User:Diebot/Talk:Essay:Languages ranked by Conservatism

Besides a lack of swear words, what has language of any kind have to do with conservatism? Is Spanish more conservative than Chinese? Is Swahili less conservative than Dutch? Just what is the intent of this article? Karajou 19:53, 28 November 2011 (EST)
 * It is a total mystery to me just how one would decide a language is more conservative. MaxFletcher 19:58, 28 November 2011 (EST)
 * Karajou, Aschlafly has argued forcefully for the links between conservative values and language for many years now. If particular words--such as transistor or coolant, which are both on that list--are more conservative than others, than it is only logical that languages themselves are also more or less conservative. ScottDG 08:56, 29 November 2011 (EST)
 * I agree that the premise of this entry strikes me as odd to say the least. However, it makes perfect sense in the context of Conservapedia. After all, one of the major claims of this site is that the English language is becoming more conservative and that "conservative terms have grown at a geometric rate, roughly doubling every century". This insight is also what drove the Conservative Bible Project which is "using powerful new conservative terms to capture better the original intent" of the Bible. So I oppose this entry because it makes little sense, but I support it because it's the obvious conclusion of existing insights this site has generated. ;) --Sid 3050 12:18, 29 November 2011 (EST)
 * Besides, as an essay, it still makes more sense than Essay: PZ Myers, is your wife an atheist? for example. --Sid 3050 12:20, 29 November 2011 (EST)
 * Get off the fence, Sid. I think this could become quite an interesting entry. For example, how about looking at the sources of loan words in English? From German we get Angst, Schadenfreude, Weltschmertz and other terms that might be considered liberal-leaning. From French, we get culinary and fashion-related terms like chic, epaulette, cuisine, flambe and brioche, so I would say French seems more politically neutral.--CPalmer 12:25, 29 November 2011 (EST)

Ignoring the fact that words and languages are apolitical tools used by people to express ideas that may or may not be conservative, are we really going to include languages that were made up, and have never been used in real life other than by LoTR fans? --SharonW 14:53, 29 November 2011 (EST)


 * I think this article makes perfect, logical sense Karajou - it should be obvious that an ancient language will be inherently more conservative, having not mutated over the years to absorb modern, less conservative concepts.  And much as a more modern language, like English, must surely be less conservative than ancient Hebrew or Aramaic, the older, American style of English is more conservative than British English, which has continued to evolve into less conservative territory.   And languages that have evolved through multiple iterations, such as French, which comes from the Romance languages, which are derived from Latin itself, which is derived from Ancient Greek, etc., must clearly be the least conservative languages/most liberal languages of all, since their iterative translations through the generations allow liberal creep.   It's an interesting article, and only the beginnings.   I would love to see some citations from those who know a little more about the subject though.  (I do agree with Sharon though that Tolkein probably oughtn't to be in the article!)--JanW 17:11, 29 November 2011 (EST)


 * I disagree. As has been stated on this site by Aschlafly society is growing more conservative with time and so by definition language must also be doing so.  Therefore a newer language MUST be more conservative than any ancient/older language.Davidspencer 10:01, 30 November 2011 (EST)


 * Do you seriously believe that socialist languages such as French and German are more conservative than Aramaic or Ancient Greek? Society's growing conservativism is reflected in the English language, which inevitably is emerging as the language of the world. As conservative society grows, so too will English, until French, German, and so on fade to obscurity. LeRoyB 12:31, 2 December 2011 (EST)

American English vs Aramaic
It's true that because Jesus spoke Aramaic, it was the most Conservative language at the time. However, with the rise of American English and its ability to incorporate loanwords and the geometric rate of powerful Conservative words and ideas, I feel that American English is the most Conservative language in history, which is why the Conservative Bible is necessary. --ElliotS 15:09, 29 November 2011 (EST)


 * Agree. If Aramaic were still spoken now it might have kept pace, but there's no way any language from 2000 years ago can compete with today's languages, which enjoy the benefit of (and contribute to) so many centuries of development.--PTurner 16:38, 29 November 2011 (EST)

Spanish
I think Spanish should be moved to number five in conservative languages. What do you guys think? KrisS 16:10, 30 November 2011 (EST)

