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Multilingualism: Past and Present | ||
Tags: Multilingual | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| joan.carles Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6145 days ago 332 posts - 342 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan*, French, EnglishC1, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Hungarian, Russian, Georgian | Message 1 of 8 22 August 2007 at 12:52am | IP Logged | ||
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This website and the people that write and read here are an exception, it's clear. In general, the word tends to a clear monolingualism which most of the people think is and has been the general norm. Hence many misconceptions which lead many of us or our families to lose one or more of our ancestor’s languages believing that more than one language would be harmful for the general development of the kids, even only linguistically. The other day I talked to a colleague, a Canadian born Japanese whose grandparents, when arrived to Canada, decided not to talk to their kids in Japanese as they could end up speaking English with accent. And like this, many thousands of examples.
Instead, just look at many small communities, mostly in developing countries, where people still have the ability to speak theirs and other neighbour languages. Go to Australia, Amazonas, Indonesia (approx. 500 languages, the 10% of world linguistic richness), … and you can find that in general, and also due to intercommunity marriage, people speak more than one language without the struggle we westerners (and non westerners belonging to more “developed” societies) face when learning our first foreign language. How many languages have died for example in Europe in the last centuries being swept by the respective National language, this impoverisher concept that some find the most logical and natural thing, as in France. In the case of Spain it’s sad to hear that anyone outside Catalonia, Basque Country or Galicia have the right to be attended in Spanish when going to any of these communities, instead they (most of them) won’t never make the effort to try to learn Basque, Catalan or Galician. Unless you have satellite dish, you can’t see the regional tv’s of these other communities in their respective languages, nobody cares about spreading the interest and facilitating the knowledge of the different languages of the country. Of course, they have enough having to master Spanish!! But those in these communities, we have to speak our local language and Spanish compulsorily (so much better for us, to tell the truth). And just to name one country. So, all this digression to say that we are far more prepared for multilinguality than we humans think, all in all, it’s something we’ve been doing during the last x thousand years. But we are so conditioned by the mainstream idea that “one country, one language”. … Don't you think? Edited by joan.carles on 22 August 2007 at 12:55am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6580 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 2 of 8 22 August 2007 at 6:20am | IP Logged | ||
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"Don't you think?"
Absolutely. That's what we get for carving up the world into political units where the state has the authority to tell us what languages we must use. In general, a people who are diverse and use many languages are harder to control. There was a time in Medieval and Renaissance Europe when there were no real borders. People could go where they liked and speak what language they liked. Today's linguistic diversity (26 official and 50 minority languages in the EU) is a remnant of that age. Edited by Captain Haddock on 22 August 2007 at 6:21am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| LilleOSC Senior Member United States lille.theoffside.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6503 days ago 545 posts - 546 votes 4 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: French, Arabic (Written) | Message 3 of 8 29 August 2007 at 8:24am | IP Logged | ||
I think it's bad. In my opinion, those languages are as important as Spanish. They represent cultures and different people. I think regional languages should be valued more in Europe. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| joan.carles Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6145 days ago 332 posts - 342 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan*, French, EnglishC1, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Hungarian, Russian, Georgian | Message 4 of 8 04 September 2007 at 1:50am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm afraid it's not easy for all this languages. France only sees French, Italy considers any other language spoken in its territory as dialect of Italian, no matter how distant it is. At least Belgium has won the political war and calls one of its languages Flemish and not Dutch. What about other countries? Mmm, not any better, I think. Edited by joan.carles on 04 September 2007 at 1:50am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| GoddessCarlie Newbie Australia goddesscarlie.com Joined 6149 days ago 21 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 5 of 8 04 September 2007 at 7:10pm | IP Logged | ||
I think you will find that Australia is also a western country and, generally, most people here also speak only one language. Which of course only enhances your point, I do think it is sad that the Australian Aboriginal languages are dieing out, I would have loved to have learned them in school. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6084 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 6 of 8 28 October 2007 at 4:42am | IP Logged | ||
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It is an interesting point. It is possible that illiterate or pre-literate societies are better linguists in the spoken sense. There are parts of Africa and Latin America where speaking five or more languages is common, but those who can do that may not be able to read or write any of them. It may be the same quality as that of people in illiterate societies who are able to recite thousands of lines of poetry from oral tradition.
In the past, people may have rarely gone more than a few miles from their native village, and the speech of a place even six miles away, in England or France or Europe generally, might have been different enough to make communication a problem. I believe you needed a passport, basically a letter of authorisation, to leave England for continental Europe in Elizabeth I's time. Of course, this involved sea travel. Continental Europeans probably could travel more freely but transport was slower and roads were poor. Many people probably never travelled far from where they were born. Edited by William Camden on 31 October 2007 at 2:52am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vuisminebitz Triglot Groupie United States Joined 6386 days ago 86 posts - 108 votes Speaks: Yiddish, English*, Spanish Studies: Swahili | Message 7 of 8 31 October 2007 at 11:08am | IP Logged | ||
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Let's see, free travel in Europe. Depends on the time. Jews couldn't travel freely without permission (hence all the Jewish languages that developed in Europe, there were over 20) until the 1800s really and serfs couldn't either which eliminates at least half the population, up to 90 percent in some parts. And despite the Roma being known for traveling they were pretty restricted in movement as well for a long time(hence they have so many different varieties of their languages). So the wealthy could travel but the majority, depends on time and place I guess but for the most part they couldn't. And when people could travel, they often didn't because of financial reasons, and of course because most of the time they had no reason to do so.
History records the great travelers because they were the exception, not the rule. And it's worth noting that in Europe prior to 1800 none of them were Jews, Roma, or Serfs or for the most part women(ok, you might find a Jew or two in the Balkans or the Ottoman Empire who could travel and there was Joan of Ark but you get my point). Still, I agree that people probably spoke more languages then than now. I wonder if there are any documents or resources that anyone knows about this. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6084 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 8 of 8 31 October 2007 at 2:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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Many are poorly attested, as they were not written. The West Slavic language Polabian was spoken in part of North Germany for hundreds of years but only started to be recorded as it was dying out, in the 18th century. Low German became common in the area during the Thirty Years' War and Polabian went into irreversible decline. There is no information in or as far as I know on the language earlier, when it was spoken by thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of people.
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