anarres
anarchist revolutionary
Quintuple post? 
Random thoughts about Europe and the World at large.
- Thread starter onejayhawk
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PantheraTigris2
Deity
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Yeah, the server's having trouble (as usual).
Anyway, I thought you were seriously trying to contend that Spanish would in ANY way, whatsoever - take ground on English, here in the USA. Not going to happen. Lots of people have migrated here from Central & South America - and they of course still speak they're native language.
But they'll be no different than countless millions of migrants to the United States, over several centuries.
...they will/are adapting to the national language.
Anyway, I thought you were seriously trying to contend that Spanish would in ANY way, whatsoever - take ground on English, here in the USA. Not going to happen. Lots of people have migrated here from Central & South America - and they of course still speak they're native language.
But they'll be no different than countless millions of migrants to the United States, over several centuries.
...they will/are adapting to the national language.
Bud2998
Bud the Ironfist
Though, the EU is none of my business or concern, I agree with MrPresident that English should be the EU's official language.
It's common knowledge that English is the closest thing to an international language on this planet. Not that many in the world speak it as their native language, but many people speak it as their second language fluently enough to get them by. Why not use it? Just being different for the sake of being different doesn't make any sense. What's the point of that? Diversity between everyone wouldn't work either. You just need everyone to know a common language, and English would be the best candidate as a lot of the Internet and much of the world speak it.
The EU would need a single language understood by everyone in order for your plans to work out as much as you'd wish. As said before, it'd be a real good thing if you could move from some place like Italy to Poland or France without struggling with the different languages. It'd help spread out the population in Europe.
Of course, you wouldn't ever completely get rid of your languages. That'd be ridiculous to expect something like that so soon. If you ask me, the best way to do this is to teach kids just starting out in elementary school English. Sure, it'd be confusing, but by the time they're teens and have taken plenty of years of English, they'll know it well enough to be fluent. It's not like everyone's native language would be abolished right away, or even die out. Just eventually, about everything would have to be written in English and whatever language is the country's native language for things, such as food menus.
The only way the EU could ever have a common language is by requiring kids to learn it at an early age as a second language, so in 30-40 years when those kids are running Europe, it'll get going along nicely.
It's common knowledge that English is the closest thing to an international language on this planet. Not that many in the world speak it as their native language, but many people speak it as their second language fluently enough to get them by. Why not use it? Just being different for the sake of being different doesn't make any sense. What's the point of that? Diversity between everyone wouldn't work either. You just need everyone to know a common language, and English would be the best candidate as a lot of the Internet and much of the world speak it.
The EU would need a single language understood by everyone in order for your plans to work out as much as you'd wish. As said before, it'd be a real good thing if you could move from some place like Italy to Poland or France without struggling with the different languages. It'd help spread out the population in Europe.
Of course, you wouldn't ever completely get rid of your languages. That'd be ridiculous to expect something like that so soon. If you ask me, the best way to do this is to teach kids just starting out in elementary school English. Sure, it'd be confusing, but by the time they're teens and have taken plenty of years of English, they'll know it well enough to be fluent. It's not like everyone's native language would be abolished right away, or even die out. Just eventually, about everything would have to be written in English and whatever language is the country's native language for things, such as food menus.
The only way the EU could ever have a common language is by requiring kids to learn it at an early age as a second language, so in 30-40 years when those kids are running Europe, it'll get going along nicely.
onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
This is not true. South Texas takes quite a chunk also. The problem with finding work is that they have a pack mentality in many cases. One person can speak some English and he (not she mostly) hooks up with someone who speaks a little Spanish to get the team work. Naturally its a buyers market and the work is often long, hard and badly paid. Harvest, ditch digging, dirt shoveling etc. They are handicapped by a lack of the commonly used language.
That being said, I have been to Kmart in border areas where the clerks dont speak English. The number of people who come across the border to shop (and pay sales tax) is astounding. It reminds me of a comment about the opening of East Berlin: "They came, they saw, they did a little shopping...."
BTW Its funny in a way. Both the two longest threads I ever started wound up being about English as an official/semiofficial language. This one has only the vaguest similarity to the original post. Cest la Vie.
J
PS My wife's grandfather immigrated from Italy in 1907. He never went to school, but he memorized a new word from the dictionary every night for 20 years. His daughters all (!) went to college and went on to teach school or do bookkeeping.
test_specimen
hope lost
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I don't think that Europe needs a language that is as international as possible. It needs a language that is as easy to adopt as possible. But depending on your background one language is easier to learn than another. E.g. I know hardly any French who can speak proper English (no offense meant), because they stick to their accent.
Spanish is at least as easy to learn as English and a lot of French and German have Spanish as their second or third language. French isn't too hard either (at least if they would scrap the Subjonctif). And it is spoken in parts of northern Africa and Asia.
Also when I was on holiday in NY last year I could go into a restaurant and order in English as well as Spanish. Even army recruitment is done partly in Spanish.
The only countries in Europe where you can be sure that everyone speaks decent English as a second language are the Scandinavian ones. I also started to learn English in elementary school, but if it was not for interest, I might have ended up like a lot of my collegues at university with a very limited vocabulary and knowledge of the language. But after my studies I plan to work outside Austria as well (if I get a job), perhaps my collegues plan to stay here for the rest of their lives.
Spanish is at least as easy to learn as English and a lot of French and German have Spanish as their second or third language. French isn't too hard either (at least if they would scrap the Subjonctif). And it is spoken in parts of northern Africa and Asia.
