The love of all things English begins at a young age in non-English-speaking countries, promoted by pop culture, Hollywood movies, fast-food brands, sports events and TV shows.
Later, with English skills and international education qualifications from high school, the path is laid to prestigious international universities in the English-speaking world and employment opportunities at home and abroad.
But those opportunities aren't distributed equally across socioeconomic groups. Global education in English is largely reserved for middle-class students.
This is creating a divide between those inside the global English proficiency ecosystem and those relegated to parts of the education system where such opportunities don't exist.
[...] It's unfortunate so many schools view an English-speaking model as the gold standard and overlook their own local or regional wisdoms. We need to remember that encouraging young people to join a privileged English-speaking élite educated in foreign universities is only one of many possible educational options.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @04:31AM (6 children)
The other option being sold in to sex slavery and taught to give blowjobs until you age out at 22.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @11:47AM (3 children)
Since BLM is so fucking important... Drop English and use their superior language that they call Jive talk.
"My mf'ing n****r drive failed today"
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @01:21PM (2 children)
Technically, it's called Ebonics and it reflects a rich cultural heritage.
(Score: 1) by Snort on Tuesday August 11 2020, @03:50PM (1 child)
You might want to google AAVE. African American Vernacular English.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 11 2020, @08:40PM
I don't think most people realize that AAVE is a legitimate creole, not just a low dialect of standard American English. Somewhat like Jamaican Patois, there are recognizable grammatical, syntactic, and phonemic differences from the acrolect. It's always interesting to see languages derive and change over time. That said, I find it grating to listen to and difficult to follow thanks to my poor hearing...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday August 11 2020, @02:26PM (1 child)
Some immigrants have career planning past age 22. I would point out that all of Trump's wives are immigrants. So he likes some immigrants which can be hired to do a job no American would ever do.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @04:08PM
Some immigrants have career planning past age 22.
Translation for "some": Give best head to rich old person.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday August 11 2020, @04:46AM (21 children)
Mandarin
Wu
Yue
Xiang
Min
Gan
Hakka
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Tuesday August 11 2020, @05:09AM (20 children)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday August 11 2020, @05:20AM (19 children)
I'm just saying that East Asia languages might dominate communications in the new empire.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @05:38AM
Having lived in China, English definitely isn't a lingua franca there by any means. AFAIK, that holds true for Japan also.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 11 2020, @12:08PM (1 child)
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @08:25PM
When Mandarin Becomes the Global Language of Education We Risk Losing Other, Better, Ways of Learning.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday August 11 2020, @01:42PM (14 children)
No, don't really see that happening any time soon. English replaced French as the international language because England colonized a large swath of the Earth and held it long enough to train the civil servants to use it as the language of administration, then tagged off with the United States which is the world's sole superpower. China, Korea, or Japan would probably need to do something like that to make their languages the lingua franca.
There are a couple more wrinkles for them to overcome, too. First, Mandarin is not even the lingua franca of China. Officially it is, and is branded as "common speech" (普通话), but on the ground people outside the northeast tend to speak their own dialects, be it Cantonese, Shanghainese, Fukienese, or what-have-you. Second, Japan and China hate each other, will never willingly accept the hegemony of the other, much less will ever speak each other's language. Korea, the man in the middle, is a wily player but they have a tradition of independence (주체) that indicates they'd resist both of the others.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday August 11 2020, @03:12PM (4 children)
> the United States which is the world's sole superpower
_military_ superpower. We've got some competition when it comes to economic and political superpowers.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday August 11 2020, @04:37PM (2 children)
"Superpower" comprises those areas, plus cultural hegemony and technological prowess, which the US also enjoys. China, notably, is trying to extend its economic power to other spheres but has only really succeeded at technological prowess so far; it remains to be seen if the Chinese coronavirus will blunt its accession to other areas as well as its current economic power. Despite external appearances, Chinese society is fractious.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Wednesday August 12 2020, @12:54AM (1 child)
The coronavirus is a single speedbump. In 10 years, it won't be thought of as anything other than another example of mainland China being a disease incubator.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday August 12 2020, @12:57AM
You might be right. But there are signs that a structural reconfiguration, and possibly a second cold war, are brewing; the coronavirus could catalyze that.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday August 11 2020, @11:00PM
Our kids are watching your movies, and listening to your rock n roll though.
