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Is French still important? | ||
Tags: Language Importance | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| rivere123 Senior Member United States Joined 4835 days ago 129 posts - 182 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 25 of 44 01 July 2012 at 3:10am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I'll concede you that. However, French will not disappear from the Maghreb for generations, and the propinquity to the Sub-Sahara could prove beneficial to French in this region.
While France plays is critical to the language's role in Africa, Africa is more important. A regional language doesn't need a base in an economic heavyweight to be successful- not even in Africa- just look at Swahili. Western Africa is becoming more relevant, and the typical francophone African country is surrounded by other francophone African countries. When you live in a region that speaks a language, you learn a language. No one country can decide the course of the language here, and as long as there are some French holdouts it'll be pretty useful for everyone in the region.
It's not necessarily that French has more culture than another language. That would be crazy, you can't measure culture. It's the fact that French has a wider cultural reputation (painting, gastronomy, music, etc.) than so many modern reputations, at least in many places and as such it's more attractive to learn. Whatever your conclusion, it's not a completely moot point. Edited by rivere123 on 01 July 2012 at 3:20am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5278 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 26 of 44 01 July 2012 at 5:30am | IP Logged | ||||||||
The cultural preeminence is undeserved. French gastronomy is no better than Spanish, Italian, Chinese, or Japanese - to name but a few. Its painting and sculpture is no greater than Italian, ancient Greek, Spanish, Roman, German, or Dutch. Its music is no greater than Russian, German, Austrian, Czech, or Italian. Its literature is no greater than English, German, Russian, ancient Greek, or Latin. Its impact in science is no greater than English, German, or Russian. Its philosophy is no greater than ancient Greek, British, or German. And I have been leaving out Middle Eastern and East Asian civilizations, which are great in their own right but very hard to compare to modern European civilization. I just find the French arrogance that they are the pinnacle of culture rather banal and tiresome. They're a big player in European culture and history, and I'm not saying otherwise. But they are no more than that. I never saw anything superior in their culture to that of many others, and in fact quite a few things inferior. Edited by Merv on 01 July 2012 at 5:32am 12 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Gala Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4555 days ago 229 posts - 421 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 27 of 44 01 July 2012 at 1:32pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I know a girl from Algeria that lives here (of native Algerian Berber descent) that is a
Facebook friend. When I read the posts from her and to her of her FB friends and family in Algeria they are mainly in French with a bit of Arabic mixed in, but heavily leaning towards French. I don't know how socio-culturally representative she is of the average Algerian (it seems likely that she might be of the more affluent and educated class as she is a post-grad student in the US,) but she is definitely ethnically Algerian and is a Muslim. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| decamillisjacob Newbie Canada Joined 4737 days ago 38 posts - 63 votes | Message 28 of 44 01 July 2012 at 7:22pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Oui.. Maghreb countries--Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, etc---do still place importance on French, although both Arabic and English are gradually taking its place.
The thing is, French at one point held a power rather on par with English. It no longer does and I acknowledge that. What is at question then is where does it go from here? Does it remain international or is it starting to decline? The one beauty of languages at least, be it Yiddish, French, or Mandarin.. is that even if the speaker base is all but two people or two billion people, it is a window into another perception of this one Earth we human beings all share. A beautiful sense of biodiveristy! 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Jappy58 Bilingual Super Polyglot Senior Member United States Joined 4643 days ago 200 posts - 413 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Guarani*, Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Maghribi), Arabic (Written), French, English, Persian, Quechua, Portuguese Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 29 of 44 01 July 2012 at 9:16pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
This does happen among several people from the Maghreb. On one hand, I've met some Moroccans, Algerians, and Tunisians who prefer using French on Facebook with their friends and families, but I've also met many that focused mostly on Arabic. Many also mix the two in some way or another. Another common way to write is "Arabizi", using some Arabic by using a Romanization/transliteration, instead of the Arabic script. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| rivere123 Senior Member United States Joined 4835 days ago 129 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 30 of 44 02 July 2012 at 1:29am | IP Logged | ||||||||
You can't argue opinions, I never claimed French was better as I was stating general opinion, and this is digressing.
In all, I'd say that French is not going to decline in the foreseeable future and will likely show growth, but I believe this growth will be unrecognized because that of Chinese, Portuguese, India, and Arabic will be much more prominent. Edited by rivere123 on 02 July 2012 at 1:30am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5014 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 31 of 44 05 July 2012 at 1:06pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Africa has several options for a lingua franca. I wouldn't underestimate Swahili. While
it doesn't have the economic connection, it is a language of independence on both Arabic and Euro-American influences. Which is a great value. It is a language coming from the region which might make it easier for many people to learn and use than a language so different as French, English or Arabic. And if Africa ever gets out of the huge troubles, hopefully the day will come, it may want to grow it's economic, cultural and scientific value on Swahili. Other options give the great advantages of building on someone else's strong roots but exactly this might be one of the reasons why Africa is still the poorest large region with so many troubles. The cultural value of French is a huge reason to learn it but as some said, this could be said about many other languages. So, it is a matter of personal taste (there are opera lovers who learn Italian or Czech and movie lovers who learn Swedish) and a huge marketing and support from France. There are few languages promoted so heavily in the euro-american world. So, French is still an important language. But if you choose to learn another large language instead (or even some of the smaller languages may work the same), your professional or personal life certainly won't be ruined. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Wulfgar Senior Member United States Joined 4676 days ago 404 posts - 791 votes Speaks: English* | Message 32 of 44 06 July 2012 at 8:44am | IP Logged | ||||||||
And I find picking on the French banal and tiresome. 10 persons have voted this message useful |
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