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France has done a turnaround | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| stout Senior Member Ireland Joined 5370 days ago 108 posts - 140 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 25 of 34 12 March 2015 at 5:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yes the French over the past 10-15 years are getting more proficient at English.The days
when English was unimportant in France are a thing of the past.Yes far more French people speak English than English-speaking people speak French. Will the French become proficient in English like the Dutch and Scandinavians?...That remains to be seen.Only time well tell. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4621 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 26 of 34 13 March 2015 at 11:53am | IP Logged | ||
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I think English proficiency in France will continue to grow but it will be a lengthy process. Whenever the BBC cover a news story in France and local people are interviewed, they tend to speak in French and an English translation is overdubbed. This includes young people.
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| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4638 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 27 of 34 13 March 2015 at 4:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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It seems like the British press is obsessed with the question of the French attitude to English, as this article in the Guardian is one example of. It cites a speech by the French Culture Minister who said that there is no point in trying to resist the influence of other languages, referring specifically to the introduction of new words. However, in the UK press it comes across as if France is giving in to English. And when the Guardian journalist claims that "in most places it would have barely made the news. In France, it was near-revolutionary", she is definitely over the top. While it made a story in the Guardian, the Telegraph and the Daily Mail amongst others, it has hardly got a mention in French media. There is this article in 24matins, but I haven't found anything in the big newspapers like Le Monde or Le Figaro. Besides, as far as I know there are no plans to abolish the "loi Toubon" adopted back in 1994 to defend the French language.
Of course English is influencing French, and of course more and more French people are learning English because it is considered useful, not least by young people looking for work. However, it will take a very long time before the French will have the same level of English as Scandinavians, if it ever happens. And there are also regional differences. Here in Alsace you are more likely to find that the "francophones" have German rather than English as a first foreign language, due to being a boarder region as well as for historical reasons. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5475 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 28 of 34 18 April 2015 at 7:28am | IP Logged | ||
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It was to be...
This does not happen by accident. One or two people's comments indicate that the media has sensationalized such things (how could such a thing be happening in France of all places). Media is persuasive and it is within the interests of the Anglo/American establishment to spread the perception that English is 'winning' even in France. And reality pushes the propaganda too, because it is actually occurring in reality too even if the media exaggerates it to a degree. I would almost guarantee if the European Union did not exist this would not be happening. But if the EU didn't exist the world would be a very different place as it represents much of what's wrong with the world. This falls back to a recent thread (okay last year) that I had on whether English was being deliberately pushed as 'the language' to the deliberate detriment of other languages and in the process was killing off other languages by slow death (sometimes fast death). There were many comments for and against the spread of English. The cultures of the world are influenced, they are not evolving by accident. They are being forced to evolve, ie deliberately. It goes much further than language alone. Basically when you look at the construct of the EU and you dig deep enough to see who is behind its construction and what are their motives, well independent nations are now an enemy construct of the EU and their dark intentions. In the best interests of those pulling the strings of the European Union leaders (and other world leaders mind you) is to ensure cultures throughout Europe (and around the world) more and more homogeneous. If the EU never existed the ideals would be different within leading politicians- they'd protect their sovereignty and do everything to advance their independent state (ideally). However as part of a larger economic/governmental construct the EU leaders are NOT representing the interests of the people. This is clear time and time again. If something occurs within a state in the EU and the EU doesn't like it, they hold a revote, they vote again until what these bastard leaders want gets passed. Voting again does not occur otherwise. The national leaders are puppets and they are bought with dirty money and will do everything the elite wants- which more often than not involves deliberate economic depressions- withholding cures for disease, scathing reports on anything that actually could help us in the very biased media, keeping us addicted to fosil fuels, junk food and scared to the point we wonder if there is danger lurking behind every corner so that we rely on our saviours (the very bastard leaders themselves) to 'protect us'. They sell the bullshit of climate change in order to bring a rubbish tax on carbon dioxide and rake in more of our dollars. We are living in modern economic slavery and government do not care for culture one bit, no matter which country they are from. We are enslaved and controlled in every element of culture. The French language is very likely imo to fade with the rest of them. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4908 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 29 of 34 18 April 2015 at 4:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't buy it, PM. The countries with the most influence in the EU are France and Germany. England might have an interest in pushing English, but England has less influence in the EU due to historical reasons (the fact that they keep joining each stage about five years later). Unless you're suggesting that the US government is spreading English in the EU.
As Ogrim pointed out, the English press gets excited when it comes to the use of a bit of English in France. "Ooh, the French use the word weekend! We're winning!" There's no doubt that English words are becoming more used in French, but that's only French catching up with the way every language in the world works, including English: they take on words from cultures they have contact with. English wouldn't have shampoo, verandahs, or pyjamas without Hindi. France, on the other hand, has tried harder than most to keep their language pure. Again, that's probably another historical artifact from when the kings of France tried to push Parisian French on the whole of the country, to the detriment of regional variations, dialects and languages. The language imperialism you wrote about in the other thread certainly does occur, and French rulers made an art of it. But people using words from a neighbouring culture isn't imperialism, it's normal. It's the thing language imperialists try to prevent. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| caam_imt Triglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 4861 days ago 232 posts - 357 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, Finnish Studies: German, Swedish | Message 30 of 34 18 April 2015 at 5:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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Jeffers, how do we define "normal" in this case? I think the amount of English words
and anglo-culture (mostly american?) that get exported to other languages/countries is vast compared to the contribution of other cultures. For example, the slang spoken in Helsinki some decades ago reflected cultural imports from Russian, German, Swedish, and English among others, whereas nowadays, most new words come from English only. This is partly due to the media and how much English comes through it. It has been normal to adopt words from neighboring countries/cultures through the ages, but what about adopting stuff from a single source that is not even a neighbor? to me this is not normal, rather a new phenomenon. The internet has been around for a couple of decades tops, but look at how much the world has changed in such a short amount of time. Perhaps it's the same old pattern with a face-lift, but I do believe that history cannot foresee how things will develop regarding these issues. I don't think French or any other major language will disappear because of English, but their position will sure lose importance in certain areas, like science, finance, education, etc. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 31 of 34 18 April 2015 at 5:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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The question is how much of it sticks. Latin and French have played the same role. Look
at how many Korean words are actually Chinese. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4908 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 32 of 34 18 April 2015 at 7:32pm | IP Logged | ||
In this case, by "normal" I meant the fact that languages take on words from other languages. I did write neighbours, but in an age with mass media and the internet this doesn't necessarily reflect proximity. The fact that England and France are neighbours has made a contribution, but now the English-language imports to France probably come from the USA. What I was trying to point out is that countries adopting words from distant countries isn't exactly new. My examples of Hindi words adopted into English should make that clear. But yes, the world of today is not the world of a hundred years ago, or even 20 years ago, and things like language borrowing don't work in the same way. So it would really be surprising for anything to be "normal" in that sense. The current prominence of English for this sort of borrowing might be unprecedented in history (I'm not sure it is completely), but so is the internet, TV, airplanes, etc. I think your description of "the same old pattern with a face-lift" is what I was getting at. Edited by Jeffers on 18 April 2015 at 7:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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