World languages

Guest   Mon Feb 25, 2008 9:16 pm GMT
<<All other languages are NOT important because they are not officially World languages. For instance, if there is an UNO World meeting in Danemark, the President of Germany can NOT speak in German, the same with Italian, Hindi, Portuguese or Japanese.>>

Why can't the president of Germany speak German? what is she supposed to speak? I think you're mistaken. There will be a translator who will translate from German into English.
Guest69   Mon Feb 25, 2008 9:20 pm GMT
No. If it is a World meeting supported by UNO, German is not official language. German President should speak in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese or Arabic.

There are translators of these 6 languages. Do you want 500 translators in World meetings?
Guest   Mon Feb 25, 2008 9:30 pm GMT
No you are wrong. The president will speak what ever language he/she wants but it will only be translated INTO the official languages, and won't be translated into the obscure languages.
Guest   Mon Feb 25, 2008 10:58 pm GMT
don't see Mandarin as a world language. It's essentially limited to one country. That's a regional language, my friends. Besides, China is really a 2nd rate tourist destination if you look what it has to offer. Most of China lies in a very harsh/extreme climate, the ever expanding deserts cause yearly dust storms, the cities are horrendously overpopulated and noisy and the pollution is disgusting. So unless you're fascinated by pieces of pottery from the Ming dynasty, I would generally advise the average western tourist to go elsewhere-JLK

I think you are missing a lot. China is a huge country with a huge population. Have you ever been there? I have (no big deal, but I wonder if you are speaking in such a way because of regrettable experiences there.) and it has some interesting sites.

China is spoken in Taiwan and all over the world in Chinatowns. I think Malaysia has a large Chinese population too and many Vietnamese are "Chinese Vietnamese".

I really wonder where you get your ornery ideas.
PARISIEN   Mon Feb 25, 2008 11:06 pm GMT
Chinois, japonais, hindi/urdu spnt des langues numériquement importantes, mais ne seront JAMAIS des langues internationales, encore moins mondiales.

Les Chinois, les Japs etc. sont flattés quand d'autres peuples s'intéressent à leur culture, essayent de parler un peu leurs langues. Mais à condition de ne pas trop maîtriser ces langues. Dans une négociation, ils aiment s'abriter derrière un interprête en discutant entre eux. S'ils réalisent que le partenaire en face comprend leur langue ils ne sont pas du tout amusés, ils trouvent ça déloyal !

C'est pourquoi ils ne cherchent pas à propager leurs langues outre mesure. Leur spécificité linguistique est leur protection.

D'autre part, qu'on le veuille ou non, la culture GLOBALE est la culture occidentale/européenne. Toutes les langues européennes participent +/- de cette culture mondiale (les langues asiatiques ou l'arabe : zéro).

Ceci étant posé, l'anglais est la seule grande langue mondiale. Le français est une petite langue mondiale, comme l'allemand, le russe, l'italien (outre la musique, l'italien est de facto lingua franca dans cette institution internationale encore importante qui s'appelle Eglise catholique romaine), et l'espagnol dans une moindre mesure.
Guest   Mon Feb 25, 2008 11:09 pm GMT
Sorry Parisien but small world languages don't exist. Don't lie to yourself, French language is irrelevant nowadays .
Guest   Mon Feb 25, 2008 11:09 pm GMT
Si ya lo dijo mi amigo Napo : Cuando China despierte el mundo temblará.
Oye Xie : ¿Es muy dificil aprender chino?
Guest69 Mon Feb 25, 2008 8:15 pm GMT


So, is this a rhetorical question? Do you think Xie reads Spanish? I think, yes, the world will tremble.

I'm not Xie. You know he learned Cantonese first, then Mandarin. Still he had the hometown advantage by being a child who learned the characters at school.

If Spanish is your first language, I think you will have the same distance, or even greater distance in some ways to Chinese than a native speaker of English has. Japanese on the other hand wouldn't be so bad as many of the sounds are the same or quite similar to the sounds in Spanish.

