[Elecraft] Is CW a Language?

[Sandy W5TVW]

Morse telegraphy  (landline OR wireless versions.)  IS definitely a LIVING LANGUAGE!  No doubt!
Perhaps one of the most universal living languages today.  Unlike learning
say German, French, Latin or whatever, if you write using the Latin
alphabet, you can transmit to another and receive any message
regardless of the sender's or the receiver's language!

It is extremely unique in this regard.  Telegraph operators that used to be
on ships could send messages in whatever language (plain text or cipher)
and communicate even though, basically, they couldn't speak or write
or read the language they were sending via Morse!

Even prisoners used it in prison camps by tapping on walls or pipes.

You must learn it like any different language from your native one
to make use of it.  It takes practice and more practice.  I know it ain't
easy!  (But then could you converse with other people when you were
a baby or a young tyke?  It took practice and more practice!)

Hopefully, the present people running the ITU, ARRL, FCC and other
entities, will preserve this VERY unique method of communication.
It's slow...yes,  it's "old"...yes, but it ain't obsolete!

My 2 penny's worth!

73,

Sandy W5TVW

(Yeah, I had a helluva time learning it and hated it at first!  But it's just about
all I use to QSO on the "wireless" today!)
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fred Jensen" <k6dgw at foothill.net>
To: "Elecraft Reflector" <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 1:21 PM
Subject: [Elecraft] Is CW a Language?


| In the "prosign thread," it has been suggested that Morse Code (which, 
| if the world were even remotely fair, would be the Vail Code) is a 
| language.  Fortuitously, I was about to have lunch with an old friend 
| who retired as a Professor of Linguistics, so I asked him over my patty 
| melt, "Does Morse code class as a language?"  He said, "Hmmm, that's 
| something I've never thought about.  Probably not.  I would put Morse 
| code in the class of phonetic alphabets, where the sounds equate to 
| symbols in a symbolic alphabet that can be combined to form elements 
| (i.e. 'words') in any language that employs that symbolic alphabet. 
| Interesting question, though.  I'll have to think about that."  Never 
| expect a short answer from a retired professor.
| 
| Above about 20 WPM or so, CW does become sort of a 'language' for me ... 
| I hear words, not letters, but the real 'language' is still English of 
| course.  The fantastic QSK on my K2 (far better than any other QSK rig I 
| have used) only enhances the effect.
| 
| As a teenager, several of my buddies and I learned American Morse and 
| would get on 80 meters in the evening and use it in a round table ... it 
| was really meant for telegraph sounders (clicks and clacks) rather than 
| radio (dots and dashes) and was a little awkward on the radio, however 
| we all had a burning desire to just fake out other stations.  I like to 
| think I've matured some in my choice of amusements since then.  Andrea 
| has a slightly different opinion on the subject of male maturity, 
| especially mine.
| 
| I defer to the historians on the origin(s) of "CQ," but it reminds me of 
| the old (likely apochraphyl) story of the ham on AM who lived next to a 
| church and had a problem with RFI to the electric organ.  Calling "CQ 
| DX" one Sunday morning, he noticed the parishoners madly streaming out 
| of the church.  Later that day, he asked the minister what had happened, 
| andh the minister replied, "They thought they heard the voice of God 
| saying 'Seek You The Exit,' and they left in panic."
| 
| 73,
| 
| Fred K6DGW
| Auburn CA CM98lw
| K2/100 #4398
| KX1 #897
| (and a growing inventory of other Elecraft stuff)
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