Multilingualism - a waste of money?

Dughorm

Multilingualism is the European preference at the moment and the EU and governments pump billions into encouraging multi-language learning programmes, language exchanges, document translation and so on.

But is it really working? Will this be the case in 50 years?

There was a time when Esperanto looked like it might take off but the tide turned. I think Multilingualism is slowly giving way to English only which I think is a pity.

So what do you think? I've put up a poll with 4 options
1. Multilingualism - keep things as they are
2. Everyone should speak English - because it's the language of business, only have English documents and invest in helping everyone speak English -
3. Everyone should speak in a different language e.g. French or German.
3. Give Esperanto another shot - it's fair for everyone.

LeTickler

Well ok within europe we should probably try for everyone speaking english.

But for the rest of the world dont even try. Spanish is probably the logical first choice for a world language.

sonny.knowles

Too many vested interests for this to change. Just look at Ireland and Irish.

biko

English is a minority language in Europe, but it's common as a second language.
We should all speak German, Adolf would have wanted it that way.

sonny.knowles

biko wrote: »

English is a minority language in Europe, but it's common as a second language.
We should all speak German, Adolf would have wanted it that way.

Someone should have told Merkel, she seems to have other ideas, looks like she want's Europe speaking arabic.

HalloweenJack

The world would be a very boring place if we all spoke the same language.

mzungu

Poll needs an option for Mandarin.

Eugene Norman

LeTickler wrote: »

Well ok within europe we should probably try for everyone speaking english.

But for the rest of the world dont even try. Spanish is probably the logical first choice for a world language.

English is the official or dominant second language in far more countries.

Not that I think that European countries are going to abandon their own languages of course.

4zn76tysfajdxp

biko wrote: »

English is a minority language in Europe, but it's common as a second language.
We should all speak German, Adolf would have wanted it that way.

sonny.knowles wrote: »

Someone should have told Merkel, she seems to have other ideas, looks like she want's Europe speaking arabic.

And Putin wants us to speak Russian! lol!

sonny.knowles

OSI wrote: »

5 posts in. Nice.

Well the thread had already been Godwinned in 4, needed to work hard to top that.

Captain Chaos

LeTickler wrote: »

Well ok within europe we should probably try for everyone speaking english.

But for the rest of the world dont even try. Spanish is probably the logical first choice for a world language.

Air traffic control world wide common language is English so there is a start. It's not Spanish for a reason.

The Randy Riverbeast

English would probably make the most sense as it is already learnt by a lot as their second language . I like the idea of something like Esperanto but I doubt it would take off.

Dughorm

Eugene Norman wrote: »

Not that I think that European countries are going to abandon their own languages of course.

I think it's quite possible that will happen - give it two generations - will say young Swedes, Finns, Dutch bother using their own language when their opportunities, entertainment and business will be conducted through English most likely?

Junkyard Tom

Well if you ask me I believe the children are our future. What we should do is teach them well and let them lead the way - show them all the beauty they possess inside, give them a sense of pride to make it easier, let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be.

Red Kev

Leave things as they are. People should speak first, second and third languages as they see fit or need to. It would be entirely unpractical to get everyone speaking the one language, or their dialect of it.

LeTickler wrote: »

Well ok within europe we should probably try for everyone speaking english.

But for the rest of the world dont even try. Spanish is probably the logical first choice for a world language.

No. It's English.

Spanish is spoken in Spain, Latin America, parts of USA, parts of South America and a handful of other places. Even in the Philippines its being overtaken by English in a short space of time.

English has become the default language of business, science and technology and as such its by some distance the largest language to choose to study worldwide. (Something we should be grateful for!)

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

LeTickler wrote: »

Well ok within europe we should probably try for everyone speaking english.

But for the rest of the world dont even try. Spanish is probably the logical first choice for a world language.

More people speak Spanish but more countries have French as their Official language. But English tops them in both categories.

Red Kev

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

Well if you ask me I believe the children are our future. What we should do is teach them well and let them lead the way - show them all the beauty they possess inside, give them a sense of pride to make it easier, let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be.

