@Rain π± The argument that it's not somebody's language because nobody's country is named after it is silly. The Irish and the Maltese overwhelmingly speak English as their first language, the other hundreds of millions generally don't.
OTOH, both Ireland and Malta have other languages as their official language inside the EU (probably also because English was already one of the official working languages)
(btw, afaik in Ireland most people do speak English as their first language, but in Malta that's Maltese, English is just extremely widespread at high proficiency and has official status after Maltese)
@Elena ``of Valhalla'' @Rain π± Ireland really likes its Irish language as a distinguishing feature, and of course it takes the chance to use EU resources to promote it when it can get English without burning its get-one-language-for-free quota.
TIL about Malta's situation, thank you, I was misinformed.
I was always under the impression that Maltese was in a situation similar to Romansh or Irish, but actually only 10% of the Maltese speak English as a first language.
They do use English as the exclusive language of instruction already in secondary school, which gives them an edge in English over everyone who don't.
Well, good luck popularizing a conlang or a dead language and convincing the many people who already struggled through learning one lingua franca to throw that away for a new one. IMHO if you wanna make a decolonialized language course, it makes more sense to just remove all the god save the queen tea and biscuits stuff and use example texts from other cultures. And adjust the grammar accordingly. So, no Queen's English.
First thing I tell people when helping them with English stuff is to ignore what native speakers think and that all languages are kinda terrible. At the end of the day, it's just a very useful tool. If it wasn't for learning English I would never have even read the word "decolonization".
> Also Esperanto actually _helps_ you in learning other languages (if you're eruropean)
Heard the same argument from my Latin teacher, about Latin. The problem with Esperanto is that there isn't as much "infrastructure" built for it.
IMHO what we should do: - agree that English is the common point - be more aggressive about language preservation
So eg. instead of having a choice of English, Latin, Italian, and German in my high school, students would learn English and one endangered language. (two languages was mandatory for us. plus two years of Latin.)
Also idk about others but English was a good starting point for me in Italian class. Most of the time my classmates were surprised because I figured out the meaning of a word before the teacher told us, it was because I knew it from English. And an important advantage for English is that most STEM communication happens in English, and there are decades of research out there written in it. I am yet to see a paper in Esperanto.
So, I think we can have our cake and eat it too. Have one common language and not be colonialists about it. The important thing is what the language is used for, not what the language is. Eg. it would be really cool if I could go to a random village and the signs would be in English and the local language and I could Rosetta stone my way into picking up words in the local language.
This is cool. If this holds water then Esperanto might not be a bad addition. Although this still has the end goal of teaching both Esperanto and English, not just the former. I'm not against learning Esperanto, just against not learning English, because of its aforementioned usefulness in understanding the huge volume of existing literature. But if we started with this and slowly transitioned to Esperanto (or even just a simplified and regularised version of English) that would be cool.
@Abbie Normal @Elena ``of Valhalla'' @Rain π± Isn't any lingua franca, including the actual original language so named, a lingua franca due to the current international power balance and imperialism?
basically, that's how it has always happened, modulo a bit of inertia in some cases (e.g. Latin has remained a lingua franca in Europe for quite a few centuries after the roman empire had become a Greek speaking thing, while afaik French has been quickly superseded by English).
@maloki @Rain π± On the other hand it kind of underlines the message that the message had to be in English to reach two Swedes, an Italian and a Hungarian.
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clacke: inhibited exhausted pixie dream boy πΈπͺππ°ππ
in reply to read-only account (Rain π±) • • •Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to clacke: inhibited exhausted pixie dream boy πΈπͺππ°ππ • •(btw, afaik in Ireland most people do speak English as their first language, but in Malta that's Maltese, English is just extremely widespread at high proficiency and has official status after Maltese)
clacke: inhibited exhausted pixie dream boy πΈπͺππ°ππ
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' • • •TIL about Malta's situation, thank you, I was misinformed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Malta
I was always under the impression that Maltese was in a situation similar to Romansh or Irish, but actually only 10% of the Maltese speak English as a first language.
