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Future outlook: French vs. Portuguese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6553 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes  1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 57 of 81 25 January 2012 at 1:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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Maybe Weber's article can put the solution to this potatoes to onions discussion?
10 Most Influential Languages I guess people will discuss this forever, but that article has a good overview. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5416 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 58 of 81 25 January 2012 at 6:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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The relevance of a 17-year-old article based on 20-year-old research in forecasting the future relative to today is slightly suspect.
Note that Chinese places behind both Arabic and Russian. That was surely possible in the early 90s, but does anyone seriously believe that's still the case for today, let alone the future? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6553 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 59 of 81 25 January 2012 at 11:39pm | IP Logged | ||
Perhaps, perhaps not, with respect to the languages being discussed one might point out what is suspect in the methodology, historical elements, etc. rather than the age. The age of the article does not make is suspect, in of itself, unless you care to suggest or demonstrate that these languages have so significantly shifted in that period. It's position is pretty close to your excellent post up-thread on pg1. Brazilian Pt is still pretty much an introvertish, continental language. Spanish has certainly challenged French (as the article points out...), etc, etc, etc. Will it evolve? Certainly, but that article shows a good hollistic approach. I'm not going to make conclusions, but here you have an article by someone that carried out some research and thought about it for a significant amount of time. Edited by zenmonkey on 26 January 2012 at 12:19am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5416 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 60 of 81 26 January 2012 at 12:29am | IP Logged | ||
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^ None of the information in that article should come as a surprise to anyone with access to Wikipedia and an interest in linguistic influence. Indeed, Wikipedia offers a far more expansive variety of variables by which languages' influences may be measured than this article—or the information available to the author at the time—could ever have hoped to incorporate (examples: number of Internet users, linguistic purity of local Internet content and usage, size of music and film industries, foreign direct investment, stock market capitalization, university graduates, etc).
After having had carried out tenfold the research utilized in this particular article, I eventually concluded that there is no such thing as a "good holistic approach", because any methodology will inherently incorporate subjective weightings of each variable's contribution to the aggregate score. The same handful of languages certainly do show up at the top, but ranking languages beyond generalized tiers is an entirely subjective matter that no amount of quantification could ever fully objectify. I could easily rationally scale the variables such that German comes out on top (aside from English), simply by focusing on GDP, living standards, exports, and universities. Conversely, I could easily rationally scale the variables such that German performs poorly, simply by focusing on demographic vitality, GDP growth, affordability, and military influence. This all, of course, operates on the faulty assumption that "linguistic influence" even has any real, significant meaning beyond first place. If two languages are competing for third and fourth place, their "influences" probably won't extend much beyond their own domestic borders. And if a language isn't influential beyond its native territory, can it even really be considered "influential"? Influencing who or what? Portuguese already influences the Lusosphere and French already influences the the Francophonie, but so do Vietnamese influence Vietnam and Hungarian influence Hungary. Until either French or Portuguese displaces the global lingua franca (currently English), I can't imagine either making much of a dent outside of their immediate neighbors. French may be one of the most popular foreign languages in the world, but trying to use French with some random person outside of the Francophonie is bound to be a fruitless endeavor 99% of the time. So if this is what Portuguese is "catching up" to, then perhaps "exposure" or "popularity" might be more appropriate terms than "influence" or "importance". Edited by nway on 26 January 2012 at 12:31am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6553 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 61 of 81 26 January 2012 at 1:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ok, I'm going to admit that my original post of the article and the statement that this was the reference and hope of conclusion of the discussion was tongue in cheek. It's quite obvious that if someone is looking for a definitive answer to these comparisons e is not going to find it here. And the reason is simple, as you stated in your other post, there is no consensus on the elements of evaluation.
And yet here you are trying to invalidate an evaluation of one set of parameters: - it's old so it's wrong - it's not based on the vast resources of Wikipedia so it's wrong Yet, you are right about the subjectivity of the approach, but that does not invalidate it. At best, that is really all you are going to get out of these type of discussions, a subjective evaluation and a structured understanding of the elements of that subjective evaluation. So your example that place Germany high or low is that both might be correct depending on the focus on use of your review.
