The Sun still Shines/Die Sonne scheint noch

Guest   Sun Feb 10, 2008 7:09 pm GMT
<<That hatred is caused by pure envy. >>

I don't think many in Europe envy the US anymore. The US is spiraling downhill much faster than Europe (economically, but perhaps not demographically).
Guest   Sun Feb 10, 2008 11:16 pm GMT
A European that envies USA??? What a freak!
Guest   Mon Feb 11, 2008 3:45 pm GMT
In Scholl's time world was different. America was still minding it's own business and English, French and German were competing for the title of The World Language. We know how that ended.
Today, American imperialism is producing resentment all over the globe (deserved or not, I don't want to discuss that), but the status of English language seems to be exempted. English is standing strong due to economical, cultural and political reasons. People are learning English because they have to, not because they like it.
Is it going to change in the future? There are voices in US today, calling for alert in the same way Scholl did.
Do you have an opinion?
guest   Mon Feb 11, 2008 3:59 pm GMT
Even if dislike for America escalates, English is not only the language of the American people. Think of the Brits, the Australians, Canadians, etc. Why hate English for the Americans?

And German, although largely associated with Germany, is not only the language of that people.

I agree with greg, those anti-German events happened 60-90 years ago. It's time to lay those ghosts to rest.
Xie   Mon Feb 11, 2008 4:26 pm GMT
>>English is standing strong due to economical, cultural and political reasons. People are learning English because they have to, not because they like it.

But I still think English is a (or the) language of immigrants. See its words. Latinate, Greek, French, and PLENTY of words from others. There would not have been modern Brits without immigrants going to Britain. So were the Americans, and peoples beyond their borders. English reached everywhere under the sun and the moon, and finally.... there you are, there exists a new English which is shared by everybody, and "Anglophones", despite their obvious linguistic advantages - in education, in commerce, in ESL teaching (*I guess really few people sharing my origins would be able to teach Cantonese anywhere outside southern China)....., HAVE to learn this new English-speak.

There is no absolute linguistic dis-advantage - I mean, at least for people who can "read", who can post here or who knows a literary language (Chinese is, English is, every national language is, Cantonese is strictly NOT, many regional ones are NOT, etc). Despite the advantages, Anglophones have to accept the fact that, whenever they leave their Anglosphere, they have to meet FAR more bad English speakers from everywhere. Human beings have to reach an understanding even at the worst moment such as in a war, and the conquerors and the defeated must communicate in a language. If the victor shall be Anglophone, and the loser shall not be, that victor still has to compromise his own English a bit to make himself understood. I can give far more bloody, vivid examples of this...

After all, that is to say, it doesn't matter if you or I, the non-Anglophone, cannot write English natively (in a cultural sense). As long as you write and you are understood, you are finished!

It was after I started to look into linguistic and literature insights of the Anglo-Saxon (not English) language that I realized how vain I had been trying to "learn" English. I ended up realizing that all I learnt was the new English-speak which isn't exactly English but whose well written version is half transparent to you lucky Anglophones. The other half is often not transparent even to non-natives who share the same native language with the writer. I often have difficulty reading notes and even short reports (whatever they are, like those for ordinary arts subjects) in English by fellow Chinese. This new English-speak has been created by convention by countless versions of partial knowledge of Anglo-Saxon with a strong taste of real Anglo-Saxon. Interestingly, its expressive power, at least for me, is at times beyond that of my own native language in my mind, because you can make sense without having to follow grammar rules very strictly (at times I write bad or unnatural Chinese, and I'm conscious correcting myself), when you expect everyone else (like here) can understand it.