talking orthography here. Orthography (written spelling) has as much to do with language as recipies have to do with eating. That is, you can eat just fine, and meet all of your nutritional requirements, without using your "better homes and gardens cookbook" to prepare all of your food. Written english is only confusing to non-native writers because they don't understand the correlation between the symbols and the sounds. Like all languages, english has some inconsitancies between its pronounciation and its spelling; a fault of the fact that it's written using symbols developed for a foreign language (Latin) and the orthographic standards represent a standardization of pronounciation which is no longer in use. But the fact that reading or writing WRITTEN english is difficult is only a symptom of the the fact that non-native speakers are trying to use their own pronounciation for the symbols. which are often incorrect.

An example: French has a vowel sound represented by the letter "u". This vowel sound does NOT exist in english (pucker your lips as if to kiss someone and say the english sound "ee"). The problem many english speakers have with speaking french is that they see "u" and think the english "schwa" sound (unaccented neutral-position vowel). There's nothing inherently difficult about the french sound, it's just that the Latin character set does not have enough letters to make a distinction between the two, so the spelling confuses. But as a spoken language, English (or french or mandarin or Esperanto or Hebrew) is no harder to learn than any other.

Yep this is all true, except for the part about non-native speakers trying to use their own pronunciation for the symbols. This is only half the problem. The other half is that English dosn't even follow it's own rules of pronunciation many times. I also still believe that english has to many words that are pronounced the same way. For example the other day I was trying to explain to my Indonesian wife the difference between; There, Their, and They're. While she understood the different uses for each she still found it very difficult to remember which each one was used for and when. She then asked me a question which I didn't have the answer for. She said if all these words have a different meaning then why didn't the people making up this language use different pronouniations? Needless to say I couldn't answer that one and since I couldn't come up with a similar example in her native tounge? { another great word that defies spelling logic} I lost the argument about which language was easier to learn.

 

[Dark Knight]

Originally posted by Skullcrusher

For example the other day I was trying to explain to my Indonesian wife the difference between; There, Their, and They're. While she understood the different uses for each she still found it very difficult to remember which each one was used for and when. She then asked me a question which I didn't have the answer for. She said if all these words have a different meaning then why didn't the people making up this language use different pronouniations?

They do have different pronunciations. But only slightly, so you probably have to be a native speaker to tell the difference (although I would have thought that the difference between "there" and the other two would be noticeable even by non-native speakers).

 

[Dustman]

My second native language is Ukrainian in which pronounsiation (sp?) and spelling should be the same but, frankly, I have some problem with correct writing. Yeah, and those who think that English is very easy to pronounce for ALL Europeans, are not right. Japaneese is sooo much easier for me.

Well, as to original theme of debate I think that cultures should be removed from the game for at least 300 years for most regions. Religions are important but cultures? This is very true for Middle East and North Africa. Mamelukes and Janissars are prime examples. As it is now some countries should have extra cultures but others should lost some. Only in few countries national interests were more important than religious, like in China after 1644.