Losing language skills

[Bucky]

The younger generation is becoming illiterate in their own languages in both China and Japan.

I also find in the US that schools are asking children to practice cursive writing less theses days so that is becoming a lost skill too.

Like every Chinese child, Li Hanwei spent her schooldays memorising thousands of the intricate characters that make up the Chinese writing system.Yet aged just 21 and now a university student in Hong Kong, Li already finds that when she picks up a pen to write, the characters for words as simple as "embarrassed" have slipped from her mind.

"I can remember the shape, but I can't remember the strokes that you need to write it," she says. "It?s a bit of a problem."

Surveys indicate the phenomenon, dubbed "character amnesia", is widespread across China, causing young Chinese to fear for the future of their ancient writing system.

Young Japanese people also report the problem, which is caused by the constant use of computers and mobile phones with alphabet-based input systems.

There is even a Chinese word for it: "tibiwangzi", or "take pen, forget character".

A poll commissioned by the China Youth Daily in April found that 83 percent of the 2,072 respondents admitted having problems writing characters.

As a result, Li says that she has become almost dependent on her phone.

"When I can't remember, I will take out my cellphone and find it (the character) and then copy it down," she says.

[Kagetsu]

Entirely true... The slackification of the languages is due in part to, well, slackness of both the students and the bodies governing them. The reality is, parents have a huge part to play in this as well.

[Coligny]

Entirely true... The slackification of the languages is due in part to, well, slackness of both the students and the bodies governing them. The reality is, parents have a huge part to play in this as well.

Yeah, but kanjis are quite of an arcane clusterfuck... Vietnam and korea gave up on them... Sure they lose part of their written history... But everything else goes for the best.

And anyway, japanese can't read older kanjis either, and dictionnary are quite... Useless to say the least... Catch 22, you have to know the kanji to write it, therefore you can't search for it without already knowing it, which would make the search useless.... Aaaaaaarrrrrrrrrghhhhh....

[FG Lurker]

It's not only knowledge of Kanji that is getting worse, it's general language knowledge. A good chunk of <20yos can't speak proper Japanese, far less use keigo.

[tidbits]

[GomiGirl]

At the risk of sounding like a boring old fart, I think that English language ability (spelling, grammar) is decreasing in native English speakers. I blame texting and chat-speak.

I really hate seeing texting style contractions in regular communications - even on web-boards but especially in email. I never use these myself even when texting or twittering. It is just wrong to my eyes.

OMG I really do sound like a fuddy duddy don't I?

[Yokohammer]

OMG I really do sound like a fuddy duddy don't I?

Yes, but don't worry about it ... you have company.

Fuddy duddys of the world unite!!

(Hmm, should that be "fuddy duddys" or "fuddy duddies"?)

[6810]

[tidbits]

Agree. Here is talking about not using a skill and losing it. I do forget one or two dialect and language that I hardly use, but I think I can pick up quite fast if I am put in a environment that using the language or dialect again.

[Mulboyne]

At the risk of sounding like a boring old fart, I think that English language ability (spelling, grammar) is decreasing in native English speakers. I blame texting and chat-speak.

I really hate seeing texting style contractions in regular communications - even on web-boards but especially in email. I never use these myself even when texting or twittering. It is just wrong to my eyes.

OMG I really do sound like a fuddy duddy don't I?

There's always going to be a tension between generations on the use of language. Most observations about changes in language focus on neologisms or new meanings for existing words but grammar and pronunciation also shift.

Linguist Steven Pinker takes a strong line against what he calls language mavens and I have some sympathy with him (there's a controversial word: in today's usage, sympathy and empathy have swapped meanings). In a chapter of one of his books, he demonstrates that ghettospeak, sometimes regarded as coarse and ignorant, certainly doesn't follow the conventional grammar of today. It does, however, have a consistent grammar and some of its rules are those which were conventional in previous generations.

When you hear complaints about standards, it's often really a complaint about a standard. As literacy spread among general populations, whether in English, Japanese or other languages, there was a convergence on a standard. In British English, it's Received Pronunciation. In some ways, RP bears comparison with Tokyo-ben. British people with regional accents would often try to use RP in London just as many Japanese adopt Tokyo-ben in the capital. You wouldn't have been able to get a middle-class job otherwise. RP wasn't just about pronunciation, it was a whole standard grammar. It began to fall out of favour but, even thirty years ago, parents would still consider sending a kid to elocution lessons.

Today, you'll hear regional English accents in all walks of life in Britain. However, these accents derive from old local dialects and languages with very different grammars and syntax to received pronunciation.

