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And if English weren’t so global? | ||
Tags: Language Importance | English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| lecorbeau Diglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 6020 days ago 113 posts - 149 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: Serbo-Croatian, Turkish | Message 1 of 39 11 June 2009 at 6:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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Formerly part of the French overseas empire, Morocco is a country where French (and in some areas, Spanish) is still very much the preferred language after Arabic. As I was traveling there some months ago, I tried to imagine a world without English as the international lingua franca.
My question: the reasons behind it aside, how many of you wish another language had beat English to international primacy? Edited by lecorbeau on 11 June 2009 at 7:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| GuardianJY Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5685 days ago 74 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Italian, Swedish, French | Message 2 of 39 11 June 2009 at 7:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hmm. Wishing another language had beaten English?
I don't think that English being the primary language is the problem, here. It's just that people have pushed aside other languages simply because English is so widespread. If French were the primary language today, this thread could be about French's dominance. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| skeeterses Senior Member United States angelfire.com/games5Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6618 days ago 302 posts - 356 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Korean, Spanish | Message 3 of 39 11 June 2009 at 8:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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I sometimes wish that the World wasn't so anxious to have everyone speak English. One of the main problems is not so much that so many countries are learning English (people from different languages sometimes need a common language to communicate), but rather that there's not enough effort on helping native English speakers learn foreign languages.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lindsay19 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5821 days ago 183 posts - 214 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC1 Studies: Swedish, Faroese, Icelandic | Message 4 of 39 11 June 2009 at 9:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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The unreasonable side of me sort of wishes it were something like German instead, so I'd at least have something to indentify with; English is so widespread, it's like I don't have a language I can call "mine".
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| paparaciii Diglot Senior Member Latvia Joined 6336 days ago 204 posts - 223 votes Speaks: Latvian*, Russian Studies: English | Message 5 of 39 11 June 2009 at 10:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would want Russian to be the dominant language simply because it would be much more homogenous lingua franca than English is. No thick accents that are impossible to understand.
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| Recht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5801 days ago 241 posts - 270 votes Speaks: English*, GermanB1 | Message 6 of 39 11 June 2009 at 11:05pm | IP Logged | ||
Native English speakers don't need to learn foreign languages though. It is not that big of an advantage, and is certainly not necessary, especially when any non native English contact will surely speak the language. If there becomes a movement from another language, you will see more English speakers learning that language. On the boarders in America most people are at least conversational in Spanish (or at least conversational in English, these days) because it serves them. There is little reason that I can see why we would need greater bilingualism (which is some, but not much) in the English world. That may change. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6034 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 7 of 39 11 June 2009 at 11:49pm | IP Logged | ||
Nope... I don't think so. I can pull off a pretty thick accent on you; And those people outside of the Slavic language family can outperform me in that respect. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ChiaBrain Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5808 days ago 402 posts - 512 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish* Studies: Portuguese, Italian, French Studies: German | Message 8 of 39 12 June 2009 at 3:54am | IP Logged | ||
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I'd vote for Italian. Its my favorite, its the closest language we have to Latin
and its easier. Edited by ChiaBrain on 12 June 2009 at 4:05am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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