Bands like The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, for instance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @03:15PM (2 children)
English replaced French because Germany, France and England fought each other into the ground in WW2, while the US was unscathed.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Freeman on Tuesday August 11 2020, @07:18PM
I wouldn't say unscathed, Pearl Harbor did happen, but that was a fairly strategic strike at a military target. Not like carpet bombing taking out vast swathes of our historical buildings and cultural heritage.
All things considered, things would have turned out far worse for most of Europe (except, maybe Germany), if the USA hadn't gotten involved when it did. Germany had quite the steamroller going for a good portion of the war.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @08:27PM
German was the language of science until the 2 world wars made German lingua nofuckinwayqua.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @03:26PM (1 child)
"Chinese" is only a language because China is a country. The only difference between a dialect and a language is that a language has its own army. The various Chinese "dialects" are no more closely related than the Romance languages of Europe.
What's more, there are a lot of speakers of Chinese languages, but most of them are Chinese, or recent Chinese ancestry. People all over the world learn English (and Spanish).
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday August 11 2020, @05:07PM
"Chinese" as the name of the language is a misapprehension by non-Chinese. Foreigners think "Chinese" is a monolithic language and ethnic group. They don't know that term comprises many dialects, as you pointed out, when what they mostly mean is Mandarin; they don't know the term comprises many ethnicities, when what they mostly mean is Han. But "dialect" is even a tricky term here because while the written form of the language is the same, the spoken forms are mutually unintelligible.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @04:58PM (1 child)
Note that in that same epoch, the international language of science was German and not French.
If your chosen profession needs an university education at all, you need the language that the scientific output in that field is in. All the SJWs in the world climbing to the rooftops and screaming "DIVERSITY!!!" till hoarse, will not change that plain fact one single bit.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday August 11 2020, @05:11PM
That's debatable. In chemistry, maybe.
But you raise a good point: for some areas there are different, specific common tongues. For example, if you're gonna move in the world of opera you're still gonna need a command of Italian. English wraps around all those, though.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday August 11 2020, @05:56PM
Kinda why I used the loose term "East Asian" instead of "Mandarin" or Chinese" specifically
Heh, more than we'll ever know...
But you're right. Asia didn't expand globally like the Brits did, but what the Brits did through war, China, or Asia in general, might accomplish with business.
A country that makes the victim pay for his own execution is bound to be very successful /s
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2, Touché) by fustakrakich on Tuesday August 11 2020, @08:46PM
I also use the term "East Asia" from Orwell's map, the most accurate anyone will find today
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @04:21AM
Unlikely, not enough syllables and the writing system is unwieldy at best. Its not a bad language, but it's never going to be a major language of interchange based on the barrier to entry alone.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Arik on Tuesday August 11 2020, @04:51AM
Have nothing to do with them, unless you're being compensated upfront.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by jelizondo on Tuesday August 11 2020, @05:04AM (28 children)
English is a wonderful language; very good for technical and scientific issues, but not expressive enough for other matters.
You can make rocketman out of “rocket” and “man” and the meaning is understood; but other languages are more expressive of feelings (German, schadenfreude and other words [umich.edu]), less ambiguous (Spanish & French) or more romantic (I vote for French).
In English you have to learn how each word is pronounced (tomato, tomato) whereas other languages (Spanish & French) are very strict: you learn the rules and you’re golden.
Should people study English? Of course. But other languages have their own beauty and can bring a better understanding of human nature.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by NateMich on Tuesday August 11 2020, @05:24AM (1 child)
That's nice, but like everything else in life, we chose the winner or loser based on things other than what is the most elegant or the most logical.
It's just how it is.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday August 11 2020, @05:18PM
"Better" is just an opinion, anyway. "Different" would be a better descriptor.
The Oksapmin have a base 27 counting system, for example [mentalfloss.com]
If the correct answer to a random question has a base 27 root you're a lot more likely to spot that pattern in a base 27 counting system. And, if the goal is to discover as much stuff as possible then having a person familiar with that base 27 system is probably going to give some unique insight compared to the rest of us base 10 folk.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @05:34AM (3 children)
As a German, I can say that "gloating" comes rather close to "Schadenfreude". For "verschlimmbessern", there is the Chinese phrase of "drawing legs on a snake", which is pretty expressive in English too.
