There are a lot of words in the English language. Most are never used in daily communications with our families, our friends and associates. Many of the little-used words are for writers - writers of legal documents, writers of medical reports or diagnoses, writers of social conditions, writers of sciences and philosophies... you get the idea.
Since there are so many written words by specialists of all kinds, many of us, by necessity, run across these words and end up having to ask, "What does that mean?" And this is using our own 'mother tongue'.
Add to that... here we are, a collective group of human beings some 6-plus billion strong, with (according to some) an estimated 500 languages! And we are expected to live peacefully amongst ourselves..? Even in the language that this is written some will come away from reading it with a different opinion or idea than another. But when we visualize 500 different tongues babbling on and on, it sounds illogical and irrational that 'agreement' would ever be a conclusion.
Translations of words is basically a substitution of one's own language for anothers... not always exactly what the other means, of course, but in most cases a close enough call that we can understand what the other is saying.
The English language has pretty much permeated a great deal of the world. Not always fully understood but language must have some degree of universality to conduct communications in our ever-growing global exchanges... it only makes sense in our present day 'modern' society.
Why English? one may ask. A fair question. If seen as the language utilized for much of today's world, i.e., air transport where flights must rely upon a uniformity of language in order to take-off and land in foreign countries, presently English is the standard. English is pretty much the language of the material world... things and stuff, that which we use for trade and economy.
The internet has provided auto-translations, which allow the language of the writer to be understood by those that do not speak the language of origin. A small step for the writer, a large step for mankind. As cyber-technology continues to evolve, I trust that translations will do the same, so we can all correspond globally in our native language to each other.
But any translation of language, the written or spoken word, may ignore the nuances of the language being translated... perhaps not the end of the world by any means, but somehow that may chip away at the originality of the write.
My question is why we do not simply use the words used for modern life as they are? 'Computer' as an example... why do other languages not call it 'computer' instead of 'ordinateur' (French), 'calcolatore' (Italian),or 'computadora' (Spanish)? Why not just use 'computer'? Is it difficult to pronounce the sound 'computer' in those languages.. or any other language? A three-syllable word, com-pu-ter, doesn't sound very difficult to pronounce. How about Apple's 'I-Pod'... surely it is pronounced 'EE-Pod' in Spanish and not 'aye-pod' only because of the way it is written.
In English we slaughter the Spanish language even though Spanish language people are the largest minority in America. A recent news segment revolved around a fellow named 'Padilla", which the news networks consistently pronounced 'Pa-dilla' instead of 'Pa-dee-ya'... understandable if American's had absolutely no idea of anything in the Spanish language, but really..!
Maybe it's the stubbornness of people to accept change, even though change is the way of the world. Maybe Padilla, in order to maintain the sound of his name, should rewrite his name 'Padeeya'..? Many immigrants to our shores certainly did something similar to that, but given the fact that those that have Spanish as their native origins, and given the fact that those numbers are very large... maybe American's should assimilate more of the Spanish language into their vocabulary. 'Rodeo' was accepted, even though the majority pronounce it 'row-dee-o' vs. 'ro-day-o' not to mention large areas of our country that have Spanish names, primarily in California, but many Southwestern states.
It is not the pronunciation that is the real problem, but the written word. What is more important - the pronunciation or the written word? Given the historical fact that the written word has outlived the pronounciation, I think the later ('latter' vs. 'lay-ter').
Later (lay-ter),
Cecil
27 November 2005
<center>listen to the rose
it does not seek
to improve itself
to reinvent its life
to say more than it is
the rose only speaks
of what it is
thru its beauty
and its fragrance
speaking without tongue
speaking without word
we know what it says
in universal understanding
</center>
As soon as Judih & I perfect the language translators, all will be able to communicate worldwide!! 
