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New language hierarchy
<< This isn't true. French is spoken as a native language by millions of people in urban areas >>
- Exact. L'Afrique de l'Ouest est éclatée entre une infinité de langues et dialectes (quelque 80 en Côte d'Ivoire, près de 500 au Nigéria !), le français ou l'anglais (selon les pays) sont indispensables comme commun medium, et tendent à devenir langues maternelles dans les villes.
Situation toute différente en Afrique de l'Est, où existe une surpuissante lingua franca indigène, le Kiswahili (surtout Kenya, Zambie, Ouganda, mais aussi le Sud-Est du Congo-Kinshasa).
English, English, and English.
top layer: English and French
second layer: top layer: Russian, Chinese, Portuguese, Hindi, German, Italian, Japanese...
lowest layer: Hottentot, Miao, Wu,Tamil, Telugu, Tok Pisin, and Hiri Motu Extinct: Spanish
Lex Diamondz,
You consider Spanish in a second Tier in 50 years (2059). I think you are very optimistic with Spanish. You say:
"Spanish in Latin America"
Nowadays, French is almost not spoken in the Paraguay, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Guatemala. In those countries people speak Amerindian languages very different as mother tongue. It is not mutually intelligible. Only a few speak Spanish (hardly 1 million).
Spanish is co-official in those countries. At the same time Spanish is disintegrating in hispanic america. At this moment Spanish is studied at school in Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador or Guatemala, and other former Spanish colonies. But, I think people will study Amerindian in these countries in 2059...
On the opposite side, Spanish depends on Brazil and the United States to be in the first or second level. Obviously if Spanish becomes official only in one of them in 2059, it will be in the first level.
Finally, Hindi is overshadowed by English in India. English is the business language of the country. I think that Hindi won't be so important.
In short, in my opinion:
First level: English, Chinese and Spanish
Second level: Arabic.
Third level: French, Hindi, Russian, Portuguese, German, Japanese and Indonesian
<< French is not official in North Africa. At the same time French is not a mother tongue in Africa. At this moment French is studied at school in Morocco or Algeria, and other former French colonies. But, I think people will study English in these countries in 2059...>>
The English-language press and the "Anglophone problem" in Cameroon: Group identity, culture, and the politics of Nostalgia
This paper traces the role of the Cameroonian English-language press in creating awareness of the "Anglophone problem," and putting it on the Cameroonian and international political agenda. The analysis is carried out within the framework of the problematic situations perspective which holds that when newspapers report events, they always present the issues in terms of problems that need to be solved in order to maintain individual, political and social equilibrium and harmony. English language newspapers and radio programs made use of identity and nostalgia to present an unenviable picture of the Anglophone minority in Cameroon. The newspapers concluded that Anglo-phones were a marginalized minority whose problems could only be solved by political autonomy and less control from the French-style over-centralized bureaucracy in Yaounde.
INTRODUCTION
One of the greatest challenges of modern nation states is protection of the political rights, cultures and economic interests of minority groups within their borders. The problems of minority groups are usually aggravated in uncertain or fluid political and cultural situations in which these groups consider themselves the victims of the majority. In order to cope with their perceived unfavorable predicament, minority groups develop coping mechanisms. The first is to nurture a high sense of group identity. The next stage is to feed, as it were, this identity through the use of nostalgia; a wistful longing for lost opportunities or a desire to return to a specific political circumstance, a junction in the road where the wrong turn that led to the present untenable situation was taken by the group or others. Sometimes, this desire to reset the political clock as it were, becomes the overwhelming objective of the elite and opinion leaders of these minority groups.
The above scenario describes the situation of the English-speaking or Anglophone minority in Cameroon. The community has, through its representatives, elites and newspapers, given an indication that it considers itself a marginalized minority of second-class citizens in the country of Cameroon. Indeed, some of the more radical Anglophone political activists consider Southern Cameroons, the English-speaking region of Cameroon, to have been recolonized by the French-speaking Republique du Cameroun (Republic of Cameroon). The newspapers controlled by, or available to the minority Anglo-phone community, tend to be advocates of the interests of that community, and serve as platforms on which the political frustrations, grievances, aspirations and demands of the group are expressed. As advocates, these newspapers practically set the political agenda for their community.