*looks for cigarette lighter to hold in the air, (fails to find one.)

4zn76tysfajdxp

Dughorm wrote: »

I think it's quite possible that will happen - give it two generations - will say young Swedes, Finns, Dutch bother using their own language when their opportunities, entertainment and business will be conducted through English most likely?

Amongst themselves? Probably.

sonny.knowles

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

Well if you ask me I believe the children are our future. What we should do is teach them well and let them lead the way - show them all the beauty they possess inside, give them a sense of pride to make it easier, let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be.

Wow, that's almost poetic. You have great talent, you should consider a career in poetry, or song writing if you are more commercially minded.

Dughorm

Red Kev wrote: »

English has become the default language of business, science and technology and as such its by some distance the largest language to choose to study worldwide. (Something we should be grateful for!)

Perhaps we're highly evolved in the language stakes in Ireland - give the other countries some time to catch up and we'll see that their native languages for hundreds of years will be struggling for survival too in a few decades!

Junkyard Tom

sonny.knowles wrote: »

Wow, that's almost poetic. You have great talent, you should consider a career in poetry, or song writing if you are more commercially minded.

Pretty good isn't it?

Further thoughts:

I think what we need is a great big melting pot. Ideally it would be big enough to take the world and all it's got, we'd keep it stirring for a hundred years, or more, and turn out coffee coloured people by the score.

LeTickler

Eugene Norman wrote: »

English is the official or dominant second language in far more countries.

Not that I think that European countries are going to abandon their own languages of course.

Captain Chaos wrote: »

Air traffic control world wide common language is English so there is a start. It's not Spanish for a reason.

Red Kev wrote: »

Leave things as they are. People should speak first, second and third languages as they see fit or need to. It would be entirely unpractical to get everyone speaking the one language, or their dialect of it.



No. It's English.

Spanish is spoken in Spain, Latin America, parts of USA, parts of South America and a handful of other places. Even in the Philippines its being overtaken by English in a short space of time.

English has become the default language of business, science and technology and as such its by some distance the largest language to choose to study worldwide. (Something we should be grateful for!)

Dorian Grumpy Senior wrote: »

More people speak Spanish but more countries have French as their Official language. But English tops them in both categories.

Tl;Dr - Non/No/Nao/No = No.

Re: premier choice for a world language.


Spanish belongs to a group of languages known as 'indo-european romance'
Also in this category is French, Italian, Portuguese.

English itself is strongly influenced by Latin/Romance linguistics. (linguistico)

If you are looking to implement a world language people will have to learn.

if you look at a map of the world which shows areas which speak a variation of indo-european romance it covers almost all the western hemisphere from italys heel to california. A good 75%.

The few remaining areas speak english which is itself a mix of Romance/Germanic.

So roughly half the globe already has a common linguistc root : indo-romance.

The largest language by quite a stretch in this group is Spanish.

Spanish is therefore the primero/premiere/primeiro/premier choice as it will be the most easy* for the grestest number of people over the greatest geographical** area.

*facil/facile/facil/facile
**geographico/geografico/geographique/geografico

meeeeh

I speak a language that survived Germanic , Italian domination, Napoleon was sniffing around and some nationalist tendencies after second world war. I certainly wouldn't want it disappear because One Direction sing in English.

IvyTheTerrible

There are many advantages to being bilingual. I can't post a link as I'm on my phone but I will later.

Aongus Von Bismarck

I live in Germany and am fluent in the language. That said, it would be easier for me to work here in Frankfurt without being strong in German, than it would be for my German colleagues who aren't fluent in English. It's the language of business. There's no doubt about that. I attended a conference in Vienna earlier this week, and all of the roundtable discussions and presentations were conducted exclusively through English.

Shenshen

I think English is the language of choice when two people speaking different languages meet and want to communicate.

But that does by no means imply that English will make other languages disappear. The vast majority of people are perfectly happy and capable to use English when it's advantageous, and still maintain their native language for communication with friends and family as well as day-to-day transactions.

