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Should English be the official language? | ||
Tags: Language Politics | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 89 of 96 05 May 2013 at 1:07pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Well, the Vietnam war didn't last for fourty years and the nature of the trouble was
very different (so I don't think it is a good example). But perhaps we shouldn't continue this direction much further, considering the nature of these forums. Just no matter what you think about the "Russophobia", there are many people in the Central and Eastern Europe who would rather learn anything else than Russian. But in about two generations, the history won't matter much anymore. I'd guess that in those two generations, everything will be different. For example, the Czechs will either learn how to catch up with the civilized world and stand their ground when it comes to equal market and equal incomes or the nation will divide into the more intelligent expats (by some researches about 20% of current university students want to leave and the % is rising) and the rest that will keep surviving here, blending with immigrants from non-EU countries (many of which will be coming here with good education so the original czechs will be the bottom of the new society alongside the gipsies and perhaps some other minorities. I guess most czechs of vietnamese roots will stay and be part of the higher layers of society as many of them study and work as hard as they can no matter the circumstances). The same might be true about a few other smaller countries. Today, I have read about huge emigration wave from Latvia or Lithuania (my apologies for not remembering exactly). The small nations and languages are much more endangered by this as the expats will in a generation or two lose their language and imigrants to the country of origin will need to learn it less and less. So, in two generations from now, this subject of discussion could be purposeless as some of the now healthy languages of 5-10 millions speakers could be barely surviving by then. I think by then, there will be only these languages fully alive (by that I mean one could spend life as monolingual of the language without getting any harm):German, French, English, Italian, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, the northern languages (as they don't have the waves of emigrants and have proven to be very resistant no matter how small they may seem), probably Serbo-Croatian (there are lots of expats from there around Europe but it seems not to be a trouble so far from what I heard), probably Romanian and Bulgarian (they came to the EU later so they might go through the same phases later as well) and Russian (which will be the native language of many citizens of various EU countries by then), perhaps Dutch (it survived lying freely in between the big languages for long enough and seems unwilling to die :-) ). Those gone or barely surviving national languages will be Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, probably Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian. No idea about Greek. From what I've spoken with my half-greek friend, the greeks are unhappy about the current situation but somehow, there are not such masses of those seeking future abroad. They are probably more optimists then us. There are as well languages like Irish, Welsh, Catalan, Basque etc. but their speakers need to be bilingual even now so I guess not much will change for them. Perhaps, Czech might become something like that. A beloved second native language. 3 persons have 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 90 of 96 05 May 2013 at 3:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
It will take a lot longer than a few generations for any of these languages to be seriously under threat, if ever. These nations have been part of various empires over the centuries. These tongues are tough. 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 91 of 96 05 May 2013 at 4:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Tough under the usual conditions and usual polarity: our small language is good and
threatened by the big evil language of someone else. There have never been so many reasons and it has never been that easy and pleasant to become bilingual. And once certain % of the nation becomes bilingual, there is little reason to keep the weaker language. Perhaps it will take more than two generations but not that much longer. But in the end, there will be no need to restrict artificially number of languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6904 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 92 of 96 05 May 2013 at 4:25pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
The examples of Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands and minority languages such as Irish, Welsh, Catalan etc. that you've mentioned seem to deny it. I don't see why Czech or Hungarian would be all that different from the northern languages or Dutch. With the decreasing gap between the old and new EU member states, the emigration will probably go down. Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU just three years after the 2004 enlargement, so if they do well, economically speaking, I would assume that their situation will not be different from the 2004 accession countries. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 93 of 96 05 May 2013 at 4:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Eight years of war are not enough for you?
I would like your views to be heard more in Russia. Basically I don't mind against them, they are useful for us.
I think you exeggerate the rate of language shifts. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 94 of 96 05 May 2013 at 4:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Maybe the term "official" is not the best one, and the term "working" suits better.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Romanzo Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4305 days ago 15 posts - 23 votes Speaks: Italian, English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, French | Message 95 of 96 05 May 2013 at 8:09pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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After thinking about it there should be no change what so ever to the current system. The
motto of the EU is "united in diversity", so keeping it a diverse place with many languages is important to what makes the EU the EU. Also, I would bet my last dollar that most people are proud of their country's culture and language and would not allow for their language to be kicked to the curb and be forced to use a different one. 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 96 of 96 05 May 2013 at 9:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
People only abandon a language when they are made to feel worthless by speaking it. Even then, the process takes a long time. I'm certain that Czech people will still be speaking exclusively Czech to each other in 100 years time. Yes, there are certain languages the population finds useful to learn. Today it is English, in the past it was German and in the future it might be an Asian language. But they will keep their native tongue as well. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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