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English as the universal language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6975 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes  20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 113 of 206 14 November 2009 at 8:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't see it to be a question of being "right" or "just". Framing the situations in this way reflect an overtly political undertone. Here it is a "red herring" (using your phrase of the moment). I would merely respond to your situations with something along the lines that it's most likely that the language used by such parties would be English. End of story. Isn't the fact that for now there is a lingua franca (by and large), noteworthy in itself? (along the lines of what Paskwc suggested?) EDIT: I just thought of something: Let's say we were in the USSR in the 1980s and we have the following situations: 1) A headmaster of a Kazakh school travels to a conference on education in Kiev (Ukraine). 2) An expert on agriculture of Lithuanian background is having lunch with a Russian colleague in Smolensk (Russia). 3) A Buryat chef is giving a lecture on traditional Mongolian cuisine in Riga (Latvia). 4) A transferred policeman of Turkmen origin is conferring with a colleague in Yerevan (Armenia) about an escaped criminal. 5) A Komi athlete participates in a competition in Minsk (Belorussia). The "rightness" or "justice" about these people using a common language (in this case Russian) does not enter my mind because it's irrelevant. I think that I'd be damned foolish if I were to say that we should have made these diverse groups use another common language because of some antipathy toward Russian policies. I would not expect anything less than for these diverse groups to interact and get their business done using some common language, be it Russian or for all I care Yukaghir! I can have my problems with Russification and all that political stuff, but as a communicative tool, it only makes sense that people were reducing the national or regional communicative barriers by using Russian. How could I have a problem with that? (However if people maintain their own heritage languages without state interference and use their own resources, that's their business and all the more power to them). Edited by Chung on 14 November 2009 at 9:25pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tritone Senior Member United States reflectionsinpo Joined 5939 days ago 246 posts - 385 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, French | Message 114 of 206 14 November 2009 at 8:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
Its not about whats "right" or "wrong"..but rather whats convenient for them. Most have chosen to speak English, and there is nothing wrong with that. Edited by tritone on 14 November 2009 at 8:45pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5340 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 116 of 206 14 November 2009 at 8:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think it would be more reasonable to ask: why not? English is probably their best common language, except in n:o 5, where they might possibly speak German. Who's harmed by their speaking English? What is the alternative? If you force everyone to learn Esperanto, why would that be less imperialistic? English was never forced upon us, but Esperanto would be. My main concern is that Esperanto will only prevail if it takes exactly the position English holds now, that is, it would have to be the language of an ecenomic and "cultural" superpower. What is then gained? The only difference is that English has an almost infinite backlog of hig (and low) quality cultural material. As to the risk to Swedish and other small languages, I think it is highly exaggerated. It's not that I am not fond of Swedish, I would be very sad if it went extinct. It's just that I don't see that happening. I don't really mind stupid loan-words like ipod or "ethernet hub", we will keep the words that matter. For centuries Swedish was considered uncultured by the upper classes, educated people have been speaking Latin, French or German over the years, but Swedish survived. Why wouldn't it survive the much more benign "onslaught" of English? It is a fact that Anglophone "culture" like Britney Spears and American sit-coms is competing for our attention, this has doubtless a very negative influence on genuine, local culture. But this has very little to do with English as a language. Edited by Gusutafu on 14 November 2009 at 8:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5657 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 117 of 206 14 November 2009 at 9:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Obviously the native English speakers are biased to some degree...
But others.. Seriously ASK YOURSELF: Why do I love English? What if my "alternative language" was Chinese, German, Russian, Arabic, Japanese or Spanish.. Instead of English. How would I then feel about the world? What kind of litterature would I be reading? Instead of the latest American bestseller -- maybe Maxim Gorky and Gogol...? Instead of watching "Gossip Girl" and "American Idol" maybe I'd be watching an Arabic (moslem) soap opera or following world news on a CHinese news site... The dominance of English is not just about learning the language and then speaking it. It's about how your language skills affect lots of factors in your life.... People who read newspapers in smaller language will notice how they frequently quote English speaking sources (and nothing else) Why? Because that's the main foreign language that the journalists speak. Obviously this has a BIG effect on which news are reported, how they are reported, and what angle they are reported from. If you are happy with this situation, and don't mind the domination of a foreign culture that results from the domination of English, then I guess there is no problem. But if you'd like Europe to remain unique and special, then why keep using the language of a different continent or an empire that as disintegrated? Esperanto (or similar) is a blank slate - uncontaminated by politics or culture. It can become whatever we make it. Do you really want to be a "pseudo - American"? Edited by cordelia0507 on 14 November 2009 at 9:35pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6258 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 118 of 206 14 November 2009 at 9:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
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First: I think that English makes a lot more sense for European communication than Esperanto. I definitely don't think Esperanto should be imposed on people. I also think any common language a pair or group of people have in common is a perfectly fine choice for them to communicate in.
Second: Esperanto does have literature, music, speakers, and learning it has economically benefited some people. Just because it doesn't have the clout of English doesn't negate any of this. I wish people would treat Esperanto more like Basque or Welsh - as a small but living language, with a certain amount of history, literature, etc, and which it doesn't really make sense to impose on large regions. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6258 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 119 of 206 14 November 2009 at 9:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
How would you feel if this statement were made about Swedish? Esperanto is not a blank slate, and I don't like the thought of its culture being destroyed. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Rikyu-san Diglot Senior Member Denmark Joined 5347 days ago 213 posts - 413 votes Speaks: Danish*, English Studies: German, French | Message 120 of 206 14 November 2009 at 9:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The onslaught of English has indeed been forced upon us - to some degree and through seduction. And it has been in its worst low-calorie variations, American Britney Spears-style. It started with James Dean and Elvis Presley, rock'n'roll, leather jackets, cigarettes, Coca Cola, "beat music"... and the separation between "youth" and the older generations - youth now being an age group onto its own with its own values and worldview. Suddenly we talked about "the generation gap". We now take this for granted, but it is an illusion - an unfortuante construction.
(And one needs to wake up the fact that there is no such thing as a generation gap - it is a myth. I see so much suffering in many young people, hear horrible stories of intense and almost violent conflicts between parents and their teenagers, fighting about... what? Nobody really knows). Something happened in the fifties when youth culture was born... Even today, among youth using English words is "cool". It is seductive. And as is the case with seduction, people might one day wake up and realize they have been "had". There is in fact such an awakening process going on in Denmark at the moment. People may not fully realize what it really is they are waking up from and what has been going on while they were asleep but many feel a strange sense of loss and a strange sense of "wrong, this is not right" kind of feeling that won't go away and can no longer be drugged or spun. It is as if a baby we did not know we had was thrown out with the bathwater. I can see a future where "American" becomes so negatively valorized by large parts of the world that the English will need to distance themselves from American culture. American English might become unpopular - but not UK English. Or maybe yet - if the Blair witch project and the EU presidency becomes reality. What if multi-lingualism became the norm, in the EU. With, say, English, German, French, Italian and Spanish becoming the languges that all cultivated people need to know. Then going to the conference in Helsinki, German might be the conference language - or several languages could be spoken and be understood by anyone. Edited by Rikyu-san on 14 November 2009 at 9:44pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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