On this specific point, I'm going to disagree. I do believe that this idea that there is no "real, significant meaning [of linguistic influence] beyond first place" of a language beyond it's borders just fails to consider how language x has impacted the history of ideas or other languages without being the first place leader. In fact, I'd go as far as suggest that those language leaders are highly dependent on location, specialization and many other factors such as economic and cultural influences. An example, relevant to Portuguese is that while it was certainly not the leading influential language of the late 16th Century its role in trade with China and Japan was such that it was significantly influential in the Muromachi Period of Japan. The number of people that spoke the language or a patois, the economic trade in these languages was "significant" enough that there are apparently several hundred Portugues loan words in Japanese today. And now? Well modern examples abound French continues to be a lingua franca of sorts in such work areas as couture, cuisine or ballet. Or in my wife's field, 18th Century Lit and the History of ideas where French (and other languages) are a significant influence not only in the documents of the period but in the current discourse, today. Or is "making a dent" only the linguistic influence of the growth in the number of speakers? Then those languages like Spanish are certainly making a dent in the US (and Brazil). In my frequent trips to either country I'm pretty certain I will be able to use Spanish with a nice number of the population. And yet it certainly does not hold that first place. It's a question that has multiple answers and in which, when the subjective position is clarified allows people to compare to their own subjective map and find, or not, a ressonance. Edited by zenmonkey on 26 January 2012 at 1:45pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5416 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 62 of 81 26 January 2012 at 7:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'd say we're looking at the same nominal concept from two different angles, and thus two different understandings of what it entails. I definitely should have qualified my statement with respect to regional, specialized, and historical aspects. as a language only needs to be prominent within a specific region, specialized field, or historical era for it to be influential in the respective region, field, or era. And of course due to the circumstance of history being a chronological succession of subsequent legacies, French and Portuguese prominence within their respective spheres of influence in certain periods of history are still evident. But this doesn't contradict my prior idea, so much as point out that it shifts across space and time.
Either way, coming into this discussion, we each had a different impression of what "influence" or "importance" entails. I was thinking more along the lines of a language being so prominent, even within a specific domain such as business or science, that it can be spoken on a mainstream level by a considerable part of the general population, such as English in Northern Europe or Russian in parts of Russia's immediate neighborhood. I realize that it's also possible to consider a language influential if it's a source of loan words, but I personally feel that the language ought to exist as an active, living entity for it to be considered influential or important with respect to a given community. Surely English uses "karate" and "sauna", but I wouldn't consider Japanese or Finnish to be genuinely "influential" to English speakers. French and German with respect to English is a substantially different matter, as English is the amalgamated descendent of those languages' ancestors. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6553 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew | Message 63 of 81 26 January 2012 at 8:33pm | IP Logged | ||
So here are two small examples, somewhat apocryphal to the discussion, in my previous job most of the European Senior Management spoke French (of which 1 out of 20 was French) clearly outside of the group English was the language most used, but code switching was alive and well accepted as a way of exclusion. When I go and visit my high-school friends, all highly-educated Mexicans in Guadalajara, most of them are tri-lingual or more. My daughters primary language is French and when they are lazy from speaking Spanish, this group of people has little issue switching to the French language. French was, and remains, for my generation as the language to learn in educated circles, beyond 2English for commerce". French was for travel and other things. In Munich, the French is certainly an "active, living entity" with well over 20K primo-speakers, probably twice as many secondary speakers, two schools and some community activity. In Frankfurt, where I work, my team is from several countries and we will code-switch easily to play with ideas or language. Three languages dominate: English, German and French. Again, these are "hunting stories" and personal examples, not to be taken as coin in the discussion but certainly they show the presence of *some* influence withing your example. And this has been cultivated by the French as a cultural mission within the Francophonie as well as with the existence of the Alliance, etc... The French have a passion for teaching French abroad. Portugal also has similar policies now, if with less means -- in France, for example, I know that there are free language courses for Portuguese for ex-nationals living abroad. The Portuguese community around Paris is reported to be the largest outside of the country and remains a present cultural element, if you know where to look. Edited by zenmonkey on 26 January 2012 at 8:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| primosanchez Diglot Newbie United States Joined 6307 days ago 32 posts - 32 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 64 of 81 25 November 2012 at 9:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well lets hope Portuguese since I just started studying it.
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