|
 |
Global languages | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4447 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes  Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 25 of 28 13 January 2015 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | ||
|
European languages became global because there was a long history of colonization starting with Spain and
Portugal the New World followed by England, France & Holland. Some languages have large numbers of speakers such as Arabic, Hindi & Chinese but tend to be localized. In the 1970s & 80s Japanese gained popularity in countries in E. Asia because of Japan's rise as an economic power. Later China dominated economically and some countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand & Indonesia started teaching Mandarin in schools as a second language. In many countries throughout Africa, European languages like English, French, Spanish & Portuguese continued to be recognized as official because of their vital role for communications within and between countries with half-dozen local languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4447 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 26 of 28 13 January 2015 at 6:29pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Looks like quite a few people started the discussion on Chinese languages. I was in Hong Kong between
August & September. There was an article in the English edition of the South China Morning Post entitled: "No Happy Medium". The local government in Hong Kong tried to introduce Mandarin for teaching core subjects (Chinese literature, mathematics, etc.) in schools and some parents threatened to take their kids to out of schools that do not use Cantonese as the main language of instruction. It is a kind of dilemma Hong Kong is facing. In July, 1997, the city became part of China under the "1 country, 2 systems" policy. On one hand, people recognize Hong Kong as part of the motherland but maintains certain amount of autonomy. Cantonese has always been considered part of Hong Kong. Unlike Europe where people can speak several languages, there are Hong Kong people who would speak to a Chinese from the Mainland in Cantonese and the Mainlander would reply in Mandarin to emphasize the distinction between the 2 sides. HK people tend to feel they are superior to the Mainland Chinese who went through the Mao years and the Cultural Revolution. The recent Occupied Movement for democracy in HK lasted for 2 months showed Hong Kong is very much part of China but at the same time the people want to maintain certain amount of political autonomy from the Mainland. In recent years, there are a number of Hong Kong students who ended up in universities in Taiwan due to shortage of spaces in local universities. Naturally they learned to speak the Taiwanese version of Mandarin. And then there is the politics of using Tradition vs. Simplified Chinese characters. A while ago, I was in Taiwan for the summer. People there say Simplified characters is simply incorrect way of writing because the Chinese regime destroyed 3000 years of Chinese history. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6585 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 27 of 28 13 January 2015 at 6:30pm | IP Logged | ||
Of course Arabic, Hindi and the Sinitic languages are also as big as they are because of conquest, it's just that they conquered nearby regions rather than faraway lands, and they did it further back in time (mostly). Especially Arabic has the large spread it has because of the conquests in the seventh and eight centuries. Any language with a large number of speakers likely has a lot of blood on its hands. :) 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5133 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 28 of 28 13 January 2015 at 6:50pm | IP Logged | ||
I've read that the percentage of Arabic vocabulary in Spanish is as high as 10 percent, although I personally think that's a high estimate. Regardless, if we don't look at it in black and white, lots of Arabic has spread through huge geographical regions via Spanish assimilation. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
