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Should English be the official language? | ||
Tags: Language Politics | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| vogue Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4255 days ago 109 posts - 181 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish Studies: Ukrainian | Message 73 of 96 03 May 2013 at 1:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
I disagree a bit with this. I stated one reason that is clearly Rusophobia, but I don't think not wanting to evaluate what constitutes as a "minority language" is Rusophobia. Some might view it as an opening of the flood gates, if you will. Also, what Iverson is saying is true, there were Russian speakers before the U.S.S.R in several EU countries, but this all goes back to what constitutes a minority language? How old does a languages have to be known to be present in a country before we consider it a "minority" language (vs an immigrant language)? Or conversely, how many people need to speak it before it gets recognition? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 74 of 96 03 May 2013 at 2:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
I would rephrase this. How old does a (minority or majority) language have to be known to be present in a country before we consider it a "heritage" language (vs an immigrant language)? And how many people need to speak a language before it gets recognition? The link - and moot point - between the two questions is of course whether heritage status in itself is enough to grant recognition, irrespective of the number of speakers of the language in question, and whether immigrant status is enough not to grant it. Although it seems that 'big' immigrant languages are recognized insofar information materials and schooling systems are changed to accommodate their speakers. Irish is of course the obvious example of a heritage language which has been promoted for historical and political reasons in spite of a very small number of native speakers. But the opposite can also be the case - historical and cultural reasons can dictate that a language is deprived of a formal recognition at some level. And Russian seems to be an example of this in the Baltic countries. But it also seems to me that the reasons for this have more to do with the role of Russian as an politically promoted immigrant language during the Soviet period than with the minority of Russian speakers who was established there far earlier - probably back to the Medieval period. I won't discuss whether the present language policy is justifiable or not, but the historical background is wellknown. How long time does it take before an immigrant language is accepted as a heritage language? Well, English in Ireland has probably been spoken there long enough - and in practice it has now become the main language of the whole island. But it is still the newcomer there. Then what about Africa or India? English and French and Portuguese have become official languages there, but we still distinguish between the truly autochthonous languages and the 'colonialist' languages - even after many generations. It seems that the newcomer only loses that status when the old language of the area has died out. Edited by Iversen on 03 May 2013 at 2:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 75 of 96 03 May 2013 at 2:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
I can easily see how this discussion could get derailed. For clarity I am not sure if the term Rusophobia is so helpful. I suspect there is as much more hatred and fear. Metaphors are tricky, but the situation in the Russians in the Baltic States was not so different as Chinese in Tibet today. The locals certainly felt their culture suppressed and there was a feeling that Russians were being encouraged to migrate there in order to suppress the local Baltic cultures. What about other languages? Yiddish? Surely that has an even more legitimate stake as an official European language? Or the languages of the Romani and Seni and other travelers? Edited by patrickwilken on 03 May 2013 at 3:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 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 76 of 96 03 May 2013 at 3:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Patrickwilken, those languages (with the exception of maybe Yiddish), have quite small
amounts of speakers. Of course they should be recognised (as should for example, Sami, Scottish Gaelic or Breton) be recognised, but we should also consider immigrant languages such as Serbo-Croatian (although there is less necessity with the accession of Croatia) Turkish, Arabic "dialects" (particularly the Maghrebi ones), Chinese languages, Indonesian, Papiamento, Sranan Tongo, Congolese tongues, etc (because their diaspora have signficant minority speakers here. The ones I mentioned pertain particularly to Western Europe (in the east Russian would have such a status). There are plenty of Turkish and Arabic Maghrebi immigrants in this area of the world; we should recognise them (Turkish and Arabic have state exams in the Netherlands in schools to underline this fact. Russian does too, I believe...) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 77 of 96 03 May 2013 at 3:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
Sure. I live in the heart of Turkish Berlin and can hear children shouting in a mix of Turkish/German now in the street below my window. I guess one question is what status these languages should have at the EU level, as opposed to the national level. Given the vexed debate on immigration throughout Europe I am not holding my breath for a lot of quick progress here. In Australia official documents come in lots of languages, and there are translators available to help (far cry from trying to get by if you don't speak German in a government office - the office that deals with immigrants here in Berlin is notorious for not speaking/writing in any language other than German, and it's a nightmare trying to do anything there even if you are at say B1 level), but the official language of Australia remains English. What would be great for the EU would be to finally admit Turkey into the fold. Not holding my breath on that one, but then Turkish really would be an official EU language, and Europe could start to stop thinking of itself as a set of Christian nations. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4640 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 78 of 96 03 May 2013 at 3:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think many of the commentaries here are interesting, but I think some are also beside the point inasmuch as
they do not consider how and why a language becomes official in the EU. I will therefore become a bit legalistic: when the predecessor to the EU was founded by six countries back in the 1950s, they agreed that the official languages of each member state should be used, so they started out with Dutch, French, German and Italian. This rule became part of the founding Treaty and therefore agreed by unanimity. When new member states join, they have to indicate if a new language or languages should be added to the list. This is then written in the Accession Treaty which also has to be voted by unanimity. So it is up to each state to decide what they request as regards official languages. Ireland decided to make the case for Irish, but Spain did not make the case for Catalan, Euskera or Galician. And as for ideas about using Russian, Esperanto or whatever, it totally misses the main point, which I tried to make early in this thread: EU legislation is binding on the member states, and in many cases on the citizens directly, and no state will accept to be subject to legislation in a language which is not the language of the country. How on earth should the German parliament scrutinise bills drafted in Russian or Esperanto? Edited by Ogrim on 03 May 2013 at 3:42pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6551 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 79 of 96 03 May 2013 at 6:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Should English be the official global language? Absolutely. Require all leaders to speak at least 3 languages fluently, one of them being English. Legalize all drugs, regulate them, and tax the hell out of them.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 80 of 96 03 May 2013 at 6:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm actually in favor of Esperanto. It's neutral, it's based on European languages and
it's simple. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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