German is liberal because it was spoken by Hitler and Einstein?
German is liberal because it was spoken by Hitler and Einstein? That is ridiculous. Whoever added that has to be a parodist because it is completely stupid. MaxFletcher 16:59, 30 November 2011 (EST)
 * You may have a point. We should get some kind of consensus here. KrisS 17:08, 30 November 2011 (EST)
 * I may have a point? By this logic English is an atheistic language because Richard Dawkins speaks English. MaxFletcher 17:11, 30 November 2011 (EST)
 * The German or British English languages are not liberal, any more than American English is conservative, but you might as well let the parodists play, Max. They're having fun. --SharonW 17:37, 30 November 2011 (EST)
 * Haha I had to laugh when I came across this page by looking in Recent Changes. To show how ridiculous it is, I've added Japanese in at number 1. I challenge anyone to find ways that American English is more conservative than Japanese on those counts. I'm an advanced Japanese speaker so if anyone has anything to ask regarding those points, then please feel free. HumanGeographer 18:05, 30 November 2011 (EST)

Russian
I was going to add Russian to the list of conservative languages but then I thought, should it be in the list of liberal languages instead? On the one hand, it's a language with strong gender-based grammar, word forms that indicate respect for elders and a huge Christian literature, so does that make it conservative? But on the other hand, it gave words like Bolshevik, Soviet and Politburo to the English language, so does that make it liberal? But then you can look at it the other way and see that those words give us the ability to describe liberal deceit as it really it, so does that make Russian conservative again? You can see the problem! Anyone fancy helping out here? HollyS 19:20, 30 November 2011 (EST)

British vs American English
I already explained how I find this concept ridiculous, but can someone explain to me how British and American English are so different that the former is the most conservative and the latter is the most liberal? The two varieties of English are more different than, Russian for instance! HumanGeographer 20:34, 30 November 2011 (EST)

French
I don't see how French is the most liberal language. France is actually one of the few nations, that actively protect its language from loanwords. They do this with the so called Toubon Law. To give just one example: Computer, which keeps its original form in most languages, is called ordinateur in French.

German seems a more fitting candidate for first place. Since the orthography rfeorm of 1996, German allows far more "correct" variants. Btw: Does "Hebrew" include modern Hebrew, which is different from the ancient Hebrew? À Dieu --VPropp 11:21, 2 December 2011 (EST)

Linguistic conservatism
I think a language is conservative if it rarely changes, if it tends to keep old words and/or old grammatical forms. I think there are two main groups of languages or dialects that do this. Firstly there are those languages which cease to be used by the common mass of people and become the reserve of the educated, scholars, religious functionaries, etc. Good examples of such languages include Latin (in Medieval Europe, and to this day in the Catholic Church), Hebrew for much of its history (i.e. by the time of Christ most Jews no longer spoke Hebrew as their every day tongue, speaking other languages such as Aramaic, up until the 19th/20th century revival of Hebrew as an everyday spoken language), Church Slavonic in several of the Eastern Churches, Coptic among Egyptian Christians, Sanskrit in Hinduism, Pali in Theravada Buddhism, etc. The other main group is tribal or regional or minority languages, which often maintain archaic characteristics. The opposite of a conservative language is a language undergoing fast change. A good example would be English itself, in the first few centuries after the Norman conquest; contemporary English is much more conservative compared to Late Old / Early Middle English, although its status as a language in common use, and increasingly the global language, causes an ever-increasing number of new words being coined, or new borrowings from other languages - neither of which is, in itself, a bad thing. Maratrean 23:33, 2 December 2011 (EST)

blocking of LindaP
Besides LindaP following the classic progression of a liberal parodists: picking a women user name so male blockers are less likely to block, very early effusive praise on Andy's talk page, weird edits, highly exaggerated claims, weird articles, etc.

I think the Conservative Language Projects denigration of certain languages with spurious and uncited claims was meant to make Conservapedia look bad and to needlessly alienate our audience so they would not read Conservapedia. Whole nations languages were denigrated with no supporting evidence.

This is not an isolated case. Lately, most of the liberal parodists have been women lately. I think they found that the highly belligerent Bugler and aggressive blocking style of RodWeathers is no longer going to fly. So they are coming in as lady parodist.
 * Lastly, I agree with Karajou that this page is odd and highly subjective. Conservative 07:03, 3 December 2011 (EST)

Contradiction
So American English is unique because it evolves, but British English is liberal because it changes over time. I just had a look in my dictionary and evolution, apparently, is a change over time... --ClearView2011 13:15, 3 December 2011 (EST)