(Score: 2) by Oakenshield on Tuesday August 11 2020, @08:13PM (1 child)
Gloating is a perfectly cromulent word too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @08:31PM
Covfefe yourself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @04:25AM
Not to mention that schadenfreude is effectively an English word at this point, you use the word and people are likely to know what it means.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by canopic jug on Tuesday August 11 2020, @05:39AM (9 children)
Based on a sample of 17 languages, it looks like human languages have optimized at a bit rate of around 39.15 bits per second [sciencemag.org]. Those with more complex syllables are used more slowly. Also, what those bits are used for is a different matter and much depends on what the language is using each of its 39.15 bits (per second) for. It has otherwise long been acknowledged that some languages are more precise [theatlantic.com], such as Ithkuil (not in that study), and others, such as Mandarin, less so and depend more on context.
What English has going for it, is that it is the language of ICT. Without ICT, you aren't going anywhere these days, so English comes along for the ride so to speak. If usage remained within the domain and the local languages were used for everything else, then it would not be much of an issue. However, that is not the case.
A problem there is that is because English then has an outsized influence on the way of thinking, younger generations start to speak a creole or pidgin instead of their own native language. The problem quickly becomes political when you look at the centralized control over the content and style of popular films [axios.com], music, and literature produced in English. Whichever interest controls the production and / or distribution of said works controls the behavior of coming generations. We've seen it for decades already. Look at the attitudes, values, and mores which have become mainstreamed over the last half century or so mostly through shoehorning into nearly every last US-produced television show or movie.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @03:20PM (4 children)
ICT?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @08:33PM (1 child)
Ice Cream.... no, I got nothing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @09:31PM
Toupe
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday August 12 2020, @01:10AM (1 child)
Information and COmmunications Technology. I googled it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @09:20AM
Good for admitting that instead of pretending to be a know-it-all like too many others would.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 11 2020, @08:59PM (3 children)
The theoretical bandwidth measurement doesn't take into account all the context, though. Japanese, for example, can in spoken form omit something like 2/3 of what you'd think would be a full sentence and still be perfectly understandable due to context and the previous sentence(s). The structure itself is a fairly simple SOV word-order one with particles (wa, o, e, ni) and the conjugation of verbs is agglutinative; pick a root and change the stem based on tense, negation, etc. It's all the more subtle things like tone of voice, choice of pronouns for speaker and recipient, politeness levels, and so on where things get seriously complicated.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @09:36PM (2 children)
You can do that in English too. There are many spoken conversations that would be very hard to render coherently in written form. Vernacular usage is unrelated to the ease of use a language has for international communication though - everyone there is going to be doing it "by the book".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @09:30AM (1 child)
Why use lot word few do trick? Sho' Eng. g'd 'nuff tokkin'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @03:40PM
Mostly for clarity and reliability. The fewer words you use the more you have to count on subtext and agreements in order to be understood and the less flexibility you have. Sure, we could ditch the word "the" in English and generally be understood, but there are times when the difference between "the Whitehouse" and "a white house is important. Simply uttering "Whitehouse" would not indicate which one and you'd have to make assumptions about which one it is. If you're in D.C. then it could be either one, you wouldn't really know without more information.
We could also ditch some of our color words as well, some languages don't have a word to describe the color of the ocean and English lacks a few color words that other languages have as well. We've added a crapton of them for paint, but they're not really used by people that aren't involved in painting and probably just as widely available in other languages.
(Score: 2) by mrpg on Tuesday August 11 2020, @08:25AM (1 child)
I am agree.
English pretty good.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @10:29AM
All our words are belong to you. We share you long time.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday August 11 2020, @03:30PM (6 children)
English is quite flexible and broadly distributed. I rather wish it would adopt the default adjective/adverb positioning from Spanish, etc. though. Ever since learning Spanish I've thought it improves clarity having the core concept expressed first and then described, rather than listing the description and then the concept - "The apple big, round, red fell from the tree..." rather than "The big, round, red apple fell from the tree".
