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Bilingual Cities | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| paparaciii Diglot Senior Member Latvia Joined 6339 days ago 204 posts - 223 votes  Speaks: Latvian*, Russian Studies: English | Message 9 of 29 23 May 2010 at 1:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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Riga is bilingual and I suppose so is Tallinn considering the large percentage of Russians in that city. Kiev could be regarded as bilingual with Russian being overwhelming though.
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| ennime Tetraglot Senior Member South Africa universityofbrokengl Joined 5907 days ago 397 posts - 507 votes Speaks: English, Dutch*, Esperanto, Afrikaans Studies: Xhosa, French, Korean, Portuguese, Zulu | Message 10 of 29 26 May 2010 at 9:56am | IP Logged | ||
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actually to be honest, with so much migration coming into the equation, I think it's hard
to find truly monolingual cities these days... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Derian Triglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5311 days ago 227 posts - 464 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Czech, French, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 11 of 29 26 May 2010 at 11:16am | IP Logged | ||
The state of affairs in Holland, doesn't have to be true of other countries. The immigration (that you're obviously referring to) in one country is a result of emmigration in other coutries, where it obviously can't contribute to multilngualism. The only bilingual cities in Poland are boarder towns. Edited by Derian on 26 May 2010 at 11:17am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5841 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 12 of 29 26 May 2010 at 11:44pm | IP Logged | ||
Interesting to hear about Riga. Can you explain how the bilingual situation works in Riga? I mean, can you normally guess what language to address someone in, and how often do you start out in one language and switch to another? Plus, I've read that Latvia is actively supporting Latvian over Russian, so how is that affecting things? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| maaku Senior Member United States Joined 5577 days ago 359 posts - 562 votes Speaks: English* | Message 13 of 29 27 May 2010 at 2:38am | IP Logged | ||
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There's one truly polylingual city that I know of: Kuala Lumpur. Bahasa Melayu (dialect of Indonesian) is the principal language by law, but from my own observations native Malaysians are a minority in KL. I also heard plenty of Tamil, Urdu, and a variety of Chinese dialects (esp. Cantonese). The international languages of English and Mandarin are widely understood and spoken at home by a sizable minority. Finally, there were a small number of very wealthy Arabs (speaking various dialects of Arabic) as well.
I have been to no city that is more multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-religious, and multi-lingual than Kuala Lumpur. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Camundonguinho Triglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4752 days ago 273 posts - 500 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish Studies: Swedish | Message 14 of 29 19 January 2012 at 5:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't really think Barcelona, Brussels and Montreal are bilingual.
By bilingualism I mean: both people consider both languages their 1st language, and no language is hated. In Brussels, people hate Flemish, in Barcelona there is a conflict between people who have Catalan as their native tongue, and the ones who have Spanish as their native tongue. Many shops in Barcelona have signs in Catalan and English, but not in Spanish, this is not real bilingualism. There is no Spanish language medium public schools in Barcelona (in Montreal, there is English language medium school system for anglophones). The only bilingual cities in Europe are Valencia/València, Biel/Bienne and Rovinj/Rovigno, both people enjoy speaking the two languages, and there is no hate toward any of the two languages. Canada is not a bilingual country, except for the province of New Brunswick. Paraguay is, all people in Paraguay speak both languages: Spanish and Guarani. No one in Paraguay hates either Spanish or Guarani. That's bilingualism, in my book. Edited by Camundonguinho on 19 January 2012 at 5:10pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| anamsc Triglot Senior Member Andorra Joined 6206 days ago 296 posts - 382 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Catalan Studies: Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Written), French | Message 15 of 29 19 January 2012 at 10:59pm | IP Logged | ||
Where are you getting your information from? I can't speak for most of the cities you have commented on, but I am extremely surprised by your assessment of bilingualism in Spanish cities. I don't think anybody would agree with you that Valencia is more bilingual than Barcelona, first of all. Many Valencians do not feel comfortable speaking in Valencian, even though they may have learned it in school. I think it is almost a monolingual Spanish city, except the official government usage of Valencian. In Barcelona, many many people consider both Spanish and Catalan to be their native languages (even though they may prefer one or the other; it is normal to have a preference). And that whole thing about Spanish-speakers and Catalan-speakers hating each other (which I have heard about elsewhere, not just from your post) is greatly exaggerated in my opinion. Finally, I think that the (official version of the) public school system in Barcelona makes the city more bilingual. I don't really think that it's fair to call a city 100% bilingual if someone can grow up and go to public school there and still not speak one of the two languages. Schools in Barcelona teach both Catalan and Spanish, with the goal of having all students be fluent and literate in both. (Whether or not that is successfull is another debate.) 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4710 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 16 of 29 24 January 2012 at 4:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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I used to live in Brussels and it's definitely a bilingual city - but I spoke Dutch already before I went there. If you want to get around in Brussels though, the overwhelming majority of people is francophone so I suggest you learn French. I spoke some when I got there but I only stayed for two months, so I didn't improve as much as I possibly should have.
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