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Post by jay (mulatto) on Jun 22, 2005 5:56:32 GMT -5
i was gonna put this in the linguistics section, but i think it's more suitable here, as this kind of relates to 'supremacism'. not that i advocate supremacy of any race. but i've wondered if east asians (or mongoloids period), are genetically predispositioned to not being so great at linguistics (or maybe it's just the culture).
granted these east asians have a totally different language system (non-IE), but i'm thinking that east asians and sub-saharan africans are at two different ends of this spectrum. the east asians are more logical and analytical (higher IQ's), but less social/linguistically gifted (their poor grasp of foreign languages, whether IE, or other oriental, and 'colder' persona). the sub-saharan africans are less logical and analytical (lower IQ's), but more social/linguistically gifted (their rapid grasp and mastery of foreign languages, and 'warmer' persona).
this is mostly conclusions from anecdotal experience (i've known a lot of blacks from senegal to somalia that have picked up english extremely quickly compared to other groups, particularly east asians), i dont know if this is genetic, cultural, or just a case of most black's mother tongue, i think is an IE language (i know many africans can speak other languages like Twi, Somali, Swahilli etc. i don't know how they relate to IE languages though), whereas most east asian's mother tongue is a non-IE language (likewise with the IQ, i don't strongly hold onto those views of smarter and dumber genetically predispositioned races, although i'm open-minded). nevertheless i'd like to hear others opinions on this.
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Post by lurker4now on Jun 22, 2005 7:59:44 GMT -5
Most african countries where colonized by europeans so its not unreasonable that at least some of the population can speak english or another european language.
asian countries are less "western" and had far less "colonization" of ie langauges.but its changing do to economics and becoming more "western"
hmm i wonder if that sounds right ha.
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Post by nockwasright on Jun 22, 2005 9:06:59 GMT -5
I don't think the ground assumption stands. You are making the comparison using only English as a paragon, but actually this, as you yourself say, is biased, considering that you compare them to populations with another IE mother tongue. Even if the Africans you know speak also semitic or bantu languages, they learned both the languages when children so they just have 2 morthertongue. The difficulty is in learning languages when adults, as the brain is hardwired to receive the language information in his first years of life.
I tryed to study Japanese, but when I discovered that the same word could mean "no" or "yes" I gave it up. It's another world.
There are few Chinese speaking English, but surely there are even fewer Englishmen or American speaking Chinese.
Plus I doubt that the "social" ability as can be the ability to speak in jest, verbal improvisation, verbal jokes, can be linked to ability in learning languages. In my anecdotal experience Slavs are the most gifted European for languages, and Northern Europeans are better than Southern. In my country Slav immigrants are the best learners, followed by North Africans (notwithstanding they speak a romance language) and then Southern Africans. This doesn't fit your hypotesis.
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Post by jay (mulatto) on Jun 22, 2005 14:46:55 GMT -5
what language group is somali in? afro-asiatic? is this more related to IE languages than say cantonese? or just as differentiated? I ask because when the somalis started coming over to the uk in a more recent wave, in middle school, high school, and college, they initially couldn't speak a word of english, but within a year or two they had grasped english to a better standard than chinese from hong kong who had been living here longer. do they teach english in hong kong?
i've mentioned the language issue of many africans knowing english or another IE language earlier. but it still makes me wonder if there's something in this. what african immigrants could be compared to oriental immigrants, w.r.t. having a mother tongue that is vastly differentiated from IE languages. which oriental countries have the largest IE language influence?
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Post by rodhos on Jun 22, 2005 14:58:43 GMT -5
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Post by yigal on Jun 22, 2005 20:10:23 GMT -5
chinese isnt a language, or even a language family , at least spoken, its something like 200 languages in 7 language families
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Post by Educate Me on Jun 22, 2005 20:32:55 GMT -5
What you said reminds of a freak in stormfront who said Genghis Khan could not have been a mongol because mongoloids due to their lower testosterone level are not very aggressive
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Post by ranmin on Jun 22, 2005 21:28:53 GMT -5
chinese isnt a language, or even a language family , at least spoken, its something like 200 languages in 7 language families Perhaps you've confused "Chinese" with the broad classification of "Sino-Tibetan". It's true that Sino-Tibetan has a large number of languages. However, "Chinese" consists of no more than 11 main dialects, with a number of regional variations. See the map below: www.glossika.com/en/dict/dialectmap.htm============ As for the original classification, it may be biological. I think it's been shown that different language families use different regions of Broca's/Wernicke's areas, or at least the mechanism in which they were developed is different. Anyhow, the ability to learn a language will have the factor of how close that language is to yours. Example, if a Cantonese speaking individual wanted to learn Mandarin chinese, possibly not too hard. Different story to learn English. However, I've found that there are many educated "Mongoloids" in the West who can speak a few languages fluently.
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Post by gee on Jun 22, 2005 22:06:05 GMT -5
Many people are good at languages, except for those whose native language is English. They assume that everybody should know English; they are really surprised when they find out that nobody speaks English, for example, in France. ;D Oh my, they barely speak English! Idiots.
