Why the french prefer spanish instead of english

Richard   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 04:23 GMT
I can understand all spoken Spanish if you have a decent accent. It's difficult, though, to understand my classmates in Spanish class (my school only has one foreign language, Spanish).

Really, the only big difference with "Spanish" and "Latin American Spanish" is the use of 'vosotros' and maybe the slang. It isn't that big of a deal really :).

I want to learn Italian, Finnish, and Russian.
Elaine   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 05:15 GMT
<<but the disconnect between the Spanish speaking community in the USA, European Spanish, and Latin American Spanish is a a chasm that has yet to be reached.>>

I too would like to know what you mean by this, Riko. Are you saying that a brotherhood of Spanish-speaking communities does not exist like that among Anglophone and Francophone communities? Have you never heard of the terms "hispanophone/spanophone", "los países hispanohablantes" or institutions like Real Academia Española and Instituto Cervantes that try to unite the Spanish-speaking communities and promote the Spanish language throughout the word?

How can a language be "unstable" when it's spoken by 600 million people and the number of speakers continues to rise in the Americas?
Kirk   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 05:39 GMT
<<Have you never heard of the terms "hispanophone/spanophone", "los países hispanohablantes" or institutions like Real Academia Española and Instituto Cervantes that try to unite the Spanish-speaking communities and promote the Spanish language throughout the word?>>

Yeah, they really do try and encompass all Spanish speakers in their focus. As well they should--there are far more Spanish speakers in Latin America than in Spain. This year the Third Congress of the Spanish Language met under the theme "Identidad lingüística y globalización" (linguistic identity and globalization) in Rosario, Argentina (I was in the country, but unfortunately couldn't make it to Rosario then...woulda been interesting tho).

<<How can a language be "unstable" when it's spoken by 600 million people and the number of speakers continues to rise in the Americas?>>

Exactly!
slurp   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 08:56 GMT
maybe because Spain "touch" France and England no : except de channel.
Kirk   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 09:05 GMT
<<maybe because Spain "touch" France and England no : except de channel.

But one could argue quite reasonably that from the French point of view the Pyrenees are a more formidable physical barrier than the channel.
Riko   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 09:10 GMT
I am not judging the inhabitants of latin american countries of being corrupt and inneficient, but the governments in the region are. If the governments were not so corrupt, the region as a whole would prosper. Finland is the least corrupt country in the world and one of the most competitive. I am not Finnish, I was born in the USA to latin american immigrants, but I go to univeristy here and I think I have the authority to make such statements.

As for the Finns speaking English, everyone here under 40 speaks it fluently, but that doesn't change the fact that their pronunciation is awful. Spanish and Finnish share the same basic principle of syllabic pronunciation.

This is an excerpt from Finnish wikipedia on Spanish:

Espanjan kielen ääntäminen on suomalaisille melko helppoa. Se on varsin foneettinen kieli, eli ääntäminen on hyvin lähellä kirjoitusta.

'Spanish language pronunciation is very easy for Finnish people. It is a highly phonetic language, so that pronunciation is very near to what is read.'

The disconnect I meant was the misunderstanding, the racism and discrimination that say, Ecuadorians have while they are in Spain or Mexicans in the US. Within a nations own borders there is discrimination. I don't know about Argentina, but I do know that in general there is discrimination towards peruvians in chile, nicaraguans in costa rica, guatemalans in mexico, etc. There is disconnect of some kind if this exists. Since everyone compares Europe and America, problems such as these between neighbors in western europe seem parochial at best. The confusing thing is that all these countries had an identical history of Spanish occupation and colonization. This is anectodal evidence, but some of it is true.

Spain is the base for Spanish because it was invented there, just like English in England. Today, in the year 2005, I would say a growing amount of Spaniards dislike this. Again, from anectodal evidence, you make observations about groups of people and nationalities not from what people say but from what you observe. The idea of 'Spain' just doesn't seem to fly anymore, more young Spanish people that I meet in my school prefer the EU as their state. So instead of Alicante, Spain, it would be Alicante, EU. Which I find strange, but they tell me that the idea of one Spain to pay allegiance to is not felt amongst the young.

There is a disconnect NOW between the Spanish speakers in Spain and those in Latin America. The Spaniards act in such a way to believe that Spain is a subordinate member of the EU and contacts with the outside world, including latin america, be viewed through that prism. The Instituto Cervantes promotes Hispanic culture and language, including Catalan, Galician, and Basque. The branch that recently opened in Stockholm emphasized the linguistic nature of the Spanish state. They are not championing Spanish to be a lingua franca of the world or the indispensable tool that it is in AMERICA (singular) , from alaska to tierra del fuego.

