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The dark side of language dominance

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sctroyenne
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 Message 161 of 176
13 June 2014 at 5:57pm | IP Logged 
Retinend wrote:
PeterMollenburg wrote:
as English dominants particular
areas/fields of life it increasingly pushes out
other languages. So emk is mentioning technical instructions in French in Québec of all
places (who have very strict language laws). They seemingly don't bother a lot with the
French translations as English seems to be the chosen medium to deal with such topics.
Will this happen in Science? Will it happen in Commerce and education? How much many
more fields will BECOME irrelevant to other languages in the future as English is seen
as the preferred vehicle?


What about when Latin was the "preferred vehicle" of scientific discussion? Did it
cause any language extinction? Do you consider some thousand
years of Latin "domination" of educated society as so sinister?


--
Sorry, everyone, if this has already been asked of Peter. This thread is now mammoth.


And in many other fields: Italian for music (especially opera), French for cooking and
ballet, Latin again for law, Greek/Latin for math, etc. If one language gets there
"first" in either inventing a field or codifying it, they get to provide its vocabulary
which isn't necessarily tragic.
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Darklight1216
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 Message 162 of 176
14 June 2014 at 1:35am | IP Logged 
Retinend wrote:


What about when Latin was the "preferred vehicle" of scientific discussion? Did it
cause any language extinction? Do you consider some thousand
years of Latin "domination" of educated society as so sinister?


--
Sorry, everyone, if this has already been asked of Peter. This thread is now mammoth.

I think the educated world was a much smaller one when Latin was dominant. Back then,
unless I'm much mistaken, the literate person was an exceptional being and that is no
longer the case (at least probably not for the sake of our discussion).
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PeterMollenburg
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 Message 163 of 176
14 June 2014 at 8:56am | IP Logged 
emk wrote:
PeterMollenburg wrote:
I'm not attempting to draw other people into this thread, but in
glancing at emk's log
and just simply quoting one of his posts I see evidence of English dominance yet
again... Unfortunately some of what emk has mentioned tends to 'side' with my thoughts
that as English dominants particular areas/fields of life it increasingly pushes out
other languages. So emk is mentioning technical instructions in French in Québec of all
places (who have very strict language laws). They seemingly don't bother a lot with the
French translations as English seems to be the chosen medium to deal with such topics.

Well, and Francophone programmers have really good reasons for this choice. Let's see if I can unpack
things a bit, as I understand them:

1. I work in the startup/web end of my field, where the underlying technologies are still improving very
rapidly, and many of the key libraries are open source volunteer projects. Basically, every three years or so,
somebody invents something which makes it vastly easier to build cool new stuff. To put it in perspective, in
any given year, at least a third of my projects cost perhaps 10% of what they would have cost a few years
before. So if you rely only on well-known commercial technologies, or on mature technologies that have been
around for five years, you're going to be at a substantial disadvantage.

2. If you work with fast-moving volunteer technologies, much of your documentation arrives in the form of
blog posts written by random programmers. Nobody has either the time or the resources needed to translate
all this into multiple languages. So if you speak English, you have access to maybe 1000 times as many
tutorials as French speakers, and those tutorials are almost always of higher quality, and several years
newer.

3. The amount of specialized technical terminology is simply immense. Sure, various government
organizations spend a lot time translating words like "spam" and "smartphone". But nobody cares very much
about translating thousands of words of specialist jargon like "HTTP routing mesh" or "interned Lisp symbol."
I'm currently attempting to do technical translation from English into French, and it's a lot of work: I spend lots
of time trying to translate things like "parsed syntax tree" into French, and I can almost always find answers,
but it takes time.

4. The actual language used for in libraries and APIs is almost always English, so even if you try to write code
in French, it ends up being 50% English anyways.

5. Working entirely in French drastically limits the opportunities for international collaboration. You can't invite
the really interesting speakers to your conferences, you can't collaborate with the German programmers, you
can't outsource things to Eastern Europe or to India, and you can't really have international partnerships.

6. French programmers are paid far less than programmers in Silicon Valley, and from what I can tell, they're
often treated with less respect. (At least that's what I read a lot on French sites.) A French programmer who
avoids English also loses the option of moving to the Valley and getting a big pay raise.

