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Language Revival | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4449 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes  Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 9 of 17 06 January 2014 at 7:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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I wish all Kiwis spoke Maori.
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| Gunshy Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 3898 days ago 28 posts - 37 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French | Message 10 of 17 07 January 2014 at 2:04am | IP Logged | ||
Most Pakeha object to the thought of the Maori language being compulsory at school. "It's a useless language", "Can't speak it anywhere besides in New Zealand", "Maori's not as important as French or German", et cetera et cetera. It's funny really, because few Kiwis actually speak anything else besides English. I'd say our record with foreign languages is much worse than that of the UK's. But whilst I agree that there needs to be more of an incentive for non-Maori to learn Maori (perhaps making bilingual Maori-English proficiency a requirement in certain jobs in the public sector, for instance), quite a high proportion of ethnic Maori can't even speak Maori themselves. Though it's difficult to predict the future of the Maori language with such high immigration levels from Asia (not to mention the emigration of Maori to Australia). Soon the Asian population in New Zealand will outnumber those from the Pacific Islands (who speak languages close to Maori). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4034 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 11 of 17 07 January 2014 at 9:19am | IP Logged | ||
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I wish people would forget the term "useless language". There is no such thing. Also that there is no importance ranking of languages in existence. Sigh!
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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6484 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 12 of 17 08 January 2014 at 10:32am | IP Logged | ||
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Even if all kiwis where forced to learn Maori in school it wouldn't necessarily raise the number of speakers. After all the Irish republic has tried a similar thing with its old Celtic language, and most pupils come out with at best some limited ability to pronounce Irish names. Unless you also have a lot of good reasons to learn a language and worthwhile places to use it you can't force pupils to love it. If you want to keep a language alive or even revive a dead or semidead one then the first task is to form a dedicated group with the necessary skills and then through that community establish fora where the language can be used. Getting the attention of a larger community can't be expected before people can see some benefits from learning the language in question. And maybe you won't ever be able to attract more than a few percent of the total population, but then the task is to strengthen the bonds between those people. Edited by Iversen on 08 January 2014 at 12:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4403 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 13 of 17 08 January 2014 at 10:51am | IP Logged | ||
Yes, the Irish Free State was founded in 1921 and they promoted the Irish language in a big way. This was long before English became the dominant language it is today and even though Irish had been in decline for decades, there was still a healthy amount of native speakers on the Emerald Isle. Unfortunately, the government policies failed to revive the language as a spoken means of communication and the Irish-speaking communities are now confined to remote areas. There is bilingual signage all over the country and state bodies are theoretically bilingual but much of this is symbolic and ultimately the people decided they would rather speak English. I've heard Irish people object to the way the language was "rammed down their throats" in school and apparently the teaching materials weren't exactly contemporary. Some adults resent the language, some are slightly embarrassed by their lack of knowledge and would like to learn more, a few have made great progress, but the majority don't see Irish as being relevant to their everyday lives. That said, most folk do have at least a basic passive understanding of the language. Israel is the obvious example of a language coming back from the dead. Mind you, the majority language among the citizens of the newly-founded state was probably German. Perhaps that gave them an incentive to embrace Hebrew. Edited by beano on 08 January 2014 at 10:55am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4403 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 14 of 17 08 January 2014 at 11:15am | IP Logged | ||
Totally agree. I think many people use this term to mask the fact that they don't have the appetite to learn. I've even heard people in the UK classing the teaching of languages like French and German as "useless" because apparently "they all speak English over there" I've also seen some of my countryfolk who are resident in other countries insisting that the locals themselves tell the newcomers not to bother with their "useless language". I guess some people would happily walk to the end of the earth to avoid learning a language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 3880 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 15 of 17 08 January 2014 at 11:42am | IP Logged | ||
That's probably part of it. But there's also the other side of it, that is more likely the case when locals tell the newcomers not to bother with the local language, and that's linguistic inferiority complex. After all, unless you're implying that expats are lying to you, locals gain nothing from calling their own language useless. And that's not an uncommon phenomenon among speakers of smaller languages, especially not when they are located close to larger languages. You could add every single Celtic language to that list, for starters. Until recently (and still if you ask some) they were all "useless" or "backwards", and something that "held you back". It's not that they don't want to learn, though, because they all had to prioritise speaking a foreign language and teaching their kids a language they did not grow up with themselves. Looking at larger languages, I've known Swedes who thought Swedish was a pretty useless language as well, and Sweden is not neighbouring any world language, or even any larger language. Media, the internet, and super cheap flights have made the anglophone world so close though that plenty of people think it's a useless language that shouldn't be bothered with, and anything that isn't English is just holding you back. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 3880 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 16 of 17 08 January 2014 at 11:51am | IP Logged | ||
I would have thought that religious incentive was probably more a factor than not wanting to speak German. Zionism, sacred language (or language of the sacred, rather), sacred homeland... if Ireland was almost emptied and repopulated with religious extremists who viewed Irish as intrinsic for their bond with their deity, and their identity, and being able to read Irish was a requirement for various life stepping stones, and those were the people who created the new Celtic state of Ireland, then even the later, a bit more moderate, returning immigrants would probably learn Irish. They wouldn't need to hate English to do so. NB! Yes, this is a very rough sketch of Israel's beginnings. It's extremely simplified, and I think we all know not all Israelis today, or even every single initial immigrant, were extreme Zionists. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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