Which language should a new country choose?

greg   Thu Mar 30, 2006 9:17 pm GMT
suomalainen : l'histoire de l'occitan en France est ***LÉGÈREMENT*** plus complexe que ta description...
suomalainen   Fri Mar 31, 2006 7:57 am GMT
Maybe I oversimplify, and a Frenchman knows certainly more about his country than a person who has never visited France and who has only some kind of passive knowledge of French. Still, it seems to me that no other thing explains the fate of minority languages better than the common language policy of the country. I have seen the sad development of Finnish (or 'meänkieli', as the local variant is called) in Northern Sweden. Finnish was a forbidden language at schools, and children were punished if they were caught speaking it. Thus, people began to despise their own mother tongue, and now only few children are able to converse in the language of their grandparents, though Sweden now at least to some extent tries to revive the language.
Previously pupils in Sweden (as in France) learnt that the mother tongue of every true native person of Sweden is Swedish (French). Am I correct with respect to France? This education has had devastating effects to minority languages, and it seems to me that France hasn´t even yet really changed the course (as one can conclude from Frenchmens´ comments in this web site) though your minority languages are under serious threat of disappearing during this century.
What do you think why the position of Catalan in Spain is so different from the position of Occitan in France, or why the decline of Breton continues while the number of Welsh speakers grows steadily in Britain? Even the traditional German (Alsace) and Dutch minorities seem to disappear in France in spite of the fact that they are strong national languages behind the border. Das ist wirklich Schade.
Of course, minority languages have difficulties also elsewhere in EU, as in Greece, but if we think about the importance and central position of France it would be of no small importance if your linguistic police were a positive example to others. I think this would be a more urgent problem for French than the independence of Quebec where the language is well guarded, as far as I know.
JR   Fri Mar 31, 2006 3:22 pm GMT
I'd say it would depend on the people that make up the country. If they're all mainly french-speaking, then I suppose French would be the language. If it's a mix (such as Portuguese/Spanish or French/Spanish), then I'd probably go for an intermediate language (such as Galician or Catalan) that both can understand without much trouble.

If the population is truly diverse, then something along the lines of Interlingua would be best.
Frontera   Sat Apr 01, 2006 2:00 am GMT
Latin I think would be the best anwser. Most languages are latin based and it would be easy for those ppl to learn. Also I think it would be a sign of unity. The last time europe was in any way united was under the Roman Empire, and most provinces floorished under the empire.
jakubikF   Sun Apr 02, 2006 6:34 am GMT
I woudn't say that all of languages are latin based. You must agree that the whole slavic group of languages isn't based on latin. The point is, you're thinking a little narrow, talking just only about Western Europe whose languages acctualy have close connection to Latin like: Spanish, French or even English.
In my opinion it's impossible to choose or create a new language for that hipothetical country called New Europe. The reason is, choosing a latin based language you are not fair for a slavic group, choosing the one from slavic part you create a big barrier between ppl using any of german or romance language (it means slavic languages would be difficult for these ppl to learn).
And how to imagine to create sth like Esperanto. I think it's also impossible. How to connect the big differences beetwen all of europeanian languages? We can only find the base like Esperanto (latin origin) or like Slovio do (slavic rules origin)
Frontera   Mon Apr 03, 2006 12:50 pm GMT
"I woudn't say that all of languages are latin based. You must agree that the whole slavic group of languages isn't based on latin."

I noticed you can type will in english, but you can read that will in engilsh. I posted "most" whitch is a very important part of my post. But, truth be told even Germany uses a latin alphabet. But just because I think latin would be the best choice doesn't make me naroow minded.
Uriel   Wed Apr 05, 2006 6:09 pm GMT
How about Spanish? Lots of other counties speak Spanish -- they'd have someone to talk to.
jakubikF   Wed Apr 05, 2006 8:02 pm GMT
Frontera
But what do you mean "most". We can say the half, then I'd agree. Half languages in Europe are based on Latin: Spanish (the whole group of languages in Spain - I am not knowledgeable about them), French, Italian, English, Romanian, Moldavian,probalby in some way German. I guess these are the most important. But the languages like: Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Czech, Slovakian, Serbian and so on aren't based on Latin, are they.
Frontera   Wed Apr 05, 2006 8:30 pm GMT
Most Langauges in the western hemisphere, Most of europe and the americas use a Latin based language. And with europe the counrtys you mentioned are still the major players and most highly populated areas in europe.
JakubikF   Thu Apr 06, 2006 4:01 pm GMT
I agree that thay aren't highly populated, however you can't say that most of languages in Europe are latin based. That's what I wanted to say. It shows that creating a New Language basing only on latin-based languages is unfair for nonlatin-based.
What's more. I don't think we should add USA, Canada or other english-speaking countres. Concentrate on Europe.
Frontera   Thu Apr 06, 2006 5:38 pm GMT
So why wouldn't it make more sense to make it easy for the majority of ppl?
G_DANS   Thu Apr 06, 2006 10:25 pm GMT
What the hell? I would choose a language on not the popluation of the speakers but how spreadout the language is. German is spoken in more european countries than English is.

Though for international purposes when the EU (European Union) deals with say the United States English would be most useful for this case.
JR   Thu Apr 06, 2006 11:33 pm GMT
Just because a language is spoken in more countries does not mean that the population of those countries use it.

If it were all of Europe... I'd go with latin.
Latin has been important for the last 2,000 years, Latin is a logical choice If the country only had people from parts of Europe then whatever is spoken the most there, or whatever could be understood by most.
greg   Fri Apr 07, 2006 8:28 am GMT
Interlingua est un bon compromis entre le latin et les langues romanes.
gamal   Fri Apr 07, 2006 10:59 am GMT
moi suomalainen

The European language should be Finnish or Castilian. Finnish is spoken in one country in Europe, Finland, and even in Finland its use is not official nationwide. On the autonomous Åland islands of FInland, only Swedish is official, along with all of mainland Finland. Finnish is only official in on the mainland, but nowhere else. Finns have done such a good job of hiding their mysterious and rich language to the rest of the world. For centuries they only communicated in Swedish to the outside world, then Russian and now English. The Finns only have 2 relatives that are spoken in European states, Hungarian and Estonian, both of which are notoriously difficult to pronounce.

Castilian is an obvious choice. It is the most widely spoken Latin tongue, which for millenia was Europe's lingua franca. It is a widely spoken global tongue, unlike it sister French, with hundreds of millions of native speakers outside of Europe.