I think its worth keeping in mind that Canada has an Official Language policy. Both French and English. And its also worth keeping in mind that in the micro-economy of Canada, there is an advantage to knowing both languages, especially if you want to work for government. Hence it is unlikely that French will die out especially since there is both a cultural and an economic advantage to knowing the language.
arthur -----Original Message----- From: Ed Weick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2003 9:39 AM To: Keith Hudson Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; pete Subject: Re: [Futurework] Chinese as the world language? was: Re: [Futurework] Languages (fwd) Keith: > I'm sure you must be right. However, Quebecian French will die in the end > if Quebec wants to stay in the mainstream of the developed world. When is > another matter. It's interesting that the French Academy have given up > their long-time attempts to exclude American and English word imports. > Almost all middle class Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, Dutch and > what-have-you can speak fairly fluent English because that's the language > of modern commerce and science. Almost no middle class Englishmen could put > more than a sentence or two together in another language. Once upon a time > I used to be able to read Simenon and Pushkin in their own languages fairly > comfortably -- and enjoyably, too -- but I could never speak the languages. One has to appreciate that there is a difference between street French and the French spoken by the educated. My understanding is that the latter speak French, as in France, with perhaps some minor differences. My neice's daughter, who attends the French language University of Montreal, is off to the Sorbonne next year. She's already done some of her studies in France and has encountered no problems. It's interesting how languages evolve. When I was in Jamaica a few years ago, I had to go way back into the hill country to talk to some elderly people who had lived there all their lives. Though they spoke English, I could barely understand them. Another generation or so of isolation, and I might not be able to. Ed Weick > At 10:39 22/08/2003 -0400, Ed Weick wrote: > >(KH) > >But surely, Prof Daniel Abrams' thesis is *not* valid. He is trying to > >maintain that minority languages can be protected. I originally wrote > >that this is not possible. PW, EW and I have each been saying that once a > >new way of life becomes communicable, tradable and geographically > >possible, then minority languages disappear. Prof Abrams would do better > >to spend his time and research money in recording as many minority > >languages as possible for future study and analysis, than trying to save > >them in the here and now while our present type of economic system is > >still sweeping the world. > > (EW) > >Much would seem to depend on the size, status and power of the linguistic > >group. There is no doubt in my mind that Quebec will maintain French and > >do its governing and business in French in the foreseeable future. The people > >it will deal with in Ottawa will have to be able to use French. > > I'm sure you must be right. However, Quebecian French will die in the end > if Quebec wants to stay in the mainstream of the developed world. When is > another matter. It's interesting that the French Academy have given up > their long-time attempts to exclude American and English word imports. > Almost all middle class Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, Dutch and > what-have-you can speak fairly fluent English because that's the language > of modern commerce and science. Almost no middle class Englishmen could put > more than a sentence or two together in another language. Once upon a time > I used to be able to read Simenon and Pushkin in their own languages fairly > comfortably -- and enjoyably, too -- but I could never speak the languages. > > Although I think that English is a strong candidate as a world language, I > wouldn't bet on it. Chinese is a much stronger candidate in the longer > term. It is basically easier to learn than most others. It has lost all the > appendages that other languages still have -- conjugations, declensions, > irregular verbs, subjunctives, ablatives, and so on -- nightmares that > plagues learners of most other languages. Chinese has also lost > inflections, cases, persons, genders, degrees, tenses, voices, moods, > affixes, infinitives, participles, gerunds and articles. It lost all these > in the course of several thousand years of a largely unified culture and > literature. There are no words of more than one syllable and every word > has only one form. It proceeds by means of subject and predicate -- that's > all -- and explicates by means of metaphors. Thousands of them. Tens of > thousands of them. More poetry has been written in Chinese than in any > other language. > > Chinese is just about the most finely chiselled language in the world -- > the most fully developed. And when China gets to the forefront in science, > technology and commerce I think it will probably whop the confused and > convoluted language that we call English (much as I love it). > > Keith Hudson > > > Keith Hudson, 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath, England, > <www.evolutionary-economics.org> > > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
