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Solutions for International Communication | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7156 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes  20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 17 of 42 04 March 2010 at 12:14am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Yet why should this be viewed as their being pragmatic? Are there that many Eastern Europeans outside the former USSR now being flooded by monolingual Russian tourists? Are import/export markets of the Slavonic members of the EU dominated by Russian parties on the other end? The only pragmatic aspect is that the Slavophones outside Russia will learn whatever they need in order to survive/make money/get ahead in life. When it means that they rely on English, German or whatever other language, then that's their business. In Croatia for example, Italian is a common choice as a foreign language because of the volume of Italian tourists visiting the Adriatic coast. Russian there lags behind Italian in popularity despite the former being a kindred language to BCMS/Serbo-Croatian. Moreover as tractor and Sprachprofi have already stated or implied, reimposing Russian as a lingua franca from above in that part of Europe in the name of "pragmatism" will be met with a lot of resistance by non-Russian Slavs because of recent history. From a philological point of view, Slavophones can bring themselves up to speed in ANY Slavonic language faster than English. Russian isn't intrinsically more readily acquirable by them overall than say Serbo-Croatian, Slovak or Ukrainian. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mithridates Newbie Korea, South pagef30.com Joined 5676 days ago 21 posts - 36 votes | Message 18 of 42 04 March 2010 at 3:03am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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This discussion reminds me of one we often have on auxlang (a mailing list for auxiliary languages) where the idea of certain auxlangs per region may be an option. Similar to the idea mentioned in the op except that they are made to be easy to learn. My preferred option is a language called Occidental, which I think also needs to be marketed to Latin revivalists to whom, though not ideal, a language like this would give people a much better knowledge of Latin vocabulary and derivation than the status quo. The idea is detailed here.
If a language like this were to take off then others from other parts of Europe, Russia etc. may simply learn it because of its relative ease, or may decide to support their own Pan-Slavic or other such language, and if that happens then at least we may end up with a dozen or so fairly easy languages instead of the current situation, and of course they are meant to supplement natural languages and not replace them so it would actually encourage more linguistic diversity since these languages are all new. If one were to go with "natural" languages alone though, creoles and smaller languages might be a more neutral solution. Papiamentu for the Americas, perhaps even Maltese for the Mediterranean. Edited by Mithridates on 04 March 2010 at 3:04am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mithridates Newbie Korea, South pagef30.com Joined 5676 days ago 21 posts - 36 votes | Message 19 of 42 04 March 2010 at 3:47am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Esperanto reminds me more of Lithuanian than Turkish actually. Here are a few examples: Even names and proper nouns end with -o. In Lithuanian they often end with -as (Berlynas), -a and so on as this is necessary to decline them. Turkish doesn't do this. Plural in -oj. Lithuanian plural of -as is -ai. Turkish plural is -ler or -lar. Saying Mi parolas Esperante (adverb). Lithuanian also uses an adverb here - Lietuviškai (lit. Lithuanianly). Turkish doesn't use an adverb here. A separate suffix for the imperative (-u). Lithuanian has -k. Turkish just uses the verb stem (verb minus -mek or -mak). Words themselves like tuj (Lithuanian tuoj). Those are just a few examples off the top of my head. I took a look at Lithuanian grammar a few months back and kept on noticing similarities to Esperanto which was actually quite nice to see. Edited by Mithridates on 04 March 2010 at 3:48am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6372 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English* | Message 20 of 42 04 March 2010 at 1:00pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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No one can choose a lingua franca anyway, they arise naturally. Those languages you have
mentioned basically are lingua francas in those areas already. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5960 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 22 of 42 12 March 2010 at 11:24pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I never said it did.
It's a gradual process. It's not like entire nations one day decide to communicate with each other in another language. And may I remind you that the vast majority of English and French don't communicate with each other at all because most of them are monolinguals.
I didn't say they should all stop learning English. I only suggest that the options for learning the first foreign language in Germany be diversified. For example letting students choose between English, French, and Russian as a first foreign language. Similar to the way Americans and British can choose their first foreign language.
That's about a third of all Western Europeans right there. Like I said earlier, German would start to have more value for Western Europeans as the English proficiency of the German-speakers decreased. Kind of like how French and Japanese are valued more highly now than they would be if the French and Japanese had good English proficiency. How many times have you heard the argument "Why learn German? Most Germans speak good English." I've heard it dozens of times. Anyone, I'm not going to comment any more on German. It's admittedly the weakest candidate I presented and I think we should judge the concept as a whole and not by one candidate.
People generally learn languages because they have practical value, not because they are popular.
The first thing that comes to mind is that it would be a lot easier and quicker for them to learn Russian than English for purposes of higher education like gaining access to learning materials that are only available in major languages like Russian or English.
Mute point since no one would even consider those relatively minor languages are lingua francas of a large region.
No they don't. It's no coincidence that lingua francas of the present and past like English, French, and Latin had the biggest empires supporting them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5838 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 23 of 42 12 March 2010 at 11:59pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Yeah that's really fair isn't it. According to the above mentioned model I (Swedish) would have to become fluent in BOTH German AND English, while Yanks and other English speakers cruise through life never opening a grammar book or blushing in embarrasment as they use the wrong expression at the wrong time... Nope! Veto! (but who care's about a Swedish veto, huh..? We don't even have nukes... no Hollywood and no 'German miracle'. We stopped being imperialist in 1709. So best bring out those grammar books... ) Next suggestion! :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5453 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 24 of 42 13 March 2010 at 1:48am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
No, you said "largely".
No, you don't have to remind me of that at all. Why should French people that don't bother to learn even English bother to learn German?
May I remind you that English is a world language, German not. The idea that the rest of Western Europe adopt German as a lingua franca because some youngsters in Germany might think that it is more fun or useful to learn Russian instead of English is ridiculous.
No, it's not.
Do you really mean that the English proficiency of the German speakers should be decreased in order to make German a more popular language? What a silly idea! French is probably "living off its former glories" as a foreign language. Besides, it's an official language of several international organizations and former colonies.
I have never heard that argument used in Norway. I've heard other arguments, like: - Why should I learn German when I could learn French/Spanish/Italian instead? - Why should I learn the language of such a boring country? - Why should I learn German? The grammar is too difficult! - Why should I learn German? It's so harsh and ugly! - Why should I learn that Nazi language? On the other hand, I've heard many arguments in favour of learning German: - Many Germans speak bad English. - German literature/culture/philosophy is wonderful. - German is an important language in science/engineering. - Every educated person should at least know some German. - If you want to do business with Germany, you'd better learn some German.
Good to see that you halfway admit that the idea of German as the lingua franca of Western Europe is bad.
How do you know that? Even though if a language has great practical value, it doesn't necessarily help if the language isn't popular as well. In Norway, German is a less popular language than it was 15-20 years ago, and far fewer study it. Yet, the practical value of knowing German hasn't decreased. Edited by tractor on 13 March 2010 at 1:55am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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