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Madagascar adopts English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Ichiro Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6210 days ago 111 posts - 152 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese, French Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Korean, Malay | Message 9 of 40 22 January 2008 at 9:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Cost? Opportunity! I don't understand this thinking that says that French = culture and English = no culture. Why is Madagascar unable to have a strong independent culture which includes English?
I also don't understand the idea that globalisation is homogenising us all. Can't we have more faith in the Madagascans to continue generating their own cultural identity from the materials that come to hand? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| manny Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6359 days ago 248 posts - 240 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Tagalog Studies: French, German | Message 10 of 40 22 January 2008 at 10:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
It's called "francophone logic". Of course you do not understand it - none of us do. :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6440 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 11 of 40 23 January 2008 at 1:06am | IP Logged | |||||
The point is, there already is a culture, tied in with French; English has nowhere near the number of speakers or associated local culture. Switching to English, not all of the existing culture will carry over. Some jokes, words, and probably concepts will be lost. It's like talking about the culture of Japanese speakers in a region where there are few or none. There is a Japanese culture, and there is a local culture in any region that you pick, but there is little/no local Japanese culture in that region. Claiming that switching to Japanese would have no effect on local culture is hard to swallow. I hold that the same is true for Madagascar with English/French. Cultures change, new things are added, and old ones fall into disuse; I freely admit this. However, culture and language _are_ tied, and intentionally changing language does have a significant impact.
People are increasingly listening to the same music, hearing more of the same people and views, getting news from the same sources (such as AP), etc. How can this not have a homogenizing effect? You can see this in accents in the USA, for instance. In the region where most of my relatives live, people have fairly neutral accents at this point. In local TV shows from a few decades ago, I find some of the speakers incomprehensible, due purely to accent changes. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| epingchris Triglot Senior Member Taiwan shih-chuan.blog.ntu. Joined 7029 days ago 273 posts - 284 votes 5 sounds Studies: Taiwanese, Mandarin*, English, FrenchB2 Studies: Japanese, German, Turkish | Message 12 of 40 23 January 2008 at 9:25am | IP Logged | |||||
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News to me as well. I didn't even know Madagascar was in the Francophonie. :)
What puzzles me is this: does Madagascar have any English native speakers? If not, how hard are they going to work to actually realize this goal? I mean, you could theoretically have a official language that no one speaks...... I've heard that here in Taiwan they have similar ideas, which I find kind of bizarre, if not pointless. You can always offer great English courses if you want to promote English; does crowning it with a 'official' title really do any good? It is imaginable that this sort of policy might put pressure upon officials and teachers to further excel in the language, but I always thought official languages should be decided based on de facto usage. I guess it really depends on how they're going to enforce that policy. PS: I actually more intrigued by this:
Ominous? I don't know; politics is so foreign to me...... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| BelgoHead Senior Member Belgium Joined 6304 days ago 120 posts - 119 votes Studies: French, English* Studies: Esperanto | Message 13 of 40 23 January 2008 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I will try to add to voltes idea with my limited knowledge....
In Japanses culture Respect and social hierarchy are very important facets of the culture. In the language japanese they have various respect levels(?) to denounce the hierarchy of the persons communating. Obviously this is no coincedence, in Japan respect and social hierarchy are of tantamount importance and it is important to the culture obviously. If they suddenly switched to english an important element of the culture would be lost. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| manny Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6359 days ago 248 posts - 240 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Tagalog Studies: French, German | Message 14 of 40 23 January 2008 at 5:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
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They are NOT switching (i.e. dropping French). The article says " ... English joins French and Malagasy as the official languages of Madagascar."
The culture will not change that fast. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| lloydkirk Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6414 days ago 429 posts - 452 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Russian | Message 16 of 40 23 January 2008 at 8:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Madagascar has historically had a close economic and cultural connection to Britain, so this shouldn't be so shocking. Though, I do wonder why they feel the need to make it an official language? It's a similar thing with Spanish in the Philippines. Making a language official is not going to make native speakers grow out of the ground.
Polar: In a number of threads, this one included, you have displayed a bias against all things French. It reeks of the anti-French propaganda so popular in the States these days... 1 person has voted this message useful |
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