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Should English be the official language? | ||
Tags: Language Politics | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4669 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes  Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 33 of 96 25 April 2013 at 9:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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Canadian English should be the official language of EU.
Why? Because it's a neat mix of British and American tendencies, I for myself would not want to be forced to use British-only spellings and accent. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4623 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 34 of 96 25 April 2013 at 9:56pm | IP Logged | ||
I would say most people are proud of their country and their language. Anyway, it's all rather academic as there is no way Czech will be disappearing during the 21st century. Most Czech people over the age of 35 are functionally monolingual. It takes a long time to kill that. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 35 of 96 26 April 2013 at 12:46am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, I wouldn't refuse this language to my children as I would expect them to meet
their grandparents, no matter where I would live with my family. My parents do not speak other languages, despite their attempts to learn. Well, my attitude is based on this: 1.If the ancestors somewhere deep in 19th century didn't want Czech as formal language equal to German (and Slovak to Hungarian etc.), the A-U Empire would be much more likely to survive. This was their main point, the Czech countries were the industrial heart of the A-U, it was a very modern state in it's time and the citizens had quite a lot of liberties, even compared to other european states of the era. As one strong whole, it would be much less likely to fall to Nazi Germany, both as a victim of occupation or as a willing associate, and later it would be far less likely to be taken and abused by the Soviet Union the way all the parts except Austria were. And today, we would have had one strong nation being part of EU instead of sevelar small unimportant members. 2.I don't see much value in separate czech culture. The trouble is the small market, in which a lot of good things don't get enough audience to survive and therefore they cannot compete with the horrible and stupid things, which get too much attention. As a result of the small market, the publishers, sellers and everyone involved can participate on a system where books, cds, dvds and everything costs twice as much as in better countries. And as there are fewer people, there are as well fewer great ones bringing something new. For example, there are just about five writers I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to everyone. There is no big czech novel. There are several well known classics composers but there is no world widely known czech band of our time. A lot of czechs who succeeded in their fields are those who left the country. So, if everyone here would be forced to learn one big language well, it may even result in better educated public with wider horizons in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, I am irrationally flattered when someone wants to learn Czech. But when I encourage those brave people, it is because I understand their passion which is the same one that makes me dream of Swedish, Welsh and a few other small languages. It is not persuasion that my language is worth it. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5957 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 38 of 96 26 April 2013 at 6:31pm | IP Logged | ||
Although I risk saying too much here, I am pleased to advise that Operation Canuckistan is well underway and the penetration level of Canadian English throughout the world is increasing steadily and stealthily. Deep in the dark confines of a secret fortress cleverly disguised as a massive ice fishing hut, select members of our World Language Domination Eh-Team, sitting comfortably on a series of chesterfields, continue with plots and scheming and such, which to this date have focussed on sending agents (Céline Dion, Justin Bieber and Jim Carrey) out of Canada elsewhere on a mission to increase the profile of Canadian English (and also because they were annoying the bejeezus out of us domestically). 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| aodhanc Diglot Groupie Iceland Joined 6261 days ago 92 posts - 130 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish | Message 39 of 96 27 April 2013 at 12:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's highly bizarre that the president of Germany would make such an outlandish
statement. The EU was founded on the basis of democracy, mutual respect between countries, multiculturalism, multilingualism, freedom of speech etc. Europe is far richer because of the wealth of languages and cultures that exists within it. To throw all of that away and become some type of bland conformist bloc would be sinful. Edited by aodhanc on 27 April 2013 at 12:40pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 40 of 96 27 April 2013 at 3:10pm | IP Logged | ||
Fair enough, but I don't think the German president was suggesting throwing away the basis for democracy, freedom of speech, etc. As far as I can tell you can work pretty well in Brussels without Icelandic, but it's almost impossible to get by without French (or perhaps English) so linguistic dominance is certainly there already. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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