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Hallam
Junior Member
Posts: 94
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Post by Hallam on Jun 22, 2005 22:25:05 GMT -5
this is mostly conclusions from anecdotal experience (i've known a lot of blacks from senegal to somalia that have picked up english extremely quickly compared to other groups, particularly east asians), i dont know if this is genetic, cultural, or just a case of most black's mother tongue, i think is an IE language (i know many africans can speak other languages like Twi, Somali, Swahilli etc. i don't know how they relate to IE languages though), whereas most east asian's mother tongue is a non-IE language (likewise with the IQ, i don't strongly hold onto those views of smarter and dumber genetically predispositioned races, although i'm open-minded). nevertheless i'd like to hear others opinions on this. Anecdotal evidence don't mean squat. In my experience Asians learn English just as fast as anyone else sans Hispanics (by which Asians master it much faster it seems probably because Hispanics tend to live among themselves and are therefore, less likely to assimilate culurally and linguistically). Many African countries have English as a primary language or some other IE language. This is a relic of colonialism. For some empirical, quatitative evidence, just look at the GRE and SAT verbal sections available from ETS (Education and Testing Services, the people who make these tests). The verbal score of the average Asian is 487 (p. 7) compared to 494 for whites, the highest scoring group on this sub test. The difference of only 7 points is more than easily accounted for by the fact that most Asians who take the verbal GRE (and SAT for that matter) are English as second language students. What is more interesting however, is that the standard deviation of Asian students is >> the whites, 121 vs 103. This would mean that at high scores, such as => 600, Asians are much more represented at those scores than whites relative to their population. At a "perfect" score of 800, you can calculate (assuming for Gausinity) that Asians out number whites roughly 5:1 when both their population of test takers are rendered a non-factor. The same basic pattern can be found on the SATs. Also, I have read reports that Chinese Americans score markedly higher on the verbal GRE than white Americans. If you think Asians are good at mastering language, you should go to Hong Kong. They are the most polyglot people I have ever seen. They (the younger generation) are better at English than the average American and they can speak Mandarin and Cantonese and usually, another "difficult" language such as Japanese or German or French or Hakka or Fukien.
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Post by Faelcind on Jun 22, 2005 23:40:53 GMT -5
Its funny how you allways seem to be trying argue against racial differenations or superiority but allways manage to imply that asians are somehow superior hallam. Any sources to support your argument that most asians who take the GRE are English as second language, I find that unlikely.
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Hallam
Junior Member
Posts: 94
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Post by Hallam on Jun 22, 2005 23:51:16 GMT -5
Its funny how you allways seem to be trying argue against racial differenations or superiority but allways manage to imply that asians are somehow superior hallam. Any sources to support your argument that most asians who take the GRE are English as second language, I find that unlikely. I go where ever the evidence is, which is far better than relying on anecdotal "evidence" and stereotypes. Also, I never made a claim as to whether this "superiority" (At least from Chinese americans on SAT verbal is concerned) is due to genetics alone. In fact, I think it is better explained by the fact that Chinese culture values learning more. The facts are the facts. I will accept them whereever they take me.
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Post by Faelcind on Jun 22, 2005 23:59:15 GMT -5
Good points, though it seems to me occasionally the facts only suit you when they favour your race. In any event no need to start another flame war over it, but I would like to see some proof about that claim of the most asian GRE takers being ESL.
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Post by nockwasright on Jun 23, 2005 3:03:13 GMT -5
what language group is somali in? afro-asiatic? is this more related to IE languages than say cantonese? or just as differentiated? I ask because when the somalis started coming over to the uk in a more recent wave, in middle school, high school, and college, they initially couldn't speak a word of english, but within a year or two they had grasped english to a better standard than chinese from hong kong who had been living here longer. do they teach english in hong kong? Somali is afro asiatic - cushitic branch. www.krysstal.com/langfams_afroasia.htmlBut in Somalia also Italian is an official language with English and Somali. Is it possible that these Somalis were Italian speaking? However, with reference to the relationships between different language families, here is a (very controversial) take posted by Awar in the good ol' times:
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Post by jay (mulatto) on Jun 23, 2005 6:04:41 GMT -5
what language group is somali in? afro-asiatic? is this more related to IE languages than say cantonese? or just as differentiated? I ask because when the somalis started coming over to the uk in a more recent wave, in middle school, high school, and college, they initially couldn't speak a word of english, but within a year or two they had grasped english to a better standard than chinese from hong kong who had been living here longer. do they teach english in hong kong? Somali is afro asiatic - cushitic branch. www.krysstal.com/langfams_afroasia.htmlBut in Somalia also Italian is an official language with English and Somali. Is it possible that these Somalis were Italian speaking? However, with reference to the relationships between different language families, here is a (very controversial) take posted by Awar in the good ol' times: interesting. no these somalis didn't know italian or any european language, although some knew arabic. these are the somalis that came over as refugees in the early 90's , they didn't have much of a base education, although i think to be honest, they were more socialable, they'd talk a lot, and thus pick up the english language faster. in comparison hong kong immigrants (supposedly a bilingual english-cantonese place), who were pretty intellgent at most subjects found english hard to pick up, i don't know any that really mastered english. i also remember seeing some hong kong people talk on TV, and their english standard seemed very poor, or maybe it was their accent, that threw me off. ofcourse western born chinese are fluent in english though. i think it has to do with social skills, and how introverted a group tends to be. orientals tend to be more quieter and less social. africans alot more social, south asians are pretty social too. so how much do different oriental languages differ from one another. for instance, how many japanese know korean, or chinese, or thai. and how does this compare to british knowing french, german etc.
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