I think the EU is an interesting case when considering multilingual structures. English is a kind of Lingua Franca for EU countries, but it's very non-European in many ways (see e.g. France whose...
I think the EU is an interesting case when considering multilingual structures. English is a kind of Lingua Franca for EU countries, but it's very non-European in many ways (see e.g. France whose government is fiercely protective of its language in light of its decline and sees English as an "Anglo" foreign influence). However there isn't really a good alternative candidate (e.g. French is not widely spoken in 'eastern' European countries and Scandinavia, Germany can't really promote German in the same way because it comes across as Germanic nationalism) so if not English I think the other alternative is multilingualism, which the EU is trying to facilitate (spending roughly 1bn annually). The problem here is that minority languages end up marginalised because it's too impractical to treat them as coequal (or at least most systems seem to tend towards one language). Even in countries with a strong commitment to multilingualism (Switzerland) one langauge often seems to become dominant (Alemenic german).
With the UK leaving the EU, it's more obvious than ever that English should simply be the lingua franca, which for all intents and purposes it already is. Now, it no longer even favors one country...
With the UK leaving the EU, it's more obvious than ever that English should simply be the lingua franca, which for all intents and purposes it already is. Now, it no longer even favors one country in the EU (ok, Ireland is still there, but it's not a great power within the EU, so I doubt anyone would object over Irish favoritism).
It's important to look at the state of English - today, there are MORE non-native speakers of English than native speakers of English. Even within the Anglosphere, America has become the culturally dominant English native country, and much of English's development as a natural language is pushed by American culture.
It's far from simply the language of the angles by now.
I will always resist this. Adopting English isn't cost free. A language encodes stories, morals, ways of looking at the world. It also degrades the languages around it, and their stories. A lingua...
I will always resist this. Adopting English isn't cost free. A language encodes stories, morals, ways of looking at the world. It also degrades the languages around it, and their stories. A lingua franca strangles endangered languages.
I'd rather the EU continue to promote multilingualism, and hope that translation technology keeps getting better and better. An ideal world is one where one is able to simply speak Romansh, and that that's enough to live in the world.
These are not mutually exclusive, adopting a lingua franca does not mean the death of your native language. Even in countries like India where English is an official language and often used...
These are not mutually exclusive, adopting a lingua franca does not mean the death of your native language. Even in countries like India where English is an official language and often used between people who don’t all speak Hindi or Tamil, or any of the many other languages, there by no means has been an erasure in the usage of those languages.
Even in Europe, there are countries with English reading levels higher on paper than in the UK, like Sweden, Denmark, or the Netherlands. I’m sure they consider to think that their culture exists.
There has always been lingua francas, and English is it in all but name.
There have always been lingua francas, and lingua francas have always led to language death. Aramaic killed Akkadian, which killed Sumerian. Greek and Arabic killed Coptic and Assyrian as living...
There have always been lingua francas, and lingua francas have always led to language death. Aramaic killed Akkadian, which killed Sumerian. Greek and Arabic killed Coptic and Assyrian as living languages. Spanish has led Nahuatl and Quechua to near death.
Languages with pre existing population totalling in the tens of millions will be fine. I'm talking about Aragonese, not German.
There weren't alternatives before, and empires didn't care about this sort of thing. There are alternatives now, and we know better.
Languages will die. It's just a natural fact. English itself will die as it's reborn into yet another language which could then be fractured and remade a hundred times. While languages are great...
Languages will die. It's just a natural fact. English itself will die as it's reborn into yet another language which could then be fractured and remade a hundred times. While languages are great to record and remember, you can't force people to speak them when they don't find it useful. Yes it's possible for an aggressor to genocide a language by force, but that's not what is happening in the EU. People are speaking English because it's useful to them, not due to some theoretical gun to their heads.
I'm sorry, I find that a poor defense. People die, yet we still build hospitals. Every language death is a tragedy, as is every human death. We have to do our best to prevent both. There's also...
I'm sorry, I find that a poor defense. People die, yet we still build hospitals. Every language death is a tragedy, as is every human death. We have to do our best to prevent both.
There's also quite a bit of difference between a language evolving into 1000 variants and a language outright going extinct. Spanish and Latin are quite different, but the Spanish still tell the stories of the Romans. The English still talk about Beowulf, even as Old English would seem like gibberish. This is quite different from Romansh being replaced by German, or Assyrian by Arabic. Once that happens, different stories get told, different lessons get passed down. It breaks our link to the past.