I'm originally from Germany. The place has an official language - documented and recorded, in some aspects almost officially regulated.
Yet the regional dialects survive and thrive. The Southern ones are close enough to the official language with only some words and grammar differing, but the Northern ones would actually be closer related to English and Danish, with quite striking differences from the official language. And I won't even start on the Swiss dialects. I wouldn't be able to talk to someone from, say, Flensburg, unless we both resorted to the official language.

Language is something deeply personal to people, it forms an essential part of their identity. And from looking at Ireland and the efforts that have been made to try and make Gaelic more of a mainstream way of communicating for so many years now and with such limited success, I suspect any outside messing with languages is going to be a costly exercise in futility.

Shep_Dog

Dughorm wrote: »

Multilingualism is the European preference at the moment and the EU and governments pump billions into encouraging multi-language learning programmes, language exchanges, document translation and so on.
But is it really working? Will this be the case in 50 years?

Supporting multilingualism supports communication and interaction among people from different cultures. Learning another language is an intellectually profitable activity which can be very mind broadening. It's a generally good thing.

We could save money, though, by removing Irish from the list of languages supported in the EU as it's not spoken by a sufficiently numerous or distinct social group to justify the effort. Irish speakers would be disappointed, but I'm sure some of the money saved could be applied to the needs of genuine native speakers.

In 50 years time who knows? Whatever will be the case will be whatever people have chosen for the world they live in. Hopefully, the authorities won't interfere in this choice by forcing them to learn languages they don't wish to speak.

Dughorm wrote: »

I think Multilingualism is slowly giving way to English only which I think is a pity.

I don't think that the growth in English is a problem as it facilitates the exchange of ideas and understanding among people. Indeed, in Ireland, our use of English is a unifying factor and connects us to the outside world. It has facilitated social dialogue with our Northern Irish and English neighbours.

Eugene Norman

LeTickler wrote: »

Tl;Dr - Non/No/Nao/No = No.

Re: premier choice for a world language.


Spanish belongs to a group of languages known as 'indo-european romance'
Also in this category is French, Italian, Portuguese.

English itself is strongly influenced by Latin/Romance linguistics. (linguistico)

If you are looking to implement a world language people will have to learn.

if you look at a map of the world which shows areas which speak a variation of indo-european romance it covers almost all the western hemisphere from italys heel to california. A good 75%.

The few remaining areas speak english which is itself a mix of Romance/Germanic.

So roughly half the globe already has a common linguistc root : indo-romance.

The largest language by quite a stretch in this group is Spanish.

Spanish is therefore the primero/premiere/primeiro/premier choice as it will be the most easy* for the grestest number of people over the greatest geographical** area.

*facil/facile/facil/facile
**geographico/geografico/geographique/geografico

I'm pretty sure that nothing like 75% of the world population speak Romance languages (no need for the Indo).

What matters for lingua francas is how common they are as second languages, not first. English wins hands down on that.

Herb Powell

Multilingualism is the only fair way. Not everything is about money ffs.

wilhelm roentgen

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

I live in Germany and am fluent in the language. That said, it would be easier for me to work here in Frankfurt without being strong in German, than it would be for my German colleagues who aren't fluent in English. It's the language of business. There's no doubt about that. I attended a conference in Vienna earlier this week, and all of the roundtable discussions and presentations were conducted exclusively through English.

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as 'Euro-English'.

In the first year, 's' will replace the soft 'c'. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.

The hard 'c' will be dropped in favour of 'k'. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome 'ph' will be replaced with 'f'. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent 'e' in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing 'th' with 'z' and 'w' with 'v'.

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary 'o' kan be dropd from vords kontaining 'ou' and after ziz fifz yer , ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

EIN VOLK! EIN REICH! EIN FUHRER!

Corpus Twisty

Lol.^ Klas.

seamus

I'm pretty torn on this. On the one hand, yes the cost of having to maintain hundreds of thousands of languages is a bit insane.

