Are there any places in your country where English is spoken in an everyday situation by people who are not native speakers?
Do the middle-classes in some African and Asian cities use English for communication?
Perhaps in places like Amsterdam large groups of foreigners speak English to one another instead of Dutch?
Do you think this is a good or a bad thing? Will this facilitate the spread of English?
That is an interesting point. I would hope that these people would learn Dutch rather than English, considering that they are in the Netherlands. I think this is somewhat of a bad thing, but not the end of the world. I love how languages mix together, but I hate it when a culture loses its language(s).
I would not call the Amsterdam example a "culture loss"... the Netherlands are a well developed country. However, culture loss is what happened in Latin America, where entire native populations where "colonized" by Spain in the 15 and 16th century, and many languages were lost forever.
The case of the Netherlands for me is a modern phenomenon caused by globalization and not necessarily something bad.
In 19th centure, Russian elite speak French only at formal occasion and some of them did not know Russian at all.
English is far from such popularity now, I doubt that it could ever become so popular in Russia as it was French.
During the time the Normans were in power over England, English ceased to be a writen language. Just another reason why the English language changed so rapidly in this time period. When a language is not written, it has a tendancy to change faster than a language which is written.
don't you think a similar thing is happening in america with the spanish language? i know from my own experience that more and more public documents, signs, etc are being printed in spanish, and some schools out of "cultural preservation" teach immigrants in their native spanish and basically don't teach them english at all. slightly different from the english phenomenon proposed above, but a similar outcome, perhaps?
Personally, I do not think Spanish will become very much part of the English language, even in Southwest California because a lot of the grand-children of the immigrants speak no Spanish. There will still be immigrants, but they will stop speaking their language after two or three generations. Plus, ever been to Santa Monica or Hollywood? THere is a big Russian-Jew population there, and most of the street signs, placed by the city, are in English and Russian!
first off, the russian immigrant population is nothing compared with hispanic immigration.
the comparison between the hispanics who came decades ago and those who come today may not be accurate. back then, there was not this trend towards "cultural preservation," and hispanic along with other immigrants quickly learned the language and taught it to their children. today, however, many spanish immigrants are taught in "bilingual education"...which basically means that they are taught in spanish and learn little english in the process. who knows how this will affect their offspring? i know american-born latino kids who are in these bilingual programs because their parents were educated in the bilingual system, never learned english, and consequently never taught it to the kids. i mean you gotta know that somewhere down the line they'll learn the language, but there's a whole load of problems that come of this.
Lommers,
there are Russian who lives ten or more years in the US and almost don't speak in English. They all complain that they cannot learn English, though they have tried hard. Though their children usually don't have problem with English and many of them don't speak Russian well. Though it is mostly depend on the area, you know there is places where there are many Russian emigrants, so most people there don't speak good English.
Lommers, if I may, where in the US do you live (not the specifics, just the general area)? I live in Southern California, and from my experience, the hispanic population who speak proper Spanish are the parents who have emigrated to the US from Mexico. I have a lot of Mexican-American friends who would tell you that they do not speak Spanish well, and their grandparents came to the US, and some of them, their parents came to the US.
I still do not think that Spanish will have that much of an impact on American society due to Spanish only having "bilingual status" in select areas. You will not go to North Dakota and be able to go down to the town centre and hear Spanish spoken like you can here in Southern California.
Not in Australia but English is a common language in Malaysia, Hong Kong and particularly India and Pakistan.
How do you say "restriction enzyme cleavage site" in German? Spanish?
French? Italian? Urdu? Navaho? What about "gudgeon pin", "grommet"
"flange"?
Well, I have to say that I do understand cmhiv's point. If you live in a foreign country and plan to stay there forever, then you have to learn the language of the respective country.
In Germany e.g. lots of foreigners, especially the Turkish who forme a large minority do (not all of course)not even try to learn German.
They have their own TVstations, newspapers, sports-clubs,etc. I think one should really force them to learn German which does not imply that they should abandon their mother tongue but young Turkish whose grandparents came to Germany almost 50 years ago should at least be able to read and write simple sentences properly
Jack Doolan, hi!
I didn't look up the words given above in the OALD but I think that the former is either medicine or perhaps chemistry... There is surely a German equivalent because the Germans were leading in medicine (Koch, e.g.) and chemistry,etc.
But if one takes a look at computer ....uiuii German words would be too long and sound just stupid. You could translate keyboard literally by : Schlüsselbrett something you can put your keys, very stupid. Therefore we do embrace English words with these things...
Well, I have to say that I do understand cmhiv's point. If you live in a foreign country and plan to stay there forever, then you have to learn the language of the respective country.
In Germany e.g. lots of foreigners, especially the Turkish who forme a large minority do (not all of course)not even try to learn German.
They have their own TVstations, newspapers, sports-clubs,etc. I think one should really force them to learn German which does not imply that they should abandon their mother tongue but young Turkish whose grandparents came to Germany almost 50 years ago should at least be able to read and write simple sentences properly
@rudolph
i disagree with you. you mean the translations sounds strange. yes it does. but only because our words have very strict meanings. english has not. cut away all order and rules and you get a ´flexible´ language. this seems to me the main advantage of english. you can experiment around and do this and that. Is that realy an advantage? In German and Russian (as far as i remember) you can express much better nuances of feeling and meanings. But to do so you have to work on it. Work isnt so popular today, isnt it?
you could invent new german words in German but they will not be accepted. But the english inventions are accepted. Why? Thats absolutely shizophrenic. Because of the germans are stupid xenophilics.
joystick = spielstock - the americans dont seem to rise the question - ´how does joystick sound to me?´
keyboard = tastenbrett, I prefer ´Tastatur´
one has to think a little bit. maybee the Americans are just more inventive as it come to language.