When you hear a Japanese person speaking broken English, you can often work out the Japanese phrases they are translating in their head to communicate. There are numerous phrases in English which have the same root. An Irishman saying "I do be working every day" is speaking fluent English but that construction actually comes from Irish. It's been in the language so long now, no-one thinks about it.

What generally gets people's goat is that these expressions may be fine in conversation but aren't considered appropriate in many forms of correspondence. Employers are frustrated that new employees don't know how to write business letters or reports.

Part of the problem may be that people are increasingly writing as they speak and aren't skilled in the art of finding different tones. When Received Pronunciation was commonplace, it automatically obliged you to have two forms of language in your tool kit (or perhaps just one if you were brought up with RP) and so judging the right tone was a regular part of life.

RP, then, had considerable advantages in standardizing communication but I personally wouldn't want to go back to the kind of society which required its usage.

For me, the larger problem is shrinking vocabulary. This is related to the character amnesia described in Bucky's original post. Just as most of those young Asians know how to read characters but have forgotten how to write them, I think the gap between the words young English speakers understand and the words they use is widening. There's always been a gap, of course, but perhaps not so great as today.

One reason is that no-one has to remember things in the same way any more. If you liked a poem or a passage from a book a few decades ago, then you'd have had to memorize it, or at least make a note of it, if you wanted to recall it at a later time. Today, you can tag, bookmark or copy & paste. When information is always on hand, you don't need to remember it, you just need to know where to find it.

Some will have that experience with phone numbers. If you're old enough, you'll probably remember a time when you knew a whole list of phone numbers by heart because you dialled or tapped them out regularly. Now that we use preset numbers so frequently, I would guess that many of us couldn't recite anything like the same amount.

It's the same with language. Someone can still enjoy a well-written piece of English but it won't affect the way they express themselves if they just maintain access to it rather than absorbing it. A lot of board members here will have learned Japanese, or some other language, and will know the sharp difference between being able to understand what someone is saying and being able to use those same words yourself.

Perhaps younger generations will tolerate different forms of communication more easily than their elders. Perhaps we overestimate the eloquence of previous generations. My mother recalled a letter she read in a book written by a teenage soldier in the Great War and doubted the average teenager would be able to write so beautifully today. Maybe so. It's just as possible the writer wasn't an average teenager in his time. The letter may have survived because it was so well written while other less worthy contributions have disappeared. Some men probably couldn't write letters at all.

I'm interested in what may happen if voice recognition technology expands. On the one hand, people may write as they speak more often because they will actually be speaking. On the other hand, people may begin to think more about how they say things and develop a wider speaking vocabularly. Mind you, it will probably only be a matter of time before new spellcheck and grammarcheck software automatically turns incoherent speech into well-rounded phrases so maybe that window of opportunity will only be open for a short time.

[nottu]

[Greji]

Agree. Here is talking about not using a skill and losing it. I do forget one or two dialect and language that I hardly use, but I think I can pick up quite fast if I am put in a environment that using the language or dialect again.

You would have to do that. Where you come from everyone speaks in a different dialect! The last time I was there, my local interpreter had an interpreter.

[Coligny]

For me, the larger problem is shrinking vocabulary. This is related to the character amnesia described in Bucky's original post. Just as most of those young Asians know how to read characters but have forgotten how to write them, I think the gap between the words young English speakers understand and the words they use is widening. There's always been a gap, of course, but perhaps not so great as today.

I might disagree a wee bit here. People write as they speak because they are illiterate. It's the definition of litteracy that, like so many other things has been adapted to fit politicians ego. Remember that Japan claim 99% litteracy. With the same accounting tricks that you might use to claim a 3-9 reliability for the Chernobyl power plant...
Back in my days, you were not considered litterate if you knew yer alphabet and could write yer name without reading it at the same time. Litteracy was aboot reading skill for classical litterature (reading and understanding as the test were aboot explaining in modern written french texts that were written in slightly older French with all the litterary tricks in the book to hide the true meaning.) and the writing test were aboot describing in proper written language some random situation. I even had some quite... Let say colorfull language teacher that was making us rewrite some street slang from random movies in what would be classical 19th century litterary form. (yeah, go translate "i'll busta cap up yo ass if you don't bring me back da whitesnow" to match in a time period where horseless carriage didn't exist yet. and with attention to words that were not yet in the dictionnary for the timeframe concerned).

By these standards, all those people unable to properly communicate in a written way ARE NOT litterate... Which is bad for politicians aiming for re-elections...

