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The dark side of language dominance | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5269 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 1 of 176 29 May 2014 at 8:19am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Why does English dominate?
Why is Spanish spoken in over 30 countries? Why is French widely spoken as a second language in Africa? Why is the EU and international business seemingly heading towards English domination. I'm just sharing a few thoughts.... The majority of the world are deliberately kept in the dark when it comes to what goes in in foriegn affairs (if you want to call it that - more like foreign manipulations). Let's face it we don't speak English here in Australia without a lot of aboriginees having been slaughtered by murderous colonists. Same with the Spanish & Inca people in Sth America, English in Nth America and the American Indians. I read a book once about the English language called "The Adventure of English" by Melvyn Bragg that chronicles that 'amazing' story - the path that English has taken from minority language to world language. Amazing? or fitting? Mix power, money, hunger for dominance, murder and so on and I think this was inevitable. Mind you it would of been another language if it wasn't English, and if it was that language i'd prob equally despise it's place in the world today in terms of globilization. In my opinion there exists a determined effort to make the world monolingual, or at least have one language (it just happens to be English is in that position although French once appeared set for the role). Sure it goes under the guise of 'business' and 'science' and 'higher education' and Hollywood and pop culture propogate to those who can't be bothered with those more 'boring' elements, but however ppl seemingly convince themselves throughout the world that English is a great language to learn. I think it's dangerous... French/France is attempting the same in Africa perhaps. Feed the French republic by raping the African continent. However America is also trying to displace France there. Rwanda is an interesting case. And before I continue, to be fair France is by far not alone in raping Africa, and likely not the worst either. If you read in French this article is a very interesting politically and linguistically: Rwanda and the 'real story' interconnected with the shift from French to English as official language I'm having trouble with the link so if you search : "Le Rwanda passe à l'Anglais" author: Robin Philpot 2009/414-le-rwanda-passe-a-l-anglais">Le Rwanda passe à l'Anglais And this one too: "Inside France's Secret War" online in the 'Independent' by Johann Hari 396062.html">Another point of view in English (UK) of French Africa All in all the way I see it- languages that are spoken across/ through many countries today are that way due to an unfortunate grab for global power that still goes on today. To jump back to the America's (nth America) in the book "The Story of French" by Jean- Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow discusses the plight of French speaking Canadians (particularly Acadians) being Expelled from Canada and sent to Louisiana in order to dilute French culture in North America. Furthermore Louisana then forced school children to speak only English by supplying that state largely with unilingual English speaking teachers and deliberately and largely wiped out French from that state. Of course Dutch was supplanted in New York (an easier task as the Dutch more readily accepted foreign languages and have been recognised by some researchers amongt the quickest of Europeans to let their language go once relocated to a new world location). Of course American Indians and so on.... I read somewhere recently that the French are always pouring money into the promotion of their language. Then I read how much America and Britain finance the spread of English which absolutely dominates over the tiny French language budget. In an internet/media world dominated by English I'm not surprised that French (for long a serious opponent of English to be the world language) is often 'bashed' in English language media. I'm sorry i'm not so good at citing sources so I'm certainly no journalist, but I do not trust the world we are 'fed' through the media and I sincerely believe that English dominates today because of continuous concerted effort by those powerful countries 'converting' other countries systematically one by one through clandestine or obvious force. The more countries 'speak' English the better it is for countries like the U.S. and U.K. They will have the upper hand as language is a vehicule for culture and if you speak the same culture you're likely to sympathize with that culture's ideologies. For example, it seems today many Indians LOVE the UK despite the awful past. A quick interesting point- The English language generates enormous amounts of income for the UK and the U.S. isn't it very handy that the world seems enamoured with English lately. That's not by fluke. Further to my earlier point of 2nd language leaving one in an unfair position- if the dominate language is not your mothertongue you generally stand in a weaker position to defend yourself since if you're not a c2 or beyond those