The bigger issue though I think isn't whether English should be studied, but whether English should be the language in which education on unrelated topics takes place. It certainly seems to have an advantage over many, particularly in technical topics, since if has the Germanic word-combining feature (rather watered down, but still there). However, educating in English seems to also tend to involve the English/American _style_ of education, whose design was explicitly based on the German(?) schools whose primary purpose was political indoctrination. As a result it comes with a heaping helping of "This is Truth. Believe it." A.k.a. rigid memorization and regurgitation, rather than how to think on your own. Not that we're anywhere near the the worst in that regard, but I think we benefit greatly from a certain level of American cultural anarchy as a counterpoint, which other cultures that borrow our educational design often lack.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jelizondo on Tuesday August 11 2020, @06:54PM (5 children)
“Del árbol cayó una roja manzana” or “Una roja manzana del árbol cayó” are both proper Spanish, even if the first form would be qualified as poetic. (Don’t ask me, that’s the way the dice rolls.)
As far as my limited experience allows me to say, I think that education systems are quite similar the world over, except perhaps for Montesori schools [wikipedia.org], so I don’t see English or German as the cause of repetition, memorization and regurgitation.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday August 11 2020, @08:12PM (4 children)
The language isn't the cause - it's that the school systems that were created by those who speak those languages were originally designed specifically for indoctrination. Those systems have since been copied by many others as well, because they are very good at turning children into useful cogs in the economy. But there are lots of other options as well, especially if you look at the traditional educational systems where British and American influence hasn't had much impact yet.
But if you're specifically talking about schools teaching in English, then you're _almost_certainly_ talking about schools that are designed for a particular kind of indoctrination.
Basically, English-style schools have spread far beyond those who use the English language - but those which use the English language are almost certainly English-style.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 11 2020, @09:01PM
IIRC (from a class way back in college for an elective) this is referred to as "social efficiency curriculum" and was popularized by Durkheim. It's kind of frightening to think about it...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @09:40PM (2 children)
Are there school systems which are NOT designed for indoctrination? I can't think of any, even historically.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Wednesday August 12 2020, @03:36AM
For starters think... pretty much every "tribal" education system, ever.
The apprenticeship system is another good example.
There's lots of examples of education systems that are not even school systems, much less indoctrination systems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @04:32AM
Pretty much all of them prior to the Prussians observing that they couldn't find good soldiers. As prevalent as that style of education has been, the reality is that school systems using it are a modern invention. Before there you wouldn't have enough students learning the same things to make use of it anyways.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday August 11 2020, @11:17PM
I have a Finnish friend who speaks Finnish, Swedish, Russian, German and English and he reckons english was the most annoying to learn, because "You have all these rules, then you just ignore them".
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday August 12 2020, @03:30AM (1 child)
>other languages are more expressive of feelings (German, schadenfreude
But shadenfreude is *also* a word in English.
I hypothesize that that is one of English's strengths, both as a language and culture (American English anyway), to integrate/steal other words without a care.
>In English you have to learn how each word is pronounced
That's because words in English came from all sorts of different languages. It'd be interesting to see a study, but I'd guess that the top few thousand words used by the average American English speaker comes from at least a dozen other languages.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @04:36AM
It is now an English word. It's arguably the reason why English will likely continue being a language of interchange permanently. There may come a time where some other language eclipses it, but it's likely to always be a language of utility in international settings just because of the ease with which you can incorporate foreign words and the fact that the language itself is arguably the most popular creole language out there. The language demands that foreign words be slipped into it whenever needed and it has a massive vocabularly of words as a result. Estimates put the number north of 500k and possibly as high as a million words that are technically English words. The Oxford English Dictionary unabridged version takes up an entire wall and is so large that it can't be revised in it's entirety with any regularity, they have to focus on individual letters at a time.
On top of that, it has strong relationships with several other top 10 languages in terms of vocabulary and grammar making it that much more likely to remain a language of interchange well into the future.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday August 11 2020, @05:29AM (10 children)
Mandarin time
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @11:06AM (4 children)
Joss Whedon was ahead of his time with the English/Mandarin mix in Firefly!
