Comment about Tom’s new article.

Johnny   Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:36 am GMT
Anyway, who cares? The point is Tom is disappointed because it seems people around him don't care much about learning English, and avoiding English completely (because it's being replaced with Polish) will take away what little motivation and exposure to English people had... and motivation and exposure are the things that make people learn faster and better. Period.
an original name   Wed Dec 31, 2008 8:35 am GMT
English will not be the language of the internet in the future. It was once, but no more:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/31/technology/internet/31hindi.html?_r=1&hp

<<The next chapter of the World Wide Web will not be written in English alone. Asia already has twice as many Internet users as North America, and by 2012 it will have three times as many. Already, more than half of the search queries on Google come from outside the United States. >>

<<Only there is a shortage of non-English content and applications. So, American technology giants are spending hundreds of millions of dollars each year to build and develop foreign-language Web sites and services>>

<<Gone are the days in which you can launch a Web site in English and assume that readers from around the globe are going to look to you simply because of the content you’re providing>>

<<Global businesses are spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year working their way down a list of languages into which to translate their Web sites, said Donald A. DePalma, the chief research officer of Common Sense Advisory, a consulting business in Lowell, Mass., that specializes in localizing Web sites.>>

<<If you want to reach a billion people, or even half a billion people, and you want to bond with them, then you have no choice but to do multiple languages>>

<<Localization is the key to success in countries like India,” said Gopal Krishna, who oversees consumer services at Yahoo India. >>

<<That’s why we say English is not enough,” Mr. Ram Prakash said, repeating the slogan of Quillpad. “People want to look forward, and they want to learn English. That is all right, but English is not enough for all their needs.”>>
a more orginal name   Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:45 pm GMT
<<1. It is a good thing for people to know English well.
2. The availability (or exclusive availability) of English-language videogames helps people to learn English by motivating them and providing input.
3. The localization of videogames eliminates (2), therefore impedes (1), therefore it is bad. >>

1. It is a good thing for people to know English well.
2. The availability of all kinds of English-language material and the use of English help people learn English by motivating them and providing input.
3. The overall use of other languages eliminates (2), and therefore impedes (1); therefore it is a bad thing. Thus all other languages are a bad thing, and they should be eliminated.
humao   Wed Dec 31, 2008 6:51 pm GMT
Just think of countries like Germany, France or Spain. In places like those dubbing and translating is the norm, and I can't see anything wrong with that. I'm from one of these countries and honestly, I get totally puzzled every time I see this custom put down, especially from Europeans who live in little countries. The thing is you don't need to do a lot of thinking to realise that Poland belong with France and Spain, not with the Netherlands. It is very simple, we have 100% of the option the tiny nations have, because nowadays the original version is always easy to get, and plus, we've got another version, so we're two times more free.

In the place I live, people who get angry about other people having more options, and those who get angry about other people free decisions are called communists.

I'm a kinda freaky who enjoy watching movies in English, so I do as much as I can, whereas no one else on my family and friends does that, so they watch the dubbed versions. That's called liberty.

On the other hand, I'm the minority, so when I watch movies with them, I must watch the national version, and that's called coexistence. The simple idea of people in my country spontaneously starting to live in a foreign language is so foolish that I couldn't help laughing at it.
Jasper   Wed Dec 31, 2008 7:23 pm GMT
I agree with Tom on one essential point: "You know, I have never heard a single convincing argument that we should preserve language diversity."

I beg the readers to look deep inside themselves to ponder this notion: Preservation efforts of a certain language--any language--are based on ego, and ego alone. Why would anyone in today's era want to preserve Old Prussian, for example? It's an endeavor fueled by ego; in this day and age I see no practical need for it.

On a related note, I don't see anything wrong with the existence of a lingua franca; it is a tradition that has been preserved hundreds (if not thousands) of years. (In modern history, we have used Spanish, French, Russian (in the former Soviet Bloc), and most recently, English.) Because we have always needed to communicate with one another, a lingua franca serves this need best--although admittedly it doesn't have to be English.
Guest   Wed Dec 31, 2008 7:56 pm GMT
Not so much ego, but tradition. Old traditions never die.
Caspian   Wed Dec 31, 2008 8:12 pm GMT
<< Wouldn't it be fairer if everyone just learned English in childhood? >>

Aye, that it would - or Polish, or Lithuanian, or Chinese, or Irish - or Esperanto. And what strain of English? British? American? Scottish? You'll say American of course - it's the most spoken - however the dollar will drop, the RMB will rise, so let's all learn Mandarin. Wait a minute, we can't do that - there are difficult characters and tones to learn. How about Arabic? Or Hindi?

Do you not find the idea of languages being killed upsetting? Nobody wants their language to die. Perhaps you would want Polish to do so - I would hate English to; a language is not just a language, a language is culture, and feeling. It's so robotic to want all languages to be dead! Have a soul!

