English as the universal language (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

English as the universal language
Tags: Language Supremacist \| Lingua franca \| Language Importance \| Language Politics \| English
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Language Learning Forum : General discussion

206 messages over 26 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 10 ... 25 26 Next >>

Gusutafu
Senior Member
Sweden
Joined 5341 days ago
655 posts - 1039 votes

Speaks: Swedish*

Message 73 of 206

05 November 2009 at 10:04pm | IP Logged

Iversen wrote:

What I thought? I thought for instance at one of my collegues who in all earnest said that it was more practical if we just dropped Danish and became truly international and global and all that, speaking English. Films, documentaries and popular music are already mostly in English, some companies have English as their common languages, some academic studies are conducted in English and some naive people have the idea that if there are 100 Danes and one foreigner in a room then we all should speak English.

So the it isn't too farfetched that these people - who haven't a shred of reverence for their accidental country and language - would drop the Danish language at dthe drop of a hat. As you may infer from my post above I don't share their opinions.

OK, so you were sarcastic when you wrote that it was "irrational" to want to preserve your own language. Good that we agree then! I am possibly less worried though, I don't think people will ever abandon the native language, at least not here in the North. Just because we like to learn and use English that does not necessarily mean that we will give up Swedish or Danish. It's just an extra. There is probably not a single case of a Swede born to Swedish parents in Sweden that doesn't master Swedish. Even the numerous immigrant kids and youngsters you see in the metro all speak Swedish, even when their parents hardly speak a word.
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mick33
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5744 days ago
1335 posts - 1632 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Finnish
Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish

Message 74 of 206

05 November 2009 at 10:46pm | IP Logged

Iversen wrote:

mick33 wrote:

.... there is another dimension to this discussion; any language that is spoken by many people in many countries can be, and often is, dramatically transformed into many divergent dialects or pidgin languages thus people in Jamaica and Singapore claim to speak English but the way they speak it is so unique that foreign visitors to those countries often struggle to understand the local people.

I have not visited Jamaica, but several other Caribbean islands and places like Singapore, the Phillipines, India, Australia, South Africa, Scotland and New York City. What happens is that the local populations may develop specific dialects, but at the same time they generally are able to speak a more 'standardized' English to foreigners. The big difference between the time where (for instance) Vulgar Latin diverged into the Romance languages is that films, TV programs and music in slightly diverging, but fully intercomprehensible variants of English now are used all over the planet and they exert a strongly levelling influence. So while it is true that English eventually may split up in a number of incomprehensible offspring languages, all of these will still exist as mere variants under an umbrella composed of those ENglisshes that are consumed through the mass media.

Modern media does somewhat weaken the different Englishes, but for English speakers multiculturalism also means highlighting and encouraging the differences in regional accents/dialects which some of us fear may mean that very soon we won't be able to communicate with other English speakers at all.

Iversen wrote:

It does take some amount of irrational nationalistic atavism to fight for the use of national languages under this Anglophone onslaught, and in small language communities with intense international connections there will be people who find it more rational (or alluring) to drop all resistance and love your international super language. It has happened before - Low German essentially died when Luther published the Bible in some-where-in-the-middle High German. And now it is either ignored or seen as something spoken by elderly people living in isolated villages.

I don't think fighting for, and maintaining national languages is irrational, mother tongues play a crucial part of cultural identity dropping that in favor of English could cause confusion.
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cordelia0507
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5658 days ago
1473 posts - 2176 votes

Speaks: Swedish*
Studies: German, Russian

Message 75 of 206

05 November 2009 at 11:23pm | IP Logged

In Kazakhstan, Russian has apparently taken over as the most commonly spoken language. It's quite common there for Kazakhs not to speak their own language. This happened in under 70 years. Less than a lifetime.

I read a very interesting article by a Kazakh woman about this. Here is a summary of how it happened, according to her:

Quote:

Kazakhstan became a member state of the USSR quite early on. The people were not particularly negative about this. The Kazakhs had been nomads and were very hospitable to all strangers, including Russians. Soon they discovered that their lives became less hard in the USSR than it had been before.

Schools were started for everybody, in Kazakh language. Russian courses were offered for adults.

Knowing Russian made it easier to advance ones career, so those who had the ability tried to learn. Soon Russian was made a compulsory school subject and also the language of instruction at the newly founded universities.

Kazakh men did military service during which Russian was the spoken language. The USSR shipped lots of people to Kazakhstan, including Koreans, Germans and some other USSR minority people that Stalin considered suspect. The only language that the groups had in common was Russian.