As far as I know, there is no international organization that unites all Spanish speaking countries into one group. The Ibero-American summits are a bad example because it includes Portugal and Brazil and leaves out Equatorial Guinea and other regions where Spanish is spoken. The international congresses on the Spanish language are summits that deal with the Spanish language are welcome to all hispanists regardless of what country they come from. There is no Commonwealth, Francophonie, or CPLP type governmental organization that unites countries that speak Spanish, which is odd.

Spanish right now is not stable as a premier global language, like English is right now. French has higher status in Europe and the rest of the world because of the promotion that the French place in their language. Numbers may be impressive, but they are only numbers. Hindi is spoken by more people then Spanish, but because India places an English speaking face to the outside world and within the country, few foreigners will learn that language unless they plan to spend many years in the subcontinent.
Adam   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 09:14 GMT
"Will the englsih be useless? "

You're having a laugh, aren't you?

English is spoken by a "hyperpower." And it is also the official language of the world's 4th biggest democracy and probably the 2nd world power.

Chinese will also become more important, even though it is already the biggest spoken as a native language.
Riko   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 09:16 GMT
Adam   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 09:19 GMT





From Lingua Franca to Global English

English has unmistakably achieved global status as the world’s lingua franca. How did it get that way?



At his new job in the accounting department of a cell phone company that recently opened in Kurdistan, Iraq, Saryas Jamal discovered rather quickly that he had to deal with managers who did not speak Kurdish. He realized he would have to learn English if he was going to be able to prove himself on the job. So he enrolled in English classes and found that he was not alone - English-language classes are a booming business in Sulaimaniyah, and the classes are always full. On of the English teachers there, Faraydoon Abdulrahman, says that increasing access to information technologies like the internet and satellite television brought on by globalization has spurred the growth of private English language-learning centers in Kurdistan. Though Iraqi children have always learned English in school, there has been an increase in Iraq of private institutes where citizens of all ages may become more adept at speaking and understanding English and therefore can gain a foothold in competing in the global marketplace.

The English language has unmistakably achieved status as the world's lingua franca through globalization. English is now the official or dominant language for two billion people in at least 75 countries. According to the British Council, speakers of English as a second language probably outnumber those who speak it as a first language, and around 750 million people are believed to speak English as a foreign language. English is the most common language to communicate scientific, technological, academic, and international trade information. English is clearly the world's lingua franca, but how did it get that way? Part of the reason is the feedback loop driving its history - a dynamic which may serve to illustrate how globalization often is the result of a natural course of events: before English infiltrated the world, many of the world's languages infiltrated English.

The term "lingua franca" originated in Mediterranean ports in the Middle Ages among traders of different language backgrounds. In order to carry on the business of trade, they spoke a common "patchwork" language consisting of bits of Italian mixed with Greek, French, Spanish, and Arabic words. Some of those words are still part of ordinary conversation today - in modern English. Nearly every language on Earth has contributed to the development of English. Languages of the Indian subcontinent provided words such as pundit, shampoo, pajamas, and juggernaut. From the Spanish are several words that came to define the spirit of the American "wild west:" mustang, canyon, ranch, stampede, and vigilante are a few examples. English has adopted literally hundreds of words from Arabic and Persian. Though some filtered down through other languages, these words that evoke images from American culture have Arabic origins: tariff, sugar, hazard, jar, almanac, shrub, alcove, alfalfa, syrup, and spinach. Long is the list of words and expressions that came to English from "foreign languages."

"Paradoxically, the very spread of English can motivate speakers of other languages to insist on their own local language, binding them to their own cultural and historical tradition."
Hamburg University Linguistics Professor Juliane House

Now with mass media, contemporary English slings its patchwork of historically adopted words and new pop slang back at the world in a very big way. Some say, too big a way. John Swales describes English as “Tyrannosaurus Rex” let loose in the world to gobble up other languages and, thus, their cultures. The Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o has observed that the erosion of a first language results in the loss of understanding the corresponding culture: "Language carries culture, and culture carries . . . the entire body of values by which we perceive ourselves and our place in the world." Anne Pakir ultimately dubbed English a "killer language" when attempts to teach English alongside the first languages of her homeland Singapore only resulted in the rise of a new language: Singlish.

On the other side of the debate, Salman Rushdie says that creating new Englishes such as ’Singlish’ can be a therapeutic act of resistance against whatever dominance English exerts upon a given culture. "To conquer English may be to complete the process of making ourselves free." Juliane House, professor of applied linguistics at Hamburg University, Germany, notes that the spread of English can actually enhance the preservation of local dialects. "Paradox as this may seem, the very spread of English can motivate speakers of other languages to insist on their own local language for identification, for binding them emotionally to their own cultural and historical tradition. There is no need to set up an old-fashioned dichotomy between local languages and English as the 'hegemonic aggressor': there is a place for both, because they fulfill different functions. To deny this is to uphold outdated concepts of monolingual societies and individuals."

