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Should English be the official language?

 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
96 messages over 12 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 4 ... 11 12 Next >>
montmorency
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4829 days ago
2371 posts - 3676 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Danish, Welsh

 
 Message 25 of 96
24 April 2013 at 10:30pm | IP Logged 
patrickwilken wrote:
Well it's already the quasi-official language for business and
science, and for most non-native English speakers, when they want to communicate in a
language other than their native tongue.

I love how the Guardian is raising this at the same time as UK is considering leaving
the EU.



Is the UK considering leaving the EU? I don't think so. Cameron may be making some
noises, and the threat of UKIP has probably forced him to appear to be more anti-EU
than he really is.


Athough I've spent most of my adult life being "pro Europe" in a general sense, then
pro-EEC, and then pro-EU, I've seriously begun to question it in recent years. (And
I'm not a Tory or a UKIP supporter). It (via the Maastricht Treaty) places some
serious constraints on our monetary and tax policies (VAT) for a start. However, that's
for a different forum .....
1 person has voted this message useful



montmorency
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4829 days ago
2371 posts - 3676 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Danish, Welsh

 
 Message 26 of 96
24 April 2013 at 10:34pm | IP Logged 
James29 wrote:
Obama cannot speak Spanish at all. G W Bush cannot speak Spanish even
though many people believe he can.


Probably down to some spoof videos on Youtube!


By the way, I think the official language of the EU should be Welsh.

...
...
...
(Just kidding....it should of course be Gaelic).

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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 27 of 96
24 April 2013 at 11:45pm | IP Logged 
casamata wrote:


Obama doesn't speak a lick of Spanish. He can say, "sí se puede!" and he can read off an advertisement in
Spanish with professional help, although he doesn't know what he is saying. He can say "hi" and "bye" in
Spanish and Indonesian. To some people that means speaking a language, to others, not so much.



I thought he spent a few years as a child in Indonesia and went to local schools there? Surely he remembers
some of the language?
1 person has voted this message useful



casamata
Senior Member
Joined 4263 days ago
237 posts - 377 votes 
Studies: Portuguese

 
 Message 28 of 96
25 April 2013 at 12:51am | IP Logged 
beano wrote:
casamata wrote:


Obama doesn't speak a lick of Spanish. He can say, "sí se puede!" and he can read off an advertisement in
Spanish with professional help, although he doesn't know what he is saying. He can say "hi" and "bye" in
Spanish and Indonesian. To some people that means speaking a language, to others, not so much.



I thought he spent a few years as a child in Indonesia and went to local schools there? Surely he remembers
some of the language?


No, he can say like "how are you" and a few basic things. People DO forget languages if they stop speaking it when they are young. This happens to a lot of children of immigrants. He can also imitate languages but really doesn't know what he's saying for longer texts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_6L96bjmYE
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Cavesa
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5010 days ago
3277 posts - 6779 votes 
Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1
Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

 
 Message 29 of 96
25 April 2013 at 8:15pm | IP Logged 
I don't think the GB will leave. When they looked as if they meant it, usually it is
just a traditional part of the political dance and everybody knows it, the Americans
came to speak some reason into them. But still, you cannot mean to make native language
of cca 70 millions of people official for over 500 millions.

It looks easy at first sight. "Everybody learns English anyways" (sooo not true) ,
"There should be one language and it could cost less" or "Who cares what language do
the bureaucrats use". But this issue could break the EU. No matter how much we may
believe the national states are matter of past and the 20th century, it is the truth
that the languages were the thing that broke Ausrian-Hungarian Empire. The Czechs had
only one major trouble: official language. So did Slovaks. So did others. The WW1 was
just a tragedy that made it fall apart faster but the language was the first thing
people protested against for decades.

I think moving to the six big languages could be possible and even desirable, under one
condition. People with the handicap of having a useless native language, like Czech,
are given fair chance and reason to become bilingual. That would mean removal of
artificial online obstacles, Amazon would need to stream films in all the countries and
so would netflix or anything else that wants to start in one or two and take a decade
before (and if) coming to the useless countries. More support to schools and libraries.
TVs being oblidged to provide people with original sound and subtitles as well, not
only dubbing. Trully free and equal market. More money into the Erasmus and similar
projects etc. Cheaper travelling and post services. All this would be easier for people
if the taxes were lower. Sounds impossible, so there will be no way to move from the 23
languages.

Truth be told, I wouldn't mind if Czech dissappeared during the 21st century, it has
brought us only trouble in my opinion. But I don't want this continent to grow
monolingual.
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 31 of 96
25 April 2013 at 9:01pm | IP Logged 
Cavesa wrote:


I think moving to the six big languages could be possible and even desirable, under one
condition. People with the handicap of having a useless native language, like Czech,
are given fair chance and reason to become bilingual. That would mean removal of
artificial online obstacles, Amazon would need to stream films in all the countries and
so would netflix or anything else that wants to start in one or two and take a decade
before (and if) coming to the useless countries. More support to schools and libraries.
TVs being oblidged to provide people with original sound and subtitles as well, not
only dubbing. Trully free and equal market. More money into the Erasmus and similar
projects etc. Cheaper travelling and post services. All this would be easier for people
if the taxes were lower. Sounds impossible, so there will be no way to move from the 23
languages.

Truth be told, I wouldn't mind if Czech dissappeared during the 21st century, it has
brought us only trouble in my opinion. But I don't want this continent to grow
monolingual.


What a bizarre attitude you have towards your native language. Most people are proud of their linguistic
heritage; it is part of your identity.

Are you one of these people who would refuse to speak to your children in your native tongue if you lived
abroad? Even Ivana Trump taught her sons Czech, despite many years living in the States.

Edited by beano on 25 April 2013 at 9:03pm
2 persons have voted this message useful



Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 7157 days ago
4228 posts - 8259 votes 
20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

 
 Message 32 of 96
25 April 2013 at 9:24pm | IP Logged 
beano wrote:
Cavesa wrote:


I think moving to the six big languages could be possible and even desirable, under one
condition. People with the handicap of having a useless native language, like Czech,
are given fair chance and reason to become bilingual. That would mean removal of
artificial online obstacles, Amazon would need to stream films in all the countries and
so would netflix or anything else that wants to start in one or two and take a decade
before (and if) coming to the useless countries. More support to schools and libraries.
TVs being oblidged to provide people with original sound and subtitles as well, not
only dubbing. Trully free and equal market. More money into the Erasmus and similar
projects etc. Cheaper travelling and post services. All this would be easier for people
if the taxes were lower. Sounds impossible, so there will be no way to move from the 23
languages.

Truth be told, I wouldn't mind if Czech dissappeared during the 21st century, it has
brought us only trouble in my opinion. But I don't want this continent to grow
monolingual.


What a bizarre attitude you have towards your native language. Most people are proud of their linguistic
heritage; it is part of your identity.

Are you one of these people who would refuse to speak to your children in your native tongue if you lived
abroad? Even Ivana Trump taught her sons Czech, despite many years living in the States.


In a limited way, I don't find Cavesa's feelings to be that bizarre. When you think about it, being proud of one's linguistic heritage or native language is about as meaningful as being proud of having curly red hair. Basically how does one feel pride in things for which that person had effectively no control or say in their development?

However, if one's native language would disappear during his/her lifetime, it could still create certain practical problems for that person if not fretting over fuzzy concepts such as identity or similar.


4 persons have voted this message useful



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