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday August 11 2020, @03:35PM (2 children)
Not really, just a logical extrapolation of current social trends. And he wasn't the first. Once you step outside the blinders of American Exceptionalism you realize that native Mandarin speakers have us outnumbered almost 3 to 1, and China is very rapidly catching up with us in terms of political, economic, technological and industrial power.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @04:58PM (1 child)
Language, culture, mindhsare - these are part of soft power that Chinese don't hold. China doesn't have any soft power. Japan does! Even korea does. India does, but not in English world.
To have soft power you need a certain amount of artistic freedom of expression that simply doesn't exist in China.
There is no time in next 50 years when non-Chinese people are going to learn Mandarin. Chinese are learning English [wikipedia.org] on the other hand. Imagine that - people who seem to have bought half of Australia are learning English.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @04:43AM
People are learning Mandarin, but definitely not on a large scale. The language is just too complicated and of too limited a use for people to need to learn. Most people learning Mandarin are doing so because they're curious about the culture or they want to do business in China. Thanks to the writing system that the language is effectively chained to for all time, it's unlikely that any significant number of people will learn in the future. The loss of so many of their vowel sounds over time has led to a situation where trying to write the language without the characters is incredibly hard to do. They've only got about 1600 identifiable syllables to work with even after accounting for the tones. Without the tones they have fewer than 500. By contrast English has somewhere around 11 or 12 thousand uniquely identifiable syllables making it incredibly easy to use an alphabet with minimal confusion between words. It also makes it easier to change the words, grammar and word order without rendering the sentence gibberish.
(Score: 2) by Oakenshield on Tuesday August 11 2020, @08:18PM
I prefer Portu-Greek from Waterworld.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @05:22PM (4 children)
If I wished to intone rather than speak, Mandarin would be fine. Except what's with all those hieroglyphs - my eyesight ain't what it used to be.
If I wished to clear my throat while speaking, German would do. Except for how the word order I possibly to learn might be able.
If I wished to clear my throat _and_ gag while speaking, Arabic would work. Except with five forms for each of your abjad, your script boasts over a hundred glyphs - and whts wrng wth vwls nywy?
Then Farsi takes Arabic script further into obfuscation with additional sounds/letters.
Spanish is great if distinguishing ser from estar is more important to you than sorting make from do. (It's not to me)
I really tried to love Hindi in college, but failed miserably.
... and the list goes on, Russian, Japanese, Thai, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Swahili, ...etc. - vast collection of scripts and phonics all seemingly designed to bar the gates "we" against the hostile assaults of "them". What a mess!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @08:28PM (1 child)
Swahili? I assume you wanted to learn Swahili so you could access that vast library of fine literature, poetry and science.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @09:25PM
I assume you wanted to learn Swahili so you could access that vast library of fine literature, poetry and science.
No thanks, I prefer to focus on the music and dance.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 11 2020, @09:04PM (1 child)
Regarding Arabic's lack of vowels, that's a common feature of pretty much all Semitic languages all the way back to and probably before Old Testament Hebrew. THAT stuff is written MRRLSSLKTHS ("more or less like this"), meaning no vowel markers *and* no spaces, and it's the vowels in these languages that carry more information than the base concepts expressed by the consonant clusters.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @04:46AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mmz42awTRsA [youtube.com] , it's really interesting because those that grew up with English or most of the European languages probably take it for granted that an alphabet is only reasonable option.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday August 11 2020, @05:53AM (7 children)
but I reckon it's high time the entire world's population spoke one single standard language by default. The hodgepodge of languages that has been our Babel tower for millenia only brought us misunderstanding, hatred and war.
I'm not saying English should be the universal language - although, in many ways, it already is the de-facto default. I'm okay if it's Mandarin, Spanish or Esperanto. But puh-leeze choose one and make it the official compulsory first language everywhere, with the "historical" other languages relegated to second languages the locals can choose to speak between themselves and to amuse the tourists.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @06:55AM
There's first language and there's native tongue. All the countries in the world can decide to swap to English (or whatever language of choice) as their official first language, it still doesn't remove some of the issues around language and opportunity (lack of) as people who still have their native tongue will continue to struggle where it is not English (or whatever language of choice).