that are (mother-tongue-speakers) you will be in a worse position to defend against those articulating their motives in their mother tongue. I apologise for those not able to read French (mine is hit and miss) but as I'm studying that language I tend to read a fair amount in that language. An intersting book in French has been written on the topic (anyone read it? it's out of print!): La nouvelle guerre contre l'intelligence: tome II *edited multiple times for faulty links While i'm back for this edit- isn't it interesting the recent journal publications printing that Putin claims the internet is/was a CIA project. A simple search will land you amongst such articles. Interesting too that there are strong links between the American Defense and Research department DARPA and Microsoft and google. Scary stuff. How much are we really being manipulated by language? I know I sympathize with French ideals to at least a small degree now that i'm so fond of the language ;) Edited by PeterMollenburg on 29 May 2014 at 8:35am 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Leurre Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5218 days ago 219 posts - 372 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Korean, Haitian Creole, SpanishC2 Studies: Japanese | Message 2 of 176 29 May 2014 at 9:29am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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But at least once the alien overlords come, we won't have to worry about such things.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Retinend Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4101 days ago 283 posts - 557 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), French | Message 3 of 176 29 May 2014 at 9:56am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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A person who grows up speaking English anywhere, natively, becomes a part of English
speaking culture and is not dominated by it. Obviously countless other factors bear on their freedom or oppression, but their are not "dominated" by the language they speak in any useful sense of the word. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5269 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 4 of 176 29 May 2014 at 10:53am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Good point, I'd say you are correct. Like some say the money is the root of all evil, it is not the money but those who are motivated to negative things in order to attain it. Thus I would suggest that what I really mean is found within my dribbling as opposed to the title- that is that in 'converting' foreigners (ie encouraging the learning of English, spreading of the English language/American culture) allows for a more malleable populace (ie it provides the vehicule to increase the chances of those with dark intentions). If all the world speaks English and it becomes the world's sole official global language would it then not become more likely that American/ UK ideals are more easily attained as opposed to say those with a south American indigenous language as their mother tongue (assume no knowledge of English) and see the world from their cultural perspective. English provides the medium for which American and UK (and others) capitalism and agenda's are encouraged to flourish by those who sympathize with it Edited by PeterMollenburg on 29 May 2014 at 10:53am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5029 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 5 of 176 29 May 2014 at 11:11am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Wasn't that the point of Esperanto, to have a global language so that we could all talk to each other, share ideas, understand each other and avoid wars? BTW what is wrong with capitalism? I wouldn't worry to much about it, like French I figure English use will dwindle when the USA loses its current economic power. Then we'll all sit around moaning about how we have to learn Mandarin or whatever the next big language is. Probably the language of the future will be binary. I, for one, welcome our robotic overlords. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Hungringo Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 3781 days ago 168 posts - 329 votes Speaks: Hungarian*, English, Spanish Studies: French | Message 6 of 176 29 May 2014 at 11:33am | IP Logged | ||||||||
English is in a dominant position due to many historical, political, economic, military factors partly listed above, and most people have no choice when it comes to language learning. But just to make it clear, if I had had a real choice I would have never studied English. Edited by Hungringo on 29 May 2014 at 12:14pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5269 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 7 of 176 29 May 2014 at 11:47am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Esperanto, unlike English or French does not give any particular nations an unfair advantage (in being the mother-tongue of the large majority of those nations). It would be better Esperanto being a global language than any other lanugage in my opinion. This way we all would still come from our original linguistic backgrounds and share a global 2nd language that would as I said not provide an unfair advantage.