It is the "different functions" aspect of English vs. ‘other languages’ that is fiercely debated today. The speaking of English often functions as an elevated socio-economic currency on the international market and in international diplomacy, while local languages are pressured to be kept within the home or within communities, or for entertaining tourists. English is the official language of the European Central Bank even though the bank is in Frankfurt, Germany, and no predominantly English-speaking country is a member of the European Monetary Union. English has become a commodity.

Globalization of the IT marketplace is accelerating the effect of English as a commodity. For decades English has dominated the IT industry, from research and development, to the design of hardware and software. In 2002, there were signs that the impact of China's interest in respecting international intellectual property rights heralded a new era of China-led technology standards which would slow down the monopoly of technologies made primarily for English speakers. A new culture of IT researchers had developed in China which was not built on U.S.-trained engineers. However, more recently, India, which once was very concerned about China's enthusiasm for changing standards in the IT industry, now sees the threat as fading - partly due to Indian businesses assuming that China will take a long time to catch up in English language proficiency, and India's dominance of the outsourcing industry which was won in large part because of their command of the English language.

English, like so many other aspects of Western culture, has the potential to bring people together, or the power to divide people into classified groups. As the debate goes on, English will continue to grow and change with the same force that has always driven the patchworking of language: the natural desire to exchange goods and ideas.


http://www.globalenvision.org/library/8/655/
Kirk   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 09:21 GMT
<<Spain is the base for Spanish because it was invented there, just like English in England.>>

Well, it wasn't "invented"--it evolved from a dialect of Latin that eventually became a separate language from other former Latin dialects. Also, just because that's where it originally emerged doesn't mean it's the "base" of the language in modern times. By your argument, I could really trace Spanish (which is really, in a way, a version of Modern Latin) back to Rome and claim Rome is its true base. But, enough with the abstract stuff...the reality is that Spanish continues evolving everywhere (so not even Spain can claim to speak the "original" or "true" Spanish), and does happen to be spoken by hundreds of millions of native speakers outside of the Iberian peninsula. Those speakers lay claim to the language just as much as the Spaniards do.

Ditto all that for English.
Riko   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 09:32 GMT
Spanish was born in Spain. It might have had different parents that added their linguistic genes like Latin and Arabic, but what we know today as Spanish was born in Castile and known as Castilian which is known today as Spanish. Nothing before that was Spanish. Those hundreds of millions of people that speak Spanish outside of Spain can claim Spanish as their own but it does belong (sadly) to the Spanish whose ancestors invented the language.

English belongs to Adam, not you Kirk. It is the language of the United kingdom, of England, of the queen. It was born in England. There are hundreds of millions of speakers of English in the rest of the world, but it is all english incorrectly spoken. Queen's English is correct English, and I am afraid that even my English does not reach that level. I am not saying that English is glorious, but it is English, of England, and any other form is invalid.
Sander   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 09:38 GMT
Bullshit!

English is nobodies property!And do you really believe that in the UK everybody speaks "Queens english"?!Thats ridiculous.
Travis   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 09:40 GMT
Riko, I think not. The English do not "own" English, just because Modern English as we know it originated in England, and there is nothing that makes their English any more "correct" than my own English, for example. To me, Great Britain is just an island in the North Sea where the same language just happens to be spoken as that which is natively spoken here today, for historical reasons. I have no allegiance whatsoever to English English, and see no reasons at all to speak English like the English happen to speak it today. Now, why should I speak English like them, besides some unfounded ideas of "correctness" which have nothing to do with linguistic reality on your part?

(Just the vaguest suggestion that I, or other North Americans, should at all speak English like the English is probably one of my biggest pet peeves, and just the idea of such really pisses me off, by the way.)
Riko   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 09:47 GMT
This is a tired argument, the Portuguese and Brazilians had it a few discussions back. I was raised in the US, but after moving to Europe, you realize that Engish is an English language, not an American one, very simple. Standard English as spoken in England, is the only correct form of the English language. All others, including English as spoken in the US, is a demented anomaly that is incorrect, no matter the hundreds of millions of speakers that seem to validate an aberration.
greg   Sunday, June 05, 2005, 10:38 GMT
Pyrenees are indeed a physical barrier between France and Spain, but the western and eastern sides of that massif have always been major spot for human circulation. So much so that Basque and Catalan are spoken on either sides of the Pyrenees while French and English are spoken on just one side of the Manche (if you don't take Old French into consideration as it was spoken on both sides of the Channel a few centuries ago).