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The dark side of language dominance | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4279 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 73 of 176 30 May 2014 at 4:32am | IP Logged | ||||||||
The first message of this thread is about why English has gained so much strength due to political and economic factors. How to ignore them and link them without mentioning why certain countries are some more or some less ready to accept English as a globalist language? One can simply ignore it, but then there would be no discussion. I could say that Latin America are less ready to accept English to supercede Spanish or Portuguese because...because why? Just because of some reasons, some probably not connected to English being overly simplified with no noun gender, cases, noun declensions, complex verb tenses, then what? Then Latin America, Spain, France, and Québec do not want to submit to Anglophone "dominance" because...just because, then. Go and look at the first post of this thread, which is basically the main idea of the starter of the thread:
If I understand correctly, the main idea seems to be that English is being used by Anglophone powers to conquer the world via the spreading of their media, whereafter follows then economic gain without direct colonialism. How is what I say different in topic thereto? Edited by 1e4e6 on 30 May 2014 at 4:51am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5465 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 74 of 176 30 May 2014 at 5:00am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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This forum is about teaching yourself languages.
In my journey to teach myself languages I have become curious about which languages are taught/learned/ have political influence behind them throughout the world. I don't not think it is a problem to discuss political idealogies, economic forces, clandestine or obvious sinister moves by politic powers and so on in relation to how certain languages spread throughout the world and in relation to why we learn certain languages in todays world. The reason I speak English today is because of Britain's power a couple hundred years ago. The reason Tahitians or Algerians learn French is due to the power of the French colonial empire. If you're not interested in discussing these themes which to me are very interesting and provide some noteworthy debate then why try to put a halt to the discussion? Just go and read some other threads on a different topic. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| AlexTG Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 4627 days ago 178 posts - 354 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Latin, German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 75 of 176 30 May 2014 at 5:41am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Australia and Canada and the UK and even the US are all multicultural societies. If foreign* cultures can
survive and flourish within English speaking countries then I'm sure they can also flourish within their native countries. *no I'm not calling people from non-dominant cultures foreigners, no foreign is not in fact an offensive slur, please adjust you're flame detecter. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5323 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 76 of 176 30 May 2014 at 8:16am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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This must be one of the weirdest discussions I have seen on the forum so far. What is it that you wish for? To
have no lingua franca, or to have another lingua franca than English? Or do you want everyone to become polyglots, speaking 9-10 languages? I admit to getting a bit uneasy when my oldest daughter speaks English with some of her Norwegian friends or when my youngest refuse to read books in Norwegian, saying that she will only read in English. I also get a bit freaked out when the fact that they watch so many American series result in them knowing more about American culture than about Norwegian culture. But in spite of this I am quite satisfied with both having a lingua franca and that this is English. When you come from a small language community the way I do, you can't afford the luxury of wanting everyone to speak different languages. You quickly realize that you need one single language of communication, in addition to the national ones, as no one is going to learn your language, and few people have the capacity or the inclination to learn even four-five languages. And I must admit that from my point of view it s quite practical that it is English. It is close to my native language, and it is so omnipresent that it is incredibly easy to learn. I also disagree that colonialism is the direct reason for the importance of English. Indirectly, it might be, since colonialism brought English to large nations which in turn became economic powers in their own right. The importance of English today however lies more in the meda domination of the US, and the Internet. Different languages become lingua francas at different times. Latin, Spanish and French have had that role in the past, English has it now , we have had countless discussions on the forum of whether Mandarin will be the next one. But how much of a discussion would we have had on this forum at right this instance if we removed English? How many of us could express ourselves freely in French, Mandarin, Arabic? I might do it in Spanish, or in French if I had to. Some of you could do it in Japanese or Russian. But a common language we could all communicate in? If we say that Russian or Arabic or Mandarin became the new shiny toy language, how long would it take for everyone to learn those languages, and would they be free of taint from imperialism or human rights issues? Esperanto would be the logical choice, but it has never caught on. And at the risk of offending the Esperantist I understand why. It feels unnatural to me, and since there is no country you can go to for immersion, and no truly native accent, it does not appeal to me. I am happy that we can all use English. I would be even happier if more people could move freely in four-five languages, but when I see how long it has taken me to reach the level I have in English (while still making heaps of mistakes) I doubt that I would have the capacity to learn many languages to that level. And if I, who am crazy about languages, would struggle to do that, I suspect that the general population who just want a language in which they can get by to buy a beer or find their way in a foreign country could do that. So I ask again: What would be your ideal situation, and how realistic do you consider it that we get there? Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 30 May 2014 at 8:26am 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5465 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 77 of 176 30 May 2014 at 9:23am | IP Logged | ||||||||