Mandarin has two tough areas for westerners. The tones and the writing.
The characters will take you a lot of time.
Guest   Mon Feb 25, 2008 11:13 pm GMT
Sorry Parisien but small world languages don't exist. Don't lie to yourself, French language is irrelevant nowadays-Guest


I wouldn't count out French. Remember, it's spoken by many people as a second language in Africa.
Guest   Mon Feb 25, 2008 11:18 pm GMT
Les Chinois, les Japs etc. sont flattés quand d'autres peuples s'intéressent à leur culture, essayent de parler un peu leurs langues. Mais à condition de ne pas trop maîtriser ces langues. Dans une négociation, ils aiment s'abriter derrière un interprête en discutant entre eux. S'ils réalisent que le partenaire en face comprend leur langue ils ne sont pas du tout amusés, ils trouvent ça déloyal !-Parisien

Not sure if I quite agree with you. It certainly throws them off and bothers them. On the other hand, people are usually embarrassed when they say inappropriate or secret things in their language because they've wrongly quessed about the people around them. Language stereotypes have blinded them to the possibility that others understand.
JLK   Tue Feb 26, 2008 12:20 am GMT
<<I think you are missing a lot. China is a huge country with a huge population. Have you ever been there? I have (no big deal, but I wonder if you are speaking in such a way because of regrettable experiences there.) and it has some interesting sites.

China is spoken in Taiwan and all over the world in Chinatowns. I think Malaysia has a large Chinese population too and many Vietnamese are "Chinese Vietnamese".

I really wonder where you get your ornery ideas.>>

Yes, China is a huge country, but much like Russia, the vast majority of it is not a hip tourist destination. On the other hand, France, a country which is a fraction the size, has a lot more to offer in this respect. I don't know why you use the population to defend your argument. It is China's curse. If you have ever been to Beijing or Shanghai you would realize how ridiculously over populated it is. As I mentioned before, the pollution and the smog, even in the country side is almost unbearable. My point is, the average Westerner would find China quite a disappointment, in comparison to Europe, America, Australia or even Latin America.


I love how you include China Towns in the realm of the Chinese speaking world. Sorry to break this to you, but Mandarin is effectively limited to China and Taiwan, no matter how much you try to think otherwise. Immigrant populations are invalid. Besides, most people in the China Towns, at least the ones in the USA, speak obscure Cantonese dialects, so I doubt Mandarin would be particularly useful. But, enough said. I don't want to interfere with your Mandarin love affair. You better hurry up and learn it before the fad ends and the bubble bursts.
Javanese   Tue Feb 26, 2008 12:39 am GMT
Can we leave JLK alone with his western centric garbage?This is a WORLD Language thread,not a China basing club...
Guest   Tue Feb 26, 2008 12:45 am GMT
Тhe next century will be EASTERN-CENTRIC. The west will sink to Arabic and Chinese and Russian. And thus, it'll be needed to learn these languages. English will go the way of French. German may maintain some prestige, but decline is irremediable. It's so, undeniably so, so so that no one in their senses would have the audacity to contravene such assertion.
mac   Tue Feb 26, 2008 12:49 am GMT
<< Guest69 , sorry but you're missing one point. English has less native english speakers but has the bigger number of students of all UNO languages. So the strong point of english is that it is nowadays considered a lingua franca because USA leads the world economically,scientifically,militarily,etc ; >>

Of course you're right about the students, and yes, the USA helps a lot; but English has more native speakers then French, Russian and Arabic (dialects with the standard being a second language). It isn't far behind Spanish either, going by native speakers.
Guest   Tue Feb 26, 2008 12:51 am GMT
French would be more important internationally if Quebec became an independent country.
JLK   Tue Feb 26, 2008 12:53 am GMT
Did you mean 'bashing'?

I am not bashing China. I'm arguing that Mandarin in not a "World Language" and the knowledge of it or lack thereof, should not be a hindrance in travel to east Asia. I also took the liberty of pointing out that it is just spoken in China and Taiwan, (which is technically a part of China). Mandarin will not serve you well in Korea or Japan or anywhere else for that matter. The notion that it would help any "world traveller in Asia" utterly ridiculous, so I responded quite rightly.