Seriously, I've tried to write code in French, to get all my programming news in French, to look for
documentation in French, and so on. And when I do this, I can feel my horizons shrinking painfully, as
hundreds of powerful technologies become largely inaccessible. I've also spent a lot of time thinking about
whether I could earn a living in France for a few years, and from a professional perspective, there are some
potential downsides to this plan. I don't like a lot of what I hear about typical French employers or salaries,
certainly.

Given these facts, it's obvious that many Western European programmers will choose to gain passive skills in 
English. Learning to read English comfortably is actually pretty easy, if you speak a Romance or Germanic
language and your job already encourages you to spend hours a day using English-language documentation
and news sources. It's like a free, non-stop Super Challenge on your employer's dime.

I certainly don't feel that I can criticize French programmers for using so much English. If I were in their
position, I would certainly do the same. It would be rather rude for me to insist on them remaining
monolingual just so that I can improve my technical French. :-)


Thanks a lot for taking the time to explain emk. It all makes perfect sense. I'd certainly be using a hell of a lot
of English if I was a programmer too, it seems. Thus I certainly don't expect others to laboriously 'soldier on'
in their own language when it just doesn't make economic sense, despite my fanciful world being the
contrary. In quoting you I was pointing out another reason why English seems to dominate, and your
explanations make perfect sense why IT continues to be an English dominated field. Cheers, I hope your
French learning is coming along well !
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Retinend
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 Message 164 of 176
14 June 2014 at 9:33am | IP Logged 
Darklight1216 wrote:
I think the educated world was a much smaller one when Latin was dominant. Back then, unless I'm much mistaken, the literate person was
an exceptional being and that is no longer the case (at least probably not for the sake of our discussion).


I don't see how that mitigates Latin in comparison to English, as two world languages. As I see it, if one is sinister then both are, or if one isn't then
neither are.

Edited by Retinend on 14 June 2014 at 9:34am
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PeterMollenburg
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 Message 165 of 176
14 June 2014 at 9:44am | IP Logged 
sctroyenne wrote:
Retinend wrote:
PeterMollenburg wrote:
as English dominants particular
areas/fields of life it increasingly pushes out
other languages. So emk is mentioning technical instructions in French in Québec of all
places (who have very strict language laws). They seemingly don't bother a lot with the
French translations as English seems to be the chosen medium to deal with such topics.
Will this happen in Science? Will it happen in Commerce and education? How much many
more fields will BECOME irrelevant to other languages in the future as English is seen
as the preferred vehicle?


What about when Latin was the "preferred vehicle" of scientific discussion? Did it
cause any language extinction? Do you consider some thousand
years of Latin "domination" of educated society as so sinister?


--
Sorry, everyone, if this has already been asked of Peter. This thread is now mammoth.


And in many other fields: Italian for music (especially opera), French for cooking and
ballet, Latin again for law, Greek/Latin for math, etc. If one language gets there
"first" in either inventing a field or codifying it, they get to provide its vocabulary
which isn't necessarily tragic.


I couldn't agree with you more. Latin was big, French was big, Greek was big. They've all had their day to
reign and it makes sense why they did. It makes sense why some languages today remain strong in
particular areas of life as you've pointed out. Once again I understand exactly why English is where it is
today.

What I'm concerned about is that it is unprecedented and relentless it seems. I know it will change one day
but in my life I've seen English grow and grow and grow in strength to a point it seems to have hit fever pitch
levels in which I personally feel from my reading of sources that have looked into the phenomena that it risks '
'taking over'.

In summary:
I get it, I know why English is so strong.
I have nothing against those who learn it, and I understand why.
- I would most likely do the same if I were in their position.
I know that other languages have had their time, it makes sense.
I don't despise English
I don't think anyone can deny that it is infiltrating life/the world like no other language has in the past.
Some people think its great to have a global language, it makes sense for a lot of reasons.
Some ppl feel English is a threat others feel it is a great thing.

I don't like globalisation, nor do I like the 'degree' to which English is spreading
I do feel it's a threat to other languages in a way that we are all becoming more and more the same
I have stated a lot of 'fanciful' wonderland type scenarios for how i would like to see language distribution in
the world- this is NOT realistic.
I have made a lot of points drawing on documents, websites etc stating my case for why English in my
opinion is bad for other languages given it's current level of 'spread' if you will. Others don't agree, that's fine.