My ideal and realistic situation would be something along the lines of... Sth America- let's leave it as Spanish/Portuguese predominantly as main languages. Nth America- okay as it is also Africa: French as the northern lingua franca, and perhaps Dutch as the southern for more balance? (yes yes I know I know there's problems with that)... or Arabic north Africa/middle east & French the rest? The main 2 I would change is this- An Asia that is more enthusiastic for an Asian language as the lingua Franca Europe is my main contention. Europe in my opinion (perhaps with Asia too) is tipping the balance far too much in favour for English dominance. German makes sense to be the European lingua franca. It's spoken by more natives there than any other language and is in fact smack bang in the centre of Europe geographically. In the 80s I believe there was a much higher prevalence of French and German being used in European organisations. I've cited many many issues with English being the ONE world dominant language, in a 'nicer' world the power should be shifted, but it's not for obvious reasons many including me and yourself have already pointed out. How realistic is it that (let's forget the other continents for a moment) that German be the lingua franca of Europe? Although it seems plausible I think it's HIGHLY uhlikely. Had WWII not occurred or gone differently then the balance of linguistic power today may very be more balanced indeed. Edit: Dutch for Australia? French for NZ and Australian island of Tasmania? Oh and as for Russia... that's easy- Russian. Anyway it's all fanciful stuff, I'm just uncomfortable with the omnipresence of English and the trend towards Americanization. Edited by PeterMollenburg on 30 May 2014 at 9:27am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5309 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 78 of 176 30 May 2014 at 10:16am | IP Logged | ||||||||
IMHO, German is not a perfect lingua franca for Europe. It's morphologically more complex than English, has many sounds that learners struggle with and, unlike French, it never really was a universally recognized lingua franca in the last centuries. German also wouldn't work for historical reasons. The infamous English spelling reform joke comes to mind. Logically speaking, there's only one candidate for a European lingua franca other than English: French. 1. French used to be a high prestige lingua franca among Europe's elite and still is a lingua franca in large parts of Africa. 2. Most EU organizations are based in Brussels, Belgium and most Eurocrats have at least a smattering of French and most likely wouldn't mind if French became the preferred EU language for conducting EU affairs. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5465 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 79 of 176 30 May 2014 at 10:39am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yeah I know, I prefer French (still like German) and I agree with all your points, I was basing my argument on native speakers and a little more balanced world approach (linguistically), I believe that French being a lingua franca for Europe is more plausible for Europe tho, and if Africa does indeed become more and more francophone, with it's proximity to Europe, and if the current trend of English abates somewhat this might be possible. For now tho it will remain English, one can only hope. Some years ago France proposed that the EU have only a handful of working languages I believe it was English, French, German, Spanish and Italian. The Netherlands opposed this and so the idea was squashed. Perhaps, despite the Dutch protecting their culture, had they not done so, we might be ironically in a better position now and into the future without a single language becoming a default main language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4878 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 80 of 176 30 May 2014 at 11:27am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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But is there really a trend toward English in South America? It seems to be the
opposite, that the US is becoming more bilingual Spanish. Which is either cool (to some of us) or horrifying (to a lot of others). Basic knowledge of Spanish is already a de facto requirement for a lot of social service jobs. I'm also surprised that English is more 'international' in Europe than French is, but I also feel that 'it was what it is,' and that these things evolve organically. In Lyon, the Frenchiest French city I visited (and I mean that as a complete compliment) I was surprised at how many people spoke English, at how well they spoke it, and how eager they were to speak English with me - I didn't encounter this at all in the more typical tourist areas of France. The explanation I got is similar to what Doitsujin noted. There are a lot of cultural connections between northern France and Germany, and the French guys said it was easier for them to learn English than German, and conversely easier for the Germans to learn English than French. It wasn't even political, and didn't have much at all to do with the US or the UK - it was just the easiest common ground for them to find. (and to back up, I wasn't trying to quash the conversation earlier, just move it back to languages. One side of my family left the US to Brazil and Chile during the McCarthy era, and the Chilean side fled again after the coup. And it was a bit weird getting lectured by a guy in the UK on things that are a basic part of my family history. So it was either engage, or try to get back to languages). Edited by kanewai on 30 May 2014 at 11:30am 6 persons have voted this message useful |
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