They do use English as the exclusive language of instruction already in secondary school, which gives them an edge in English over everyone who don't.
Abbie Normal
in reply to clacke: inhibited exhausted pixie dream boy πΈπͺππ°ππ • • •The common language should be foreign to everyone
English is natural only to some people
read-only account (Rain π±)
in reply to Abbie Normal • • •IMHO if you wanna make a decolonialized language course, it makes more sense to just remove all the god save the queen tea and biscuits stuff and use example texts from other cultures. And adjust the grammar accordingly. So, no Queen's English.
read-only account (Rain π±)
in reply to read-only account (Rain π±) • • •If it wasn't for learning English I would never have even read the word "decolonization".
clacke: inhibited exhausted pixie dream boy πΈπͺππ°ππ likes this.
Abbie Normal
in reply to read-only account (Rain π±) • • •I wrote something else
it's not a "lingua franca"
becaus eit imposes the learning process on some people an dnot on others
do we want to do it anyway ?
Good
But let's callit what it is
Abbie Normal
in reply to Abbie Normal • • •and yet, I struggle
after a whole life using it
how is this "franca" ?
It's not
Abbie Normal
in reply to Abbie Normal • • •all natural languages are "glottofaghe"
Meaning, they tend to supplant your own native language
it's proven by some studies caried out in Paderborn
Not so Esperanto
Also Esperanto actually _helps_ you in learning other languages (if you're eruropean)
This has been studied in Paderborn too
clacke: inhibited exhausted pixie dream boy πΈπͺππ°ππ likes this.
Abbie Normal
in reply to Abbie Normal • • •it's a colonial operation
read-only account (Rain π±)
in reply to Abbie Normal • • •Heard the same argument from my Latin teacher, about Latin.
The problem with Esperanto is that there isn't as much "infrastructure" built for it.
IMHO what we should do:
- agree that English is the common point
- be more aggressive about language preservation
So eg. instead of having a choice of English, Latin, Italian, and German in my high school, students would learn English and one endangered language. (two languages was mandatory for us. plus two years of Latin.)
read-only account (Rain π±)
in reply to read-only account (Rain π±) • • •And an important advantage for English is that most STEM communication happens in English, and there are decades of research out there written in it. I am yet to see a paper in Esperanto.
read-only account (Rain π±)
in reply to read-only account (Rain π±) • • •Eg. it would be really cool if I could go to a random village and the signs would be in English and the local language and I could Rosetta stone my way into picking up words in the local language.
μ½μ λͺ»ν΄ likes this.
read-only account (Rain π±)
in reply to read-only account (Rain π±) • • •read-only account (Rain π±)
in reply to read-only account (Rain π±) • • •https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paderborn_method
This is cool. If this holds water then Esperanto might not be a bad addition. Although this still has the end goal of teaching both Esperanto and English, not just the former. I'm not against learning Esperanto, just against not learning English, because of its aforementioned usefulness in understanding the huge volume of existing literature.
But if we started with this and slowly transitioned to Esperanto (or even just a simplified and regularised version of English) that would be cool.
μ½μ λͺ»ν΄ likes this.
clacke: inhibited exhausted pixie dream boy πΈπͺππ°ππ
in reply to Abbie Normal • • •clacke: inhibited exhausted pixie dream boy πΈπͺππ°ππ
in reply to Abbie Normal • • •Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to clacke: inhibited exhausted pixie dream boy πΈπͺππ°ππ • •clacke: inhibited exhausted pixie dream boy πΈπͺππ°ππ likes this.
maloki π:ghostbat:
in reply to read-only account (Rain π±) • • •I find some of the arguments very uncomfortable, while some are compelling, probably because I already know English fairly well. π€
read-only account (Rain π±)
in reply to maloki π:ghostbat: • • •maloki π:ghostbat:
in reply to read-only account (Rain π±) • • •It's a no win situation :P
clacke: inhibited exhausted pixie dream boy πΈπͺππ°ππ
in reply to maloki π:ghostbat: • • •