All in all people have stated very decent evidence, opinions, historical points etc that point to the contrary that
I shouldn't be threatened by English at all. I can totally understand that point of view, but for me even tho I've
argued very strongly for one point of view I can actually sympathise and in fact agree that if I take on that
point of view I have nothing to be concerned about. But I do PREFER to hold onto ideals, perhaps this is a
character flaw that exposes a lack of willingness to adapt, or perhaps it's a good character trait that shows I
value diversity in an increasingly homogenous world, that I feel has destructive intentions behind the scenes
that we are unaware of. Is Europe becoming another America?
-------------------------------------- -------------------------------------- -------------------------------------
My general underlying distaste of globalisation which I link with the spread of English (others clearly don't)
comes from a deeper distrust in what I see in the world. Take the EU again for example....

On another note if you think the EU is good for commerce and so on- which you may or may not, i'm just
wanting to make another point. What about the good of the people? If you search enough you will discover
that the very foundation of the EU has some rather shady characters and ideals linked to its initial set up. "It"
has very little interest in the good of the people. Take for example the recent approval of GMO corn by the
EU. The majority of EU MPs voted against this approval. The majority of European people oppose it strongly.
Why was it approved? Because it's in the peoples interest? Certainly not. It means money for extremely
questionable multi national organisations. This is a very questionable technology which contains proven
carcinogens. But hey organisations like the FDA have only the interest of the ppl in mind/heart too, they're not
being paid any beneficial wads of cash by anyone wanting to approve anything. And 'clinical trials' are never
biased, ever. Fortunately France has banned GMOs but it doesn't mean they can' t be transported through
the country or that those areas bordering other countries won't be cross-contaminated by GMO crops, and
they'll have to ' give in ' like a certain South American country had to. The EU is a dictatorship run on the
ideals of NOT national leaders NOR their people but a handful or so of idiot EU ' leaders ' that no-one knows.
The world is hostage to a small pool of massively strong companies that have no interest in health, well-
being, cultures or languages. Money matters, to them, and ANYTHING that facilitates the generation of cash
and power for them is good, so we must we keep driving this economic machine while making these entities
at the top rich. Abolish tarifs, set up free trade agreements, sent crap for some corner of the globe to my
supermarket, sell it cheaper than my local variety and the environment will be fine. Get rid of national borders,
they get in the way of business. Everyone learn English so we can compete! We must be competitive. I know
most won't agree, because we cannot see the forest through the trees. I'm not saying I can see the forest, but
put it this way ppl passing through it have given me indications that it is the case, even if from where I stand
the only thing that matters to me is survival via whatever means i'm ' fed'- i need that cheaper version of
whatever from the supermarket, i'm under economic pressure here people. Who put me under that pressure?
Matrix people? Have I been studying too much French? Hmmm I think I tip toe quietly away now and leave it
rest....
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Retinend
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 Message 166 of 176
14 June 2014 at 10:06am | IP Logged 
What time in history would you most like to live in?
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PeterMollenburg
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 Message 167 of 176
14 June 2014 at 10:27am | IP Logged 
Retinend wrote:
What time in history would you most like to live in?


I'm happy with this time now. I don't think the time matters too much really. It's what you make of your life. I'm
not unhappy with life, although my ' fixation ' on this theme may appear to demonstrate that. I just like to
inform myself, and analyse things. Despite all my gripes regarding the spread of English, well there are
always challenges in life no matter what time you live in. My complaints probably demonstrate how
comfortable my life is. If I weren't in a great place I'd have more pertinent things to complain about. Perhaps
it is why we have 'mo money mo problems' . And in regards to language learning itself there's probably never
been a better time, particularly for us self-taught variety!
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PeterMollenburg
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 Message 168 of 176
22 July 2014 at 7:47am | IP Logged 
..meanwhile Netflix expands it's European market with 5 more countries to be added to the American
market...

...and the Ukraine... it's Russia's fault, right? Or is it? A pro-American/EU government in the Ukraine, that's
what the ppl wanted isn't it? Or is it what they are led to believe they want? My thinking is perhaps Putin is not
as bad as he is made out to be and he is made out to be so bad because the CIA/US interests in make a pro-
American world are at stake... Throw in a little truth to a big lie and voilà government interests become
believable


You are NOT getting the Truth

Edited by PeterMollenburg on 22 July 2014 at 8:22am


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