Changing native tongue is about changing culture, that requires cultural assimilation... which are typically done via conquest through wars and then subjugating the losing populace to assimilate.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @11:11AM (1 child)
By that logic the whole world should listen to only yacht rock music, drive Toyota's, use Microsoft Windows OS, and eat a strictly vegetarian diet so we're all on the exact same page. I thought the new zeitgeist was all about diversity these days (e.g. I identify as a Klingon language speaker)?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @06:41PM
It's only racial/sexual/other identity related diversity that matters, because everyone's equal, but somehow race and sexual identity makes a difference in matters that have nothing to do with race or sex. Or so the neo-Bolshevik Jews and their useful idiots say.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Tuesday August 11 2020, @03:39PM (1 child)
I don't know, we've got plenty of misunderstanding, hatred, and war even between native English speakers. Might be interesting to do a historic analysis of how bad those have been between same-language groups versus different-language groups, but I suspect there's not actually much difference. The quest for cultural supremacy and power is not going to be quenched by something as simple as being able to understand the insults you're hurling at each other.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @04:49AM
They tend to be less bad as you're expecting things to not translate properly between languages. It's why you have your interpreter interpret to your language and not to the other person's language. It greatly cuts down on shenanigans with purposeful mistranslation. But, when you're speaking the same language and things aren't being clearly communicated, that can get very ugly as all parties involved are supposed to agree about what the language means, but that doesn't always happen.
That's not to say that there haven't been major problems between speakers of different languages, just that they are more likely to be caught as it's expected that some concepts and words won't translate well.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday August 11 2020, @11:20PM
Not sure I'm keen on the compulsion bit. Not that it would work.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hendrikboom on Wednesday August 12 2020, @01:23AM
Perhaps we need a global *second* language, the first languages being whatever children earn at home from their parents and friends.
English is starting to take on that role.
For common regional languages we've had several in the past.
Latin was one in Europe.
Sanskrit was one in India. The important Sanskrit literature was written when it was everyone's second language, at a time when there were no longer any native speakers. If you wanted to communicate with people in the next kingdom over, you and they learned Sanskrit.
-- hendrik
(Score: 5, Interesting) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 11 2020, @06:00AM (16 children)
I would comment, in my native language, but there is no word in Ancient Greek for "English", or even "Anglishe sprache", since those barbarians, beyond the pillars of Hercules, were unknown to us. And why anyone should adopt the speech of people who paint their naked bodies with blue mud, well, barbarians.
In recent times, I have come to know them, but familiarity has not improved my opinion of them. Anglishe are Germans who failed at being Germans. Saxsons are the same, and the Iceini and Britons and other Celts who melded with them, oh, what a bastard race of white supremacists you have spawned!
Aristarchus out.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday August 11 2020, @07:33AM (3 children)
Blue mud? Back then, Greek didn't even have a word for blue!
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 11 2020, @08:27AM (1 child)
μπλε λάσπη? Modern, I know, but we did have similar back in the day, just less actual experience with naked blue men running at us in battle. Seemed a bit, perverted? Coming from a Greek background. We were all OK with the fighting naked thing, climate permitting. But painting yourself blue? And then the bloody Vikings, what with the Spam, and drinking the urine of horses fed Fly agraic mushrooms. When does that get to be fun?
(for a reference, see Barb's journal on nuking children and other war crimes.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @02:13PM
You are aware the the Celts were natives of Germania before migrating to that island?
That Island has been conquered by the mainland so many times.
The people that made Stone Henge were conquered by the Picts, then they by the Celts, followed by the Anglish, Saxons, and Normans (these being French-Vikings, you see Normandy was named after the Norse that attacked Paris and were given land for their troubles, the Northland Men became known as Normen).
I am pretty sure that I am missing some (I know at least one other came with the Anglish and the Saxons).
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday August 11 2020, @08:13PM
In their defense, they were probably trying to find a reasonable way to word it [youtube.com].
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday August 11 2020, @07:38AM (1 child)
Hey, cut on that, not all barbarians are equal.
The Finno-Ungric culture got your Linux and the Hungarian notation (and Sziklai pair, which is not au pair).
The Polish culture got you not only the North Pole, but the French polish too and, of course, the Polish notation. And don't you forget their sausages (a word that comes from French, the Poms stopped at bangers).