But you hit the nail on the head; people learn English because it is useful. Hopefully as translation software improves, it frees up people to learn other languages instead. Maybe one day we'll reach the point where we don't need a lingua franca.
Whatever happened to that contrived international language? I can't think of the name right now but it was similar in the sound of the name to something like Spanish....?
Whatever happened to that contrived international language? I can't think of the name right now but it was similar in the sound of the name to something like Spanish....?
Esperanto is probably what you mean. It's never really been seriously considered. While its grammar is made to be more regular than a natural language and thus it is quite easy to learn, it would...
Esperanto is probably what you mean. It's never really been seriously considered. While its grammar is made to be more regular than a natural language and thus it is quite easy to learn, it would have all the downsides of using English as a lingua franca in terms of politics and culture, but without the large existing base of second-language speakers, learners, and teachers that English has in Europe. Its vocabulary is also heavily skewed towards Romance languages (which is kinda funny given that its creator spoke Russian, German, Yiddish, and Polish iirc).
Uh ? I think it's more a function of demographics than one language being more dominant. The demographics evolution of the different linguistics region follows the same evolution (I don't find any...
Even in countries with a strong commitment to multilingualism (Switzerland) one langauge often seems to become dominant (Alemenic german).
Uh ?
I think it's more a function of demographics than one language being more dominant. The demographics evolution of the different linguistics region follows the same evolution (I don't find any significant difference over time when looking at the official numbers).
Or perhaps you meant at the political level ? My understanding is that each MP can speak his/her own language for official public matters (there's a live interpreter team), and are expected to have at least a passing knowledge of the other language when participating in a workgroup. It's probably easier to speak German due to the sheer numbers of German speaker, but I don't think there's active discrimination. There's even a federal councilor who's famously bad at language other than French (Guy Parmelin).
one langauge often seems to become dominant (Alemenic german).
Swiss German dialect is whole spectrum rather than a unique thing, and they aren't all mutually understandable. Walliserdüütsch is famously cryptic for almost everyone.
I'm sorry, but a British columnist writing for the Guardian about how English is vital to European democracy is just too much. What a huge coincidence that the language he thinks is absolutely...
I'm sorry, but a British columnist writing for the Guardian about how English is vital to European democracy is just too much. What a huge coincidence that the language he thinks is absolutely vital also happens to be his native language.
I completely agree with you w.r.t. Axel Springer. To be fair to The Guardian though, I think they are one of the better (if not the best) players out there; it is held as part of the Scott Trust...
I completely agree with you w.r.t. Axel Springer.
To be fair to The Guardian though, I think they are one of the better (if not the best) players out there; it is held as part of the Scott Trust (which despite its name is not a trust, but rather a limited company with a very strict set of articles of association), is editorially independent, and generally maintains a high standard of journalism.
I think the EU is an interesting case when considering multilingual structures. English is a kind of Lingua Franca for EU countries, but it's very non-European in many ways (see e.g. France whose government is fiercely protective of its language in light of its decline and sees English as an "Anglo" foreign influence). However there isn't really a good alternative candidate (e.g. French is not widely spoken in 'eastern' European countries and Scandinavia, Germany can't really promote German in the same way because it comes across as Germanic nationalism) so if not English I think the other alternative is multilingualism, which the EU is trying to facilitate (spending roughly 1bn annually). The problem here is that minority languages end up marginalised because it's too impractical to treat them as coequal (or at least most systems seem to tend towards one language). Even in countries with a strong commitment to multilingualism (Switzerland) one langauge often seems to become dominant (Alemenic german).
With the UK leaving the EU, it's more obvious than ever that English should simply be the lingua franca, which for all intents and purposes it already is. Now, it no longer even favors one country in the EU (ok, Ireland is still there, but it's not a great power within the EU, so I doubt anyone would object over Irish favoritism).
It's important to look at the state of English - today, there are MORE non-native speakers of English than native speakers of English. Even within the Anglosphere, America has become the culturally dominant English native country, and much of English's development as a natural language is pushed by American culture.
It's far from simply the language of the angles by now.
I will always resist this. Adopting English isn't cost free. A language encodes stories, morals, ways of looking at the world. It also degrades the languages around it, and their stories. A lingua franca strangles endangered languages.