<< "You know, I have never heard a single convincing argument that we should preserve language diversity." >>

Well, maybe it's not an argument that's needed - they always turn out to be so aggressive, and never get anybody anywhere. Maybe instinct, or commonsense is what's needed!
Tom   Wed Dec 31, 2008 8:16 pm GMT
Let me briefly discuss the points you brought up:

"I don't know whether it is 'worth it' or not, but the vast majority obviously prefer the games in their own language."

Irrelevant. People often want things that are bad for them (and others).

"the money is made by the localised versions."

Irrelevant. The market is not always right.

"What do you mean by 'worth it' anyway?"

I mean that it is not certain that the entertainment benefits of localization outweigh the educational costs.

"Should we stop using calculators and do all the calculations by hand because it is advantageous?"

Is it as advantageous as gaining access to a wealth of knowledge, as helping and being helped by people from other parts of the world? If you think mental calculations are equally important, then yes, we should stop using calculators.

"English is not THAT important for the average person. Once one has a high school level knowledge and can read newspaper level text there is really no need to learn more unless it is necessary for your profession."

English may not be important for the "average person", but it is essential for intellectuals and knowledge workers, who are the force that moves society forward. Perhaps we shouldn't care if a plumber has slightly less fun playing FIFA09 on his XBOX. Perhaps we should care if our doctors know English well enough to read about the latest research in medical journals.

For your reference, here is a list of occupations in which English is at least very useful (if not vital): doctors, scientists, politicians, engineers, software developers, managers

There are also plenty of occupations where English is not very useful:
artists, lawyers, low-level service workers (hairdressers, factory workers, etc.)

Your argument that you don't need English is spurious. You may not need English yourself (let me remain sceptical about this), but you need other people to know English -- your doctor, the guy who programmed the security system of your bank, the engineers who designed your car, etc.
Tom   Wed Dec 31, 2008 8:26 pm GMT
"Are you saying that non English speaking countries should give up their native languages, or that they provide a bilingual education (English + native) from childhood?"

I'm certainly for bilingual education. However, the problem I see with this solution is that it favors people from English-speaking countries. Should we be telling our students to spend a lot of time learning two languages while American students are only learning English and can devote the rest of their time to other subjects? One has to ask: what are the benefits of maintaining all the other languages?
Tom   Wed Dec 31, 2008 8:43 pm GMT
"English is rapidly being caught up with. "

True, content in other major languages is getting better, but it will never overtake English for the simple reason that English is the language of science, technology, and business. New developments in these areas are primarily presented in English, and only later are they translated (if at all) into other languages. Furthermore, even if the bulk of scientific research moved from the US to Spain, it is quite likely that science would still be done in English -- the scientific community has already chosen its lingua franca.

As for the humanities, it's possible that one day the French Wikipedia will have better articles on literature than the English Wikipedia -- but literature is of little importance to our civilization.
Tom   Wed Dec 31, 2008 8:47 pm GMT
"In the place I live, people who get angry about other people having more options, and those who get angry about other people free decisions are called communists."

More choice is not always good. Think about it.
Tom   Wed Dec 31, 2008 9:16 pm GMT
"Do you not find the idea of languages being killed upsetting?"

Yes, I very much regret the loss of Shakespeare's English and Classical Greek. I also hate the fact that the French Franc and the Deutschmark are no more, and that you can no longer see Chevy Camaros on American streets. Nostalgia is a normal feeling, but it should not cloud our rational judgment nor should it guide our policies as a society.

Remember that the death of languages is slow, which makes it pretty painless. If English becomes truly dominant, people in Poland will still be able to use Polish if they feel like it, even though people around them will mostly use English, just like you can take your 30-year old vintage bike for a ride on a Sunday morning. But their children will probably not feel so nostalgic about it. How many people today bemoan the loss of the telegraph machine?

"Well, maybe it's not an argument that's needed - they always turn out to be so aggressive, and never get anybody anywhere. Maybe instinct, or commonsense is what's needed!"

Yep. That'll work. Screw cost/benefit analysis, let's all make decisions based on our gut feeling! Yippee!
In Reply   Wed Dec 31, 2008 10:51 pm GMT
I don't love English more than any other language, but I'm very glad that I got it as a gift as my first language.

That said, I don't like French or any other language more than English. They're simply languages to me. Knowing more than one language allows me to see what is happening in medical research around the world
before it gets translated into English. That's exciting to me.

I've heard of other people being crazy about English before. I saw a movie about a Chinese guy who was pretty much smitten with English back in the late 1980s or early 90s. I think he would quote famous passages while playing ping-po
In Reply   Wed Dec 31, 2008 10:53 pm GMT
ping-pong.
Vulcan   Wed Dec 31, 2008 11:01 pm GMT
Humans are descended from apes, so obviously they don't think like machines. It might be illogical to attach sentimental value to a a language, but this is what people essentially are, illogical animals.