we know: english is world language -
I think no country's language should by any patriots or nationalist be esteemed superior to other languages - but it's just fact that about 80 % of human knowledge is written down in english - in most countries of the world you come along with english (except France) - how would India get along without english so I believe, english as foreign language should be learnt & known by any every world citizen - just to stop the babylonian language confusion.
I remember in a film of Katharina the Great (German Empiress in Russia), when sitting on a table with the nobles, she told an anecdote, when in a french table society people were talking about babylonian language diffusion & all people talking the same language, a french lady said: "oh, wonderful - then all people in the world would talk french"
So in fact - 2 or 3 world languages exist - in the common world it's probably english, but if you live in France - you know for sure, that it's French.
English is one of the easiest languages in the world to learn, except of Spain (& maybe some word restricted native language somewhere on hidden isle I don't know) -
German has all this difficult word endings, different articles & difficult grammar, but is spoken literally -
French has also this difficult articles, grammar etc. & a lot of what is written is not spoken, especially the endings of words - portugaise & italian, some true latin languages, also change a little in pronounciation from the written word - I would prefer the clear spanish to these - the slawian languages - ooh they're really hard to speak & pronounce, nothing for world community..
But despite of the fact that english is world language - the pronounciation is ridiculous & not in the least logical, not at all:
I found this funny example of engl. pronouncing again in internet & think some of you know it already - but why not spread it on:
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sleeve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!
bad chance - that spanish missed the the opportunity to get world language - it would have been the easiest to learn- nearly no exceptions in pronounciation..
But ooh - if ever China rules the world & we'd had to learn all these 100s or thousands of letter signs - even in Japan it need a school child about 4 or more year to learn the letters, to even be able, to read a news paper.
I really would like to know, what kind of all common language people were speaking before the building of the tower of Babylons?