I'd rather the EU continue to promote multilingualism, and hope that translation technology keeps getting better and better. An ideal world is one where one is able to simply speak Romansh, and that that's enough to live in the world.
These are not mutually exclusive, adopting a lingua franca does not mean the death of your native language. Even in countries like India where English is an official language and often used between people who don’t all speak Hindi or Tamil, or any of the many other languages, there by no means has been an erasure in the usage of those languages.
Even in Europe, there are countries with English reading levels higher on paper than in the UK, like Sweden, Denmark, or the Netherlands. I’m sure they consider to think that their culture exists.
There has always been lingua francas, and English is it in all but name.
There have always been lingua francas, and lingua francas have always led to language death. Aramaic killed Akkadian, which killed Sumerian. Greek and Arabic killed Coptic and Assyrian as living languages. Spanish has led Nahuatl and Quechua to near death.
Languages with pre existing population totalling in the tens of millions will be fine. I'm talking about Aragonese, not German.
There weren't alternatives before, and empires didn't care about this sort of thing. There are alternatives now, and we know better.
Languages will die. It's just a natural fact. English itself will die as it's reborn into yet another language which could then be fractured and remade a hundred times. While languages are great to record and remember, you can't force people to speak them when they don't find it useful. Yes it's possible for an aggressor to genocide a language by force, but that's not what is happening in the EU. People are speaking English because it's useful to them, not due to some theoretical gun to their heads.
I'm sorry, I find that a poor defense. People die, yet we still build hospitals. Every language death is a tragedy, as is every human death. We have to do our best to prevent both.
There's also quite a bit of difference between a language evolving into 1000 variants and a language outright going extinct. Spanish and Latin are quite different, but the Spanish still tell the stories of the Romans. The English still talk about Beowulf, even as Old English would seem like gibberish. This is quite different from Romansh being replaced by German, or Assyrian by Arabic. Once that happens, different stories get told, different lessons get passed down. It breaks our link to the past.
But you hit the nail on the head; people learn English because it is useful. Hopefully as translation software improves, it frees up people to learn other languages instead. Maybe one day we'll reach the point where we don't need a lingua franca.
Whatever happened to that contrived international language? I can't think of the name right now but it was similar in the sound of the name to something like Spanish....?
Esperanto is probably what you mean. It's never really been seriously considered. While its grammar is made to be more regular than a natural language and thus it is quite easy to learn, it would have all the downsides of using English as a lingua franca in terms of politics and culture, but without the large existing base of second-language speakers, learners, and teachers that English has in Europe. Its vocabulary is also heavily skewed towards Romance languages (which is kinda funny given that its creator spoke Russian, German, Yiddish, and Polish iirc).
Thats it, Esperanto. I wanted to say like Espanol but it seemed awkward to say
No worries, I understand. I learned Esperanto in high school so I'm glad I got to share my trivia lol
I'm curious to know what country you're from, that teaches Esperanto in high school...
lol no I learned it in my free time when I was in high school, I was just a nerd with too much time on their hands and no friends.
That would be esperanto?
No one can really be bothered to learn it so it's never taken off.
Yes
To whom?
Uh ?
I think it's more a function of demographics than one language being more dominant. The demographics evolution of the different linguistics region follows the same evolution (I don't find any significant difference over time when looking at the official numbers).
Or perhaps you meant at the political level ? My understanding is that each MP can speak his/her own language for official public matters (there's a live interpreter team), and are expected to have at least a passing knowledge of the other language when participating in a workgroup. It's probably easier to speak German due to the sheer numbers of German speaker, but I don't think there's active discrimination. There's even a federal councilor who's famously bad at language other than French (Guy Parmelin).
Swiss German dialect is whole spectrum rather than a unique thing, and they aren't all mutually understandable. Walliserdüütsch is famously cryptic for almost everyone.
I'm sorry, but a British columnist writing for the Guardian about how English is vital to European democracy is just too much. What a huge coincidence that the language he thinks is absolutely vital also happens to be his native language.
I completely agree with you w.r.t. Axel Springer.
To be fair to The Guardian though, I think they are one of the better (if not the best) players out there; it is held as part of the Scott Trust (which despite its name is not a trust, but rather a limited company with a very strict set of articles of association), is editorially independent, and generally maintains a high standard of journalism.