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Will English take over? | ||
Tags: Lingua franca | Endangered Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| kerateo Triglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 5646 days ago 112 posts - 180 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, English, French Studies: Italian | Message 17 of 37 03 March 2010 at 7:58pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Thanks a lot, faux amis... the last step into complete fluency. 1 person has 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 18 of 37 03 March 2010 at 8:24pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Latin does not dominate anywhere in the world anymore. Its descendants do. When Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian were brought to other continents, Latin was a language of the select few. In the Roman Empire Latin was the language of the state and the army, and Latin speakers settled throughout the empire. This is not the case with English anywhere in the world except in England's former colonies. You say it's hard to predict, and I agree. But how can you then predict what's going to happen in Germanic Europe, Africa and India? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ruskivyetr Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5481 days ago 769 posts - 962 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew | Message 19 of 37 04 March 2010 at 3:17am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I actually have confidence that English will be used as just a lingua franca instead of
replacing new languages. From what I realized from one of the posters above is that people are just lazy. No country is going to make English co official or replacing just because it is practical. It would anger so many cultural and heritage groups and probably cause problems. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Vinlander Groupie Canada Joined 5821 days ago 62 posts - 69 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 20 of 37 04 March 2010 at 3:58am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Well why don't immigrants keep their languages when they arrive to the new world. Why because with every generation the language becomes less and less a part of their identity. It never ceases to amaze me how quick a language can be removed from immigrant families. the 1st generation can speak it but not perfectly, the 2nd sometime know a few words to talk to grandma, but it rarely gets to a fourth generation, even when its a valuable language like french or Spanish. Of course in the past this was different but the more globalized the planet becomes the harder it is to preserve culture.
I've met lots of young swedes and Indias who have little value for their language. Of course their a minority at present but i can't see this being a dieing trend. Norwegian companies already operate in English, Have English media, if their only real outlet for Norsk is through friends and family you can see its limitations. Not only will inter cultural relationships weaken the language, also will general western trends in the erosion of the importance of family and close friends. If someone could explain to me what is really gonna stop the spread ProEnglish sentiment I would like to know it. I'm not trying to predict the future or anything crazy like that, but the trend is already in motion and can't see a way to stop it 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5422 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 21 of 37 04 March 2010 at 5:21am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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| boon Diglot Groupie Ireland Joined 6159 days ago 91 posts - 177 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Mandarin, Latin | Message 22 of 37 04 March 2010 at 10:23pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Vinlander said "Swedish will be like irish is now in about a hundred years atleast to young people".
That's an interesting point. I heard that there were 200,000 fluent Irish speakers in Ireland in 1927, the year of independence from Britain. Nowadays there are about 20,000, despite (or because of) compulsory Irish education in schools. However, assuming there were about 4 million people in Ireland in 1927, there was still a vast majority of people who couldn't speak the language. Plus English has been in the country in various degrees since about the 12th century, so it's been a while since it was thought of as an invader tongue. This kind of unforced decline is less likely to happen in Sweden, I think, because nearly everyone in Sweden speaks Swedish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| FuroraCeltica Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6865 days ago 1187 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 23 of 37 05 March 2010 at 12:56pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I can get Dutch TV here in Brussels. One thing that strikes me is how much English is on Dutch TV, especially commercials. Its like every commercial has at least one English sentence in it.
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| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6272 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 24 of 37 05 March 2010 at 2:53pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Advertising in much of Western Europe often depends heavily on the consumer having at least a smattering of English. This is especially true in the German/Dutch Sprachraum.
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