On the other hand, learning a different language gives a person insights into language that you don't really get being unilingual. It affords someone the abilty to be more colourful in the use of all of the languages they know.
If that was to be limited to small enclaves of linguistic nerds, I think a lot of colour and artistry would be lost from the world.

NotYourYear20

sonny.knowles wrote: »

Someone should have told Merkel, she seems to have other ideas, looks like she want's Europe speaking arabic.

A job awaits you at the Daily Fail, assuming you don't already work for them of course.

Fox_In_Socks

What about dead languages? Are they worth anything or do they add anything to the world? Not Latin, which is the basis/reference for many languages and is understood by many still, but things like Prussian or Crimean Gothic?

PolaroidPizza

we live on an island, so are naturally very inward looking.
Then if you look at the fact that the countries with the largest cultural influence on us are the US and UK based on TV/film/literature etc, then it may be a good idea to enforce multilingualism....at some point we may find it beneficial to see how non-English speaking people in the world do things.

sonny.knowles

NotYourYear20 wrote: »

A job awaits you at the Daily Fail, assuming you don't already work for them of course.

Thanks, I'll be sure to use you as a reference if I ever decide to apply for that job.

Dughorm

Shep_Dog wrote: »

Supporting multilingualism supports communication and interaction among people from different cultures. Learning another language is an intellectually profitable activity which can be very mind broadening. It's a generally good thing.

We could save money, though, by removing Irish from the list of languages supported in the EU as it's not spoken by a sufficiently numerous or distinct social group to justify the effort.....

I don't think that the growth in English is a problem as it facilitates the exchange of ideas and understanding among people. Indeed, in Ireland, our use of English is a unifying factor and connects us to the outside world. It has facilitated social dialogue with our Northern Irish and English neighbours.

Interesting to see you think that both Multilingualism and increasing English Unilingualism (so long as it as at the expense of Irish perhaps!) "support communication" and "the exchange of ideas and understanding among people"

You think that learning another language is an intellectually profitable activity which can be very mind broadening but want to cut funding which would support that if it involves Irish!

Your hobby horse knows no bounds!

Dughorm

Fox_In_Socks wrote: »

What about dead languages? Are they worth anything or do they add anything to the world? Not Latin, which is the basis/reference for many languages and is understood by many still, but things like Prussian or Crimean Gothic?

I would have thought the study of dead languages is supported in the form of grants/scholarships for research into the literary legacy of those languages in Arts facilities globally - so in that sense they are worth something and are supported.

In many ways, "Old" English or "Old" French are dead languages also and are similarly appreciated.

Fox_In_Socks

Dughorm wrote: »

I would have thought the study of dead languages is supported in the form of grants/scholarships for research into the literary legacy of those languages in Arts facilities globally - so in that sense they are worth something and are supported.

In many ways, "Old" English or "Old" French are dead languages also and are similarly appreciated.

What's it's purpose? Let's say a language that doesn't have much of a literary history...I mean, people still read Beowulf, and they're are poems, sagas etc in that language. What about extinct dead languages that have bugger all literary value and record the price of butter in 2435 BC?

meeeeh

"The limits of my language are the limits of my world". It perfectly explains why there can't be just one language. Different nations have different needs, history, geographical location and experience and that is reflected through the language. Eskimos have apparently numerous expressions to describe different types of snow and for the colour white. What we describe as white snow could tell them very little.

For me there is a lot less cost in making sure the language doesn't die than it would be in abandoning it.

Dughorm

Fox_In_Socks wrote: »

What's it's purpose? Let's say a language that doesn't have much of a literary history...I mean, people still read Beowulf, and they're are poems, sagas etc in that language. What about extinct dead languages that have bugger all literary value and record the price of butter in 2435 BC?

If the sum total of what was recorded in an ancient language was the price of butter in 2435BC then how can it be studied?! Surely Prussian had a bit more in it than that!

Fox_In_Socks

Dughorm wrote: »

If the sum total of what was recorded in an ancient language was the price of butter in 2435BC then how can it be studied?! Surely Prussian had a bit more in it than that!