Also when I was on holiday in NY last year I could go into a restaurant and order in English as well as Spanish. Even army recruitment is done partly in Spanish.
The only countries in Europe where you can be sure that everyone speaks decent English as a second language are the Scandinavian ones. I also started to learn English in elementary school, but if it was not for interest, I might have ended up like a lot of my collegues at university with a very limited vocabulary and knowledge of the language. But after my studies I plan to work outside Austria as well (if I get a job), perhaps my collegues plan to stay here for the rest of their lives.
Attachments
MrPresident
Anglo-Saxon Liberal
That is very short-term thinking.
Exactly. You need English if you plan on working in a different country because it is the international language.
The European Union forcing something on citizens against their will?
Never! Anyway I never said anything about forcing. Of course it would be up to the people to decide what the official language of the European Union should be. I plan on trying to learn Spanish as well.
test_specimen
hope lost
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When I worked in France (though it was only a summer job) I got along without speaking a word of English.
MrPresident
Anglo-Saxon Liberal
You mean the French don't speak English if they don't have too? Never!
onejayhawk
Afflicted with reason
The thing that international languages have lacked is flexibility. I recall someone in his sig that stated something like, "English does not borrow words from other languages so much as drag them into a dark alley and mug them." It's easy to learn rnough to make do, but fiendishly difficult to learn well. I mean why in God's green Earth are there two dozen tenses? And the synonymns and homonymns.
But nothing else has the wealth of variability all those synonymns and homonymns bring. Try rendering good prose into another language and it comes out half again longer. Poetry is even worse. The biggest problem to my mind is the lack of standardized, phonetic spelling. Plus all thoise Americans that wont learn anything else.
J
PS The USArmy may recruit in Spanish, but the written work is done only in English. Learn or die.
But nothing else has the wealth of variability all those synonymns and homonymns bring. Try rendering good prose into another language and it comes out half again longer. Poetry is even worse. The biggest problem to my mind is the lack of standardized, phonetic spelling. Plus all thoise Americans that wont learn anything else.
J
PS The USArmy may recruit in Spanish, but the written work is done only in English. Learn or die.
MrPresident
Anglo-Saxon Liberal
Pillager, Curt, I believe it is my turn...Too bloody right. Our American "cousins" still haven't got the hang of it.
Yago
came undone
International languages come, international languages go. Some time ago it was Latin, then it was French, now it's English. Which language is the next and when, only time will tell.
The latin language speakers in south of Europe usually have a hard time to learn English. The northern Europeans usually have no problem at all with learning English. The Slavic (Sp ?) speaking people have no problem at all learning any of the language spoken in western Europe, because their language is far more complicated and the other languages are very simplistic compared to theirs, so... what's the problem with learning 2 or 3 langauges ? It's not so complicated.
By the way, on an English speaking board, hm, might there be some unrepresentative bias for English ?
willemvanoranje
Curitibano
actually, we learn French, English and German in school. I have Spanish on top of that as well. No problem.
about the lingua franca, you forget Dutch. For a period of 100 years or so, it was the international language
Just cuz we are such good traders and ship builders. 
MrPresident
Anglo-Saxon Liberal
I don't remember French ever being the international language. And I would like to point out a slight problem with using history to predict the future, circumstances change. At the moment we have an unprecedented amount of communication across the entire globe and it is only going to get better. I think that would be a major factor in the longevity of an international language and it hasn't existed until now. So, who knows how much effect it would have.
The internet is something like 90% in English.
We learn maths and science instead.
test_specimen
hope lost
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If you read Tolstoi for example you might notice that whole passages are in French (off course depending on the translation, but usually there are). French has been the common language in noble families for centuries, even used in dayly life.
It might be wrong to think that anyone who learns another language has had no maths or science at school.
willemvanoranje
Curitibano
Oh really you have those in England already? You guys are really catching up! Keep up the good work!
MrPresident
Anglo-Saxon Liberal
That's what in-breeding with do for ya.
Yes, but surely the more time you spend learning foreign languages the less time you spend learning other subjects. Unless you somehow manipulate the space-time continuum, which you probably won't be able to do because you haven't spend enough time learning about science.
Yeah, Stephen Hawkings told me about it.
willemvanoranje
Curitibano
Nice, so you guys are actually at about the same level. (btw, it was my post)
We could have more school. And the other way around: the more you spend on learning science and math, the less you learn foreign languages and culture. Studying a foreign language (and with that the culture) helps understanding and accepting things that are different, not learning foreign languages isolates.
MrPresident
Anglo-Saxon Liberal
You need statistics to say something like that. I presume you have some.
Yeah, lock the kids up for longer. That will help them learn better.
Here's a cultural difference for you. Britain values science and maths more than foreign languages.
Are you sure on that statement? I have been to several different countries and it's a lot easier to communicate in spanish than english. IMO if there were to be an international language than it would definitly be spanish.
Try not to believe everything on American TV. Hell, even in America many businesses automatic phone recordings ask you to press 1 for english. My point is shouldn't the recordings be asking you to press 1 for espanol.
As for the learning curve, I would have to say spanish is a lot easier ( just ask my kids
)
willemvanoranje
Curitibano
actually I don't, it was more of a question, but I guess I forgot the question mark.
Originally posted by MrPresident
Yeah, lock the kids up for longer. That will help them learn better.
You need statistics to say something like that. I presume you have some?
no problem with that, values are different even within a family. But what foreign languages do you learn at school?
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