Properly writing those big words is a totally different matter, and back home "orthograph is the science of the idiots". Non kanji based language do not require to know how to write a word to know it... And there is therefore little to no reason no to use it, if you are around litterate people...

[Yokohammer]

This is a sensitive and frustrating issue.

Another factor that works to reduce the quality of English-language communication is, somewhat paradoxically, "internationalization."

For example, anyone who writes English-language promotional material or documentation for Japanese clients, or translates J-E for the same, knows that it's an uphill battle to get decent English approved most of the time. The problem being that the client often demands dumbed-down English that he/she can understand, rather than English of a level that will deliver the message most effectively to the end recipient. The result is that more crap English circulates to exacerbate the problem in an ever-expanding spiral of linguistic doom.

I'm sure China's expansion into the rest of the world will make the problem even more widespread. But of course it's not just Asian countries: as more non-English-speaking cultures participate in world commerce and affairs the situation will just get more complex. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's pretty clear that the eloquent and richly expressive English of the classics is rapidly going down the tubes.

[BigInJapan]

...it's an uphill battle to get decent English approved most of the time. The problem being that the client often demands dumbed-down English that he/she can understand...

Preaching to the choir here.
I don't know how many speeches and presentations I've translated with the request that I don't use "difficult" words.

[Mulboyne]

[vanilla coke]

i went back to australia for 2 months recently....
found myself speaking ultra-simple english....
lots of weird looks from family and friends.
even caught myself accepting change and receipt at Coles with both hands and a slight bow........ ><

[Mulboyne]

...It's the definition of literacy...Back in my days, you were not considered literate if you knew yer alphabet and could write yer name without reading it at the same time....

There is no one definition of literacy. It depends what you are asking people to be literate to do. Iceland has a high literacy rate to rival Japan's claim and the measure is simply based on the ability of over-15s to read and write rather than explain the Njá]Jack Seward's onerous definition of fluency[/URL] but, ultimately, it also boils down to a question of "fluent for what?" I've met excellent translators who are not really fluent in their chosen language but they can do the job well, often because they are literate. I like Coligny's view of what literacy should aim to be but I recognize that it's really measuring cultural and aesthetics education over other definitions of literacy.

One reason why people appear to be writing as they speak is that we now have many written forms of communication which are essentially conversations. We often use the word "chat" to talk about them. I don't have a problem with using conversational style in those formats but I'd go further and say I don't mind it in other forms either. It's painful to read reports and letters where the writer has tried to adopt a "business voice" but has ended up obscuring all meaning. I'd rather they had chosen to write in much the same way they might have explained it to me in person. To do that, though, you need to have a reasonable grasp of punctuation to help you put in the pauses and emphases which come naturally in speech.

I suppose I'd put forward a case for helping children expand their range of verbal expression. Some people are naturally eloquent but most of us aren't. It is a skill you can earn, however. That doesn't mean I want everyone to start speaking like newspaper editorials but just to be able to find a wider range of words and tones. If you are expressing yourself more precisely when you speak, then there's a greater chance you'll do the same when you write.

[6810]

If you are expressing yourself more precisely when you speak, then there's a greater chance you'll do the same when you write.

True, but I would also say that in the opposite order (chicken and egg?).

If you are expressing yourself more precisely when you write, then there's a greater chance you'll do the same when you speak.

[Mulboyne]

True, but I would also say that in the opposite order (chicken and egg?).

If you are expressing yourself more precisely when you write, then there's a greater chance you'll do the same when you speak.

I don't disagree in principle but, as I mentioned above, that may not be the direction of causality we can rely on any more for younger generations. A much higher proportion of their writing is - and should be - in a casual tone. They also write with pen and paper less often.

That second point raises the question of how we absorb good writing style. In Britain, most school examinations must be answered in longhand but coursework is often typed. I know in my case, one aid to memory was the physical process of writing something out. Most people learning kanji will have found that writing the characters stroke by stroke greatly helps imprint them in the mind more than staring at flash cards.

If you are writing a paper today on a topic and quoting sources, it's a simple matter to copy and paste the relevant text, not even typing it out yourself. I wonder whether that process has the same impact. Even if someone does physically type out a striking line from a novel or a poem, I wonder whether it sticks in the same way, Perhaps it does and I'm barking up the wrong tree.

If, however, people's relationship with good writing becomes more passive then maybe we can't expect it to influence their own style as strongly. If we are looking at a future where voice recognition technology turns writing into a form of dictation then it may become harder to expect new generations to pick up a good writing style which then influences the way they speak. It might be more productive to put the effort into training people to speak and look for causation the other way.