I was thinking aloud. Or maybe just not thinking! :P

LeTickler

Eugene Norman wrote: »

I'm pretty sure that nothing like 75% of the world population speak Romance languages (no need for the Indo).

What matters for lingua francas is how common they are as second languages, not first. English wins hands down on that.

"Western hemisphere."


Tldr; Spanish is easier to learn for speaker of French, Italian, Portuguese, than English. So is best choice for global single language.


But dont believe me just image search for a map of countries which speak a romance root language.

A world language would have to belong to the romance/latin root.

To illustrate why:

(Indo-Germanic)
English:
House. Bread. Reservation. Teacher. Gold. food. fire.
west.

(Indo-Romance)
Italian: casa. pane. riservato. professore. oro. alimente. fuoco. ovest.

Spanish: casa. pan. reservacion. profesora. oro. alimento fuego. oeste.

Portuguese: casa. pao. reserva. professor. ouro. alimento. fogo. oeste.

French: chez. pan. reservation. professor. or. alimentation. feu. ouest.

Romanian: casa. paine. reservare. profesor. alimente. foc. vest.

All the above also share the same grammatical structure making it much simpler to learn.

+ a great part of the English language comes from latin too. Most words ending in -ion for example.

The above languages cover the western hemisphere.

The numbers using a latin root language as first or second language are as great as those using English as a first or second language.

Plus as you can see it is a whole lot easier for a speaker of a latin root language to learn another latin root language than a germanic root language,
...so if theres to be a single world language it will need to be from latin/romance root.

Which English isnt. Spanish however is. And has the highest number of speakers of the romance languages.
Ergo logical choice Spanish.

Iwasfrozen

LeTickler wrote: »

"Western hemisphere."


Tldr; Spanish is easier to learn for speaker of French, Italian, Portuguese, than English. So is best choice for global single language.


But dont believe me just image search for a map of countries which speak a romance root language.

A world language would have to belong to the romance/latin root.

To illustrate why:

(Indo-Germanic)
English:
House. Bread. Reservation. Teacher. Gold. food. fire.
west.

(Indo-Romance)
Italian: casa. pane. riservato. professore. oro. alimente. fuoco. ovest.

Spanish: casa. pan. reservacion. profesora. oro. alimento fuego. oeste.

Portuguese: casa. pao. reserva. professor. ouro. alimento. fogo. oeste.

French: chez. pan. reservation. professor. or. alimentation. feu. ouest.

Romanian: casa. paine. reservare. profesor. alimente. foc. vest.

All the above also share the same grammatical structure making it much simpler to learn.

+ a great part of the English language comes from latin too. Most words ending in -ion for example.

The above languages cover the western hemisphere.

The numbers using a latin root language as first or second language are as great as those using English as a first or second language.

Plus as you can see it is a whole lot easier for a speaker of a latin root language to learn another latin root language than a germanic root language,
...so if theres to be a single world language it will need to be from latin/romance root.

Which English isnt. Spanish however is. And has the highest number of speakers of the romance languages.
Ergo logical choice Spanish.

If the entire world spoke Spanish it would be great but English is a much more likely candidate. English is widely learned in China, India and Africa, apart from French in Africa other romance languages are not widely spoken outside the Americas and West Europe.

LeTickler

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

If the entire world spoke Spanish it would be great but English is a much more likely candidate. English is widely learned in China, India and Africa, apart from French in Africa other romance languages are not widely spoken outside the Americas and West Europe.

French was once widely learned in Russia.
The lingua franca, the language of diplomacy and business can change. As evidenced by the term 'lingua Franca' ... French Language.

Ease of learning.

For a Chinese to learn English or Spanish both would be roughly equally difficult.

For a Portuguese or French person Spanish would be significantly easier. (same conjugation, gender and grammar systems).

English speaking countries are too widely spread with big gaps and have neighbours with entirely foreign languages like Indonesian or Nepalese, Hindi, Arabic.

Latin based languages constitute solid continuous continents. All of south and central America, and a share of north America can either understand each other or make a good educated guess.