Let me begin by saying I'm well and truly involved in capitalism, every day, most moments of the day. I'm not about to say I don't like what it provides.... but it comes at a cost A massive environmental cost. Deforistation, urbanisation, pollution. Do you realise how many of us buy crap we don't need day in day out, how many cities there are in the US alone and then take a look at the rest of the world in which we all are chasing things to make our lives easier, more entertaining etc. In short a lot of people buy things. Many of these things are not really necessary but they have detrimental effects on the environment when the population is so high and much of the world participates in capitalism. I hate to mention it but capitalism has negative cultural effects and linguistic also. A simple example from a quick web search this is the first thing that popped up (link at bottom of page): "Ready or not, English is now the global language of business. More and more multinational companies are mandating English as the common corporate language—Airbus, Daimler-Chrysler, Fast Retailing, Nokia, Renault, Samsung, SAP, Technicolor, and Microsoft in Beijing, to name a few—in an attempt to facilitate communication and performance across geographically diverse functions and business endeavors. Adopting a common mode of speech isn’t just a good idea; it’s a must, even for an American company with operations overseas, for instance, or a French company focused on domestic customers. Imagine that a group of salespeople from a company’s Paris headquarters get together for a meeting. Why would you care whether they all could speak English? Now consider that the same group goes on a sales call to a company also based in Paris, not realizing that the potential customer would be bringing in employees from other locations who didn’t speak French. This happened at one company I worked with. Sitting together in Paris, employees of those two French companies couldn’t close a deal because the people in the room couldn’t communicate. It was a shocking wake-up call, and the company soon adopted an English corporate language strategy." Right all in the name of chasing a profit (we've all got to eat, i'm not knocking yoru job, it's a system that can't sustain it's own growth). Sure here English language adoption is used to 'faciliate' business etc, in the end it's about making money. If esperanto was the mode of communication I'd not be as conerned. Have you noticed how many English words are entering other languages nowadays? Capitalism/marketing does this. French kids see American programs on TV and readily accept common Americanisms, Coke is a recognized international word. Hollywood, American music, American business, English advertising and the internet are all serving to gradually erode the other languages. And those that don't speak English are excited about learning it. Who wouldn't be! I would if I didn't speak English. Look at the doors it opens, certainly more than any other language. I think the tipping point has been and gone, there is enough momentum now that this process is likely to imminently continue. This is simple analysis, not fear mongering, although it is kinda scarey. Perhaps I'll be proved wrong when a universal translator miraculously appears in ten years time that can be used on any smart phone and the majority of the world stops learning foreign languages to concentrate on important things, like economics ;) (surely not the environment).
You are right. At some point it will change. Worrying about it won't change it, good advice. I highly doubt we'll all be learning Mandarin tho, but I've been wrong before ;) English is the most widely spoken tongue even if America's dominance falls drastically into an abyss, provided global economic interaction continues somewhere approaching it's current level I'd say English will remain the dominant language as it's the official language of more countries than any other- it's geographic spread is huge. Mandarin covers a small geographic area in comparison. Sample source Another source with an interesting point to add: "Spanglish? America is responsible for an overwhelming proportion of the English which is spoken all over the world today: words like hamburger, movie and jeep are known to everyone. Ironically, if there is any challenge at all to the dominance of English, it may come from inside America itself. The last fifty years have seen an enormous number of Spanish-speaking immigrants. Amigo, taco, ranch and lasso are all words of Spanish origin which have crept into the language. In parts of Elorida, Texas and California Spanish represents a serious alternative to English as the language of the community. But the United States remains an English-speaking nation with an unparalleled influence over the rest of the world" Source: Spanglish anybody? Edited by PeterMollenburg on 29 May 2014 at 11:55am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4415 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 8 of 176 29 May 2014 at 12:11pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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How much does English actually dominate? I'm off to Germany next month and once I leave the airport, I probably won't hear much English spoken there. Tourist hotspots are different obviously, as are international gatherings, but among the ordinary working people it's German all the way and there is no English content on TV or in cinemas. Bookshops may or may not have a token English section, depending on the size and location of the town. I just don't get the impression that English plays a major role in the lives of most citizens.
I don't speak French, Spanish or Italian but I have been as a tourist to many places in Europe where these languages are spoken and I think you would have serious problems fitting in as a resident if you didn't have at least a working knowledge of the local language. I imagine it's even more of a requirement in Latin America. Just this week I watched a documentary about the football stadiums in Brazil being rebuilt for this years World Cup. None of the Brazilian engineers who were interviewed volunteered to speak in English. So yes, English takes precedence in the worlds of business, science and travel and is being taught to children from infancy, but we are still decades away from a situation where the majority of people in Europe are comfortable speaking it. I imagine it will take even longer to fully establish the language in other continents. Edited by beano on 29 May 2014 at 12:12pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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