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 11 2020, @08:22AM
Once again c0lo proves his post Warsaw Pact worth. Kudos, sir! (And he can't even speak english, or, at least, only better than Runaway can. )
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @08:39AM (2 children)
More leftist bullshit, but let's hear the idea out. International university applications in the West are way down this year due to coronavirus, stop teaching English as an international language on our way to defunding the humanities so we can keep it that way!
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @09:53AM (1 child)
More rightist bullshit, but let's let them flatuate, while we ram a red-hot iron rod up their anus, and pour molten gold into their mouth. Good enough for Crassus [wikipedia.org], good enough for the alt-right. (And, as usual, it was all Sulla's fault.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @01:12PM
The decline of Blue cities, universities and the cancerous, anti-western and anti-humanist theology they preach. Come on Ari, you love to see it!
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday August 11 2020, @01:51PM
Are you sure about that? We call the Celts "Celts" because the ancient Greeks called them Κελτοί. For all we know they learned the practice of painting their naked bodies with blue mud from you.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Tuesday August 11 2020, @06:01PM
Not quite. Go visit Mycenae (best in winter time) and the little museum documenting the site, and you'll see a map showing the trade relations of the Myceanean empire at 1,400 BC or thereabouts. They had trade relations with the North Sea coast, and knew about what is now the UK (tin mines, if I remember correctly: important in the production of bronze). Their finest swords were imported from there.
A bit more recently, Celtic tribes (i.e. Belgian tribes) started to use coins as payment around 300BC. These coins were initially copies of Greek coins with which they were payed as mercenaries.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday August 11 2020, @11:22PM
You make that sound like a bad thing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @05:01AM (3 children)
That isn't your native language then, you pretentious twat. Unless you grew up in an enclave that never mixed with outsiders in the quite a few centuries since English has become a language, that wouldn't even be possible.
(Score: 1, Troll) by aristarchus on Wednesday August 12 2020, @06:11AM (2 children)
Are you OK, AC? Are you upset about my native tongue? Do you dread and fear the coming downfall of the Donald, the not good people on your side any more? If you wave the flag, we will come for you. Your life is forfeit. Your fortune ruined. Your herpes multiplexed! And you are hereby dis-platformed.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @03:46PM (1 child)
It's worth pointing out that you're a liar and a fraud.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday August 12 2020, @05:58PM
And you know this, how? Please, noble and best AC, refrain from claims you are not able to substantiate!
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday August 11 2020, @06:14AM (4 children)
Rosetta Stone is currently offering a $200 lifetime subscription [rosettastone.com] to their 24 languages on the web and via their app. Dunno if it's a good way to learn, but considering how long they've been around, it's not *that* much for something you may want to try out later or over time.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday August 11 2020, @01:54PM
Pimsleur courses are awesome and spoken-only, so they're good for using while you're commuting or exercising. You can get their whole catalogue off BitTorrent.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2020, @06:45PM
slaveware
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @05:10AM
It's not, the best way. Basically all the ways of learning that people charge for are bunk. There are a few exceptions, but for the most part they don't work. The only way to learn a language is to use the language and pick up the bits as you go. It's the only way that universally works for everybody across every socioeconomic group. Individuals who never learn any languages at all are exceedingly rare and are usually people who never encounter other people or have severe cognitive problems.
The best way is essentially to learn the phrases for things like "How do you say ____" "Please repeat that more slowly" Please spell that for me" and the like. Over time, it builds on itself and you do learn. It's just not very fast and not very pleasant so people want a shortcut. Ultimately, if you learn 5 new words in the language a day, you're on pace to be completely fluent within a matter of a few years. And within 10 to 15 years have a level of knowledge about the language typical of a native speaker that's graduated college.
The biggest problem with those programs though is that unless they involve talking with other people, there's a massive ledge that you eventually have to leap off of and hope that you've got enough language to manage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2020, @03:49PM
Depending upon the language, you can get a lot of time with a native speaker for $200, especially if you're willing or able to help them with their language skills. I remember when I was working in China that the going rate for foreigner experts teaching English outside of the school was something like $17 an hour at the time. For the Chinese, you'd pay less, but you'd still be paying them enough money to make it worth their while and legitimately pay a decent wage. For that same $200 you could probably get a surprising amount of time from a typical Mandarin speaker.