A Brazilian can therefore say 'eu quero comprar' to an Argentinian or Colombian who will recognize it as 'quiero comprar'.

What does an Australian get when an indonesian neighbor wants to buy ... saya ingin membli.

Shep_Dog

Dughorm wrote: »

You think that learning another language is an intellectually profitable activity which can be very mind broadening but want to cut funding which would support that if it involves Irish!

It was you who suggested the idea of saving money by reducing the number of working languages used in EU business. Irish has the dubious distinction of being the only Official working language in the EU not spoken by its population.

This reform would not affect in any way, the considerable funding already expended here in Ireland, paying people to speak Irish and to force others to learn it.

Shenshen

LeTickler wrote: »

Ergo logical choice Spanish.

Except that very little about languages is actually logical.

Logical thinking about languages is what gave rise to Esperanto, and we all know what a success story that turned out to be.

IvyTheTerrible

Here is an article from the NY times about the benefits of bilingualism:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-benefits-of-bilingualism.html?_r=0

Herb Powell

Shenshen wrote: »

Except that very little about languages is actually logical.

Logical thinking about languages is what gave rise to Esperanto, and we all know what a success story that turned out to be.

He's massively over-stating the benefits of language families.

Most of the errors made by a language learner do not actually have anything to do with interference from their native language.

Eugene Norman

LeTickler wrote: »

"Western hemisphere."


Tldr; Spanish is easier to learn for speaker of French, Italian, Portuguese, than English. So is best choice for global single language.


But dont believe me just image search for a map of countries which speak a romance root language.

A world language would have to belong to the romance/latin root.

To illustrate why:

(Indo-Germanic)
English:
House. Bread. Reservation. Teacher. Gold. food. fire.
west.

(Indo-Romance)
Italian: casa. pane. riservato. professore. oro. alimente. fuoco. ovest.

Spanish: casa. pan. reservacion. profesora. oro. alimento fuego. oeste.

Portuguese: casa. pao. reserva. professor. ouro. alimento. fogo. oeste.

French: chez. pan. reservation. professor. or. alimentation. feu. ouest.

Romanian: casa. paine. reservare. profesor. alimente. foc. vest.

All the above also share the same grammatical structure making it much simpler to learn.

+ a great part of the English language comes from latin too. Most words ending in -ion for example.

The above languages cover the western hemisphere.

The numbers using a latin root language as first or second language are as great as those using English as a first or second language.

Plus as you can see it is a whole lot easier for a speaker of a latin root language to learn another latin root language than a germanic root language,
...so if theres to be a single world language it will need to be from latin/romance root.

Which English isnt. Spanish however is. And has the highest number of speakers of the romance languages.
Ergo logical choice Spanish.

Trust me I know the roots of these languages. I've learned some Latin. None of this supposed easiness to learn (for certain southern Europeans and their colonies) means anything. English is the second or business language of Europe, India, the Middle East and significant parts of Asia. First language of the US, UK and other ex-UK colonies including South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya etc.

Not going anywhere. Even if Mandarin becomes more important, which I presume is indeed likely.

I really doubt the boldified bit btw.

LeTickler

Shenshen wrote: »

Except that very little about languages is actually logical.

Logical thinking about languages is what gave rise to Esperanto, and we all know what a success story that turned out to be.

Separate subject. Im talking about logical choice if there were to be 1 language implemented worldwide.
Chinese has the numbers but is isolated. English has the learner numbers (in varying quality levels) but a broken distribution.
Spanish however, along with the very similar portuguese already covers the vast majority of one side of the globe. Atlantic to pacific. Southern Chile to L.A Jobs already almost half done if Spanish was chosen.

Herb Powell wrote: »

He's massively over-stating the benefits of language families.

Most of the errors made by a language learner do not actually have anything to do with interference from their native language.

Helps though when youre learning if you stumble upon lots and lots of words similar to your own language though. Nice when the grammar system is the same too.
Im sure we're all familiar with the joys of foreign language grammar classes.