[6810]

I agree with everything you are saying. It's an interesting interstice we're in with regards to linguistic evolution. Digital devices have largely uncoupled good memory practices from everyday life.

Indeed, when learning kanji, it was the everyday physical drilling, pen/pencil on paper, reading, repeating that helped to build a strong foundation. I have friend that try to be clever and use software, it works, perhaps, but not to the same degree.

Perhaps it is this de-coupling of memory from communication that is more frightening to me in its implications more so than abstract notions of literacy.

If so much of the social (which is language anyway) is done by proxy, via hyper-frenetic, schizophrenic, technological multiplicity in a world which says "faster and faster" every other minute, then where and when will future generations (indeed, even ourselves) have the opportunity for sustained reflection and the reciprocal nourishing of memory through the present and vice versa? Will we simply forget to slow down and think deeply?

[tidbits]

[Samurai_Jerk]

[Bucky]

But back to the original article I posted, it is the influence of technology that is impacting the kanji amesia. As Mulboyne has mentioned the opportunity to copy and paste or type something out in shorthand has contributed to this failure to remember Kanji characters. And, I am sure it is leading to other linguistic amnesia where people will write with abbreviations: "It was Gr8 2 see U" type of sentence construction.

Much as teachers are now requiring students in the US to type reports rather than write them in longhand because it is easier to read -- many of these changes are coming about because it is easier for someone. In the case of requiring a typed report makes it easier for teachers to read while at the same time it also negatively impacts students' practice in writing in cursive, or as texting contributes to kanji amnesia.

Insuring that languages maintain continuity will require conscious efforts to prevent them from falling into disrepair.

Of course on the other side, the erosion of one language can lead to the development of another as the article quoted below spells out a new need:

Federal agents are seeking to hire Ebonics translators to help interpret wiretapped conversations involving targets of undercover drug investigations.

[AlbertSiegel]

Just don't bother with proper language... Nothing wrong with grunting and pointing. Wroks well in America..

[6810]

Wroks well in America..

it Srue dose..!

[hakosukajd]

The biggest issue I have with the way younger people (yes, I'm generalizing) tend to write today, is they seem to be somewhat ignorant of the loss of visual communication between verbal and written language. While, in some ways, they make up for it utilizing fonts and emotional shorthand, they quickly become frustrated with someone on the other end of the discussion when their cues aren't necessarily understood. Worse yet, much of the online shorthand is highly "regional" in that terms are often restricted to use by a small group on a particular BBS or website.

This is completely aside from my general sense that critical thinking has taken a backseat to ideology. In forum "discussions", I often find a tendency to rely on "google one-liners" in order to win an argument, rather than any intimate discussion to determine the basis of the argument through which to gain an understanding of each participants perception. In many occasions, the aforementioned "one liners" are not even supportive of the users argument; they simply fail to take the written word in proper context.

[Ketou]

[quote="hakosukajd"]

This is completely aside from my general sense that critical thinking has taken a backseat to ideology. In forum "discussions", I often find a tendency to rely on "google one-liners" in order to win an argument, rather than any intimate discussion to determine the basis of the argument through which to gain an understanding of each participants perception. In many occasions, the aforementioned "one liners" are not even supportive of the users argument]

It's nothing new. Critical thinking has always taken a backseat to ideology. There are thousands of scientist who are really ideologues in white coats. They happily skip onto the next level without every having verified the tenants of their creations. All as the system teaches the young and unaware the 'truth' of science.
Cosmology for one certainly belongs in Theology:bowdown:, I would say Climate Science too but so many have their egos attached to it.........

[Samurai_Jerk]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100901/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_china_names

Villagers in eastern China has been forced by the country's unbending bureaucracy to change their family name as the character is so rare it cannot be typed.

The problem affects about 200 people in a village in Shandong province who share the surname Shan.

The residents had no problem when identity cards, driving licences and other documents could be handwritten, but now they have to be printed using computers, and their name is so unusual it does not exist in standard word processing programmes.

"Nobody wants to do it, but under the circumstances we have no choice," villager Xian Xuexin told state television, using the new, easy to type family name he has been compelled to adopt.

"It causes a lot of problems when people see the surname on old documents and new documents is not the same."

Since 2003, children born in the village have been registered with the family name Xian, rather than Shan. Older villagers are worried that their children and grandchildren are losing an important part of their heritage, the report added. ......

[Mulboyne]

Here's a half hour BBC radio show on the future of English. It aired on Wednesday so you've only got 3/4 more days to listen to it.

Fry's English Delight -Future Conditional

There's a longer version of the interview with David Crystal, which is perhaps the most interesting on the programme's website.