In addition, young people from Russia moved to Kazakhstan to work in new industries and farm the land. Russian-only schools were started and families could choose between a Russian or a Kazakh school for their children. The Russian schools became more popular because Russian was the language of science, and career prospects.

By the 70s-80s, a situation had emerged whereby people in the cities preferred to speak Russian even though they were Kazakhs living in Kazakhstan! Some children could hardly speak with their grandparents because they spoke different languages.

Today, the government there is trying to push Kazakh, but Russian is still going strong and many Kazakhs still prefer it and can only speak rudimentary Kazakh.

This development was achieved without any force - circumstances made people willingly abandon their own language.

There are some interesting parallels with the EU I think:
No force, people choose themselves, lots of movement of people within the union.... Better career prospectives for English speakers, English is the language of the common military if we consider NATO in that role.

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Rikyu-san
Diglot
Senior Member
Denmark
Joined 5348 days ago
213 posts - 413 votes

Speaks: Danish*, English
Studies: German, French

Message 76 of 206

05 November 2009 at 11:42pm | IP Logged

Well, it is not exactly without force - it is just a subtle force, if one only gets good enough career perspectives by speaking Russian.

Power in the modern world is often exercised in subtle ways but it is the excersising of power nonetheless. Plus the obvious ones you mention - Stalin relocating the untouchables. In the Baltic area, Russian became the dominant language through massive state enforced migrations and deportations.

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Sennin
Senior Member
Bulgaria
Joined 5854 days ago
1457 posts - 1759 votes

5 sounds

Message 77 of 206

05 November 2009 at 11:51pm | IP Logged

Cordelia, I don't agree it is the same process in the EU. There is a policy of multilingualism in the EU that aims to promote the study of several foreign languages, not just one. It is not in the interest of the EU to promote English. France, Germany, Spain, etc. are major political forces within the union and they're definitely not ecstatic about the prospect of losing their national languages. They would rather prefer to have a multilingual populous that doesn't need English as a lingua franca.

People who know several languages tend to import foreign words into their native language (personal experience) and as people become more multilingual this process will only increase. As national borders lose their significance, so do linguistic barriers. Eventually, we could end up with a common pan-European language, sort of like a naturally emerging Esperanto. I think that's what the EU would like to see, not an anglicised Europe. But I can see how English is a problem for smaller countries, e.g. those in Scandinavia (with the added problem that Nordic languages are closely related to English).

Edited by Sennin on 06 November 2009 at 12:06am
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cordelia0507
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5658 days ago
1473 posts - 2176 votes

Speaks: Swedish*
Studies: German, Russian

Message 78 of 206

06 November 2009 at 12:09am | IP Logged

Sennin.. No, probably not. Hopefully not. I agree with your point.
I hope it's like you say - that German, French and Spanish will counterweight English. The smaller countries are still in the riskzone.
What about Bulgaria?

The "bastardised" EU language that you speculate about sounds interesting. I wouldn't mind that. I just want something that's European and common to all, and I think that the anglization has gone just about as far as I think is acceptable. A bit further.
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Hoopskidoodle
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5320 days ago
55 posts - 68 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: French

Message 79 of 206

06 November 2009 at 9:01am | IP Logged

skeeterses wrote:

Just as other countries get to have their "own language", it would be nice if America had the same thing going for it.

Might I then suggest Diné Bizaad (Navaho.) English isn't our "own language."

As to the topic at hand, Isn't English already Earth's lingua franca? It seems to the language spoken in the most countries. I'd imagine that the consequences are both good and bad. A website like this one wouldn't be possible (at least not on such a wide scale) were it not the case to some extent.

Edited by Hoopskidoodle on 06 November 2009 at 9:07am
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Sennin
Senior Member
Bulgaria
Joined 5854 days ago
1457 posts - 1759 votes

5 sounds

Message 80 of 206

07 November 2009 at 10:30pm | IP Logged

cordelia0507 wrote:

Bulgarian has a greater immunity towards English because of two reasons:

- It's in a different language family so loanwords penetrate the language with greater difficulty and greater distortion;
- English is a compulsory subject but language teaching in public schools is pretty weak (and worsening).

That said, in 100 years there'll be hardly any Bulgarians left, because the birth rate is one of the lowest in Europe and we're just 8 million. Bleak future ;p.

Edited by Sennin on 07 November 2009 at 10:58pm

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