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South Sudan | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| JPike1028 Triglot Senior Member United States piketransitions Joined 5207 days ago 297 posts - 337 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Italian Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Portuguese, Czech | Message 1 of 8 04 February 2011 at 5:26am | IP Logged | |||||
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Is anyone else interested in the fact that the new nation of South Sudan, which is waiting for verification currently
and will become a country in July if all goes as planned, is choosing to use English as their official language? The reason stated is that they need a language to unify the country since there are so many tribal languages in the country. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| 98789 Diglot Groupie Colombia Joined 4853 days ago 48 posts - 55 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English | Message 2 of 8 04 February 2011 at 3:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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At least will be other country speaking English... more world for me xD.
Really is Sudan going to divide itself ? ... I used to think Sudan was arabic speaker country (as Egypt) ... anyways I suposse Sudan won't miss territory so easily and they won't leave south sudan to separate, but ... Sudan seems a nice country, why did they separate ? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6759 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 3 of 8 04 February 2011 at 3:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
It'll be a mutual separation on friendly terms. Those in the north of Sudan are mostly (Arabic speaking?) Muslims, while those in the south are mostly Christian and I think are ethnically distinct as well. I didn't realize that the new nation would be using English as its official language. I must admit to having selfishly motivated mixed thoughts on the matter; I'll be glad to have "access" to another African country, but it makes me sad as a linguist and world culture enthusiast that yet another country has come under the grip of English. I can understand their reasons for choosing it, though. Edited by Lucky Charms on 04 February 2011 at 3:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| mr_chinnery Senior Member England Joined 5567 days ago 202 posts - 297 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 4 of 8 04 February 2011 at 4:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
They've been at war for twenty years, and couldn't be less of a 'mutual separation'! Here's some info about the split from the BBC. Edited by mr_chinnery on 04 February 2011 at 4:26pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tritone Senior Member United States reflectionsinpo Joined 5930 days ago 246 posts - 385 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, French | Message 5 of 8 04 February 2011 at 4:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm pretty sure English was already an official language of the Sudan.
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| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6392 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 6 of 8 04 February 2011 at 5:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Sudan hasn't been a country for a long time, in practice. This isn't so much a splitting of a country as a founding of a state where there was none before. But no politics on this forum.
The choosing of a non-local language is the default in African states. With many local languages, choosing one over the others as a national language is going to make a lot of people really mad. Thus most post-colonial states have chosen their colonial languages as national languages. Indonesia is the only example I can think of at the moment that goes against that trend, and that was only because Malay had been used as a lingua franca amongst the islands for centuries. Thus that South Sudan would choose English as a national language isn't really surprising. This is understandable from a political point of view and it avoids a linguistic situation like the one in China, as well as helping the inhabitants to get into the international community, but at the same time it keeps the African languages so small that nobody bothers to learn them. They can't be used to reliably communicate in any country and they don't have any sizable literature or movie industry. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| gambi Newbie New Zealand Joined 4919 days ago 37 posts - 52 votes Speaks: English Studies: Indonesian, Burmese | Message 8 of 8 05 February 2011 at 9:00am | IP Logged | |||||
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But it's most likely that Juba Pidgin Arabic will continue to serve as the everyday lingua franca for inter-tribal or inter-ethnic communication in South Sudan.
The role of Juba Arabic will be similar to that of Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea. There, English is the language of administration, business, education etc. but Tok Pisin remains the most widely used lingua franca for everyday communication. The only difference is that in PNG, Tok Pisin is recognised as one of the official languages besides English. Whereas it's highly unlikely that Juba Pidgin Arabic will be recognised as an official language in the new South Sudan. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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