The Cameroon government has always sought to control or silence these political protests, which it has viewed as voices of discontent and disgruntlement, through heavy-handed censorship and tight control of information flow and exchange. Whenever this was done, journalists from the English-language press resorted to the use of code words, double entendre and even rumor to communicate the political sentiments of the aggrieved Anglophones. As these newspapers feature the Anglophone problem prominently, members of the community and the rest of the country have come to see the problem as an important issue that must be dealt with.
The aim of this paper is to trace the role of the Cameroonian English language press in creating awareness of the "Anglophone problem," -an assemblage of issues that have political, economic, cultural and social aspectsand putting it on the Cameroonian and international political agenda during the reign of current Cameroon president, Paul Biya. The Anglophone problem will be analyzed within the framework of the problematic situations perspective. The research was guided by the following question: How has the English-language (Anglophone) press framed or presented the Anglophone problem in Cameroon during the Biya era?
THE ANGLOPHONE PROBLEM IN CAMEROON
What has come to be known as the "Anglophone" problem is an assemblage of political, cultural, economic and social grievances expressed by the English-speaking minority in the predominantly French-speaking Republic of Cameroon (formerly called the United Republic of Cameroon). The question touches on the distribution of political and economic power, the institutional structures of the society, the educational system, and the relationship between the government and the governed. These grievances are expressed in terms of discrimination, second-class citizenship and "marginalization." In the 40 years since the reunification of English-speaking Southern Cameroons and French-speaking Republique du Cameroun, the resulting over-centralized government, run mostly by the French-speaking majority, and operating under what is essentially an Africanized version of the Napoleonic code, has attempted to eliminate the British-inspired educational, legal, agricultural, and administrative institutions which the Anglophones brought to the union. This has been accompanied by a concerted attempt to assimilate the English-speakers into the French-dominated system. Indeed, just months after the reunification of the English and French-speaking parts of Cameroon, the French government sponsored a massive "French by Radio" program in the English-speaking region of Cameroon. Using prepackaged interactive French lessons broadcast from a newly equipped AM and Shortwave broadcast station, Radio Buea, a large number of French and Francophone educators and language teachers were deployed to teach spoken and written French (in that order) in the major primary schools of the English-speaking region. At the same time, three Bilingual Grammar Schools, whose officials and teachers were mostly French-speaking Cameroonians or French citizens, were created in Buea, Mamfe and Yaounde to train young people to function in the over-centralized bureaucracy in Yaounde. To this day, when speaking of English-speaking Cameroonians, many French-speaking Cameroonians use the word "Anglo" as an epithet to mean "uncouth," "backward," "uncivilized," "inconsequential," and so on.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3821/is_200304/ai_n9173452/
Lex Diamondz,
You consider Spanish in a second Tier in 50 years (2059). I think you are very optimistic with Spanish. You say:
"Spanish in Latin America"
Nowadays, French is almost not spoken in the Paraguay, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Guatemala. In those countries people speak Amerindian languages very different as mother tongue. It is not mutually intelligible. Only a few speak Spanish (hardly 1 million).
Spanish is co-official in those countries. At the same time Spanish is disintegrating in hispanic america. At this moment Spanish is studied at school in Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador or Guatemala, and other former Spanish colonies. But, I think people will study Amerindian in these countries in 2059...
On the opposite side, Frenchh depends on the whole worldto be in the first or second level. Obviously if French becomes official only in one of them in 2059, it will be in the first level.
Finally, Hindi is overshadowed by English in India. English is the business language of the country. I think that Hindi won't be so important.
In short, in my opinion:
First level: English, French and Russian
Second level: Arabic.
Third level: Spanish, Hindi, Chinese, Portuguese, German, Japanese and Indonesian
"Second level: Arabic":
I am not that sure that Arabic can do it (but I do not rule it out). For centuries the driving forces in the Muslim world have been primarily speaking Turkish, Farsi, Urdu (with Indonesian joining in), and I do not see it changing in the near future.
Russian will be the most spoken and important language since Russia has the most nuclear bunkers.
First level: spanglish
Second level: spanish, english, chinese, arabian
Third level: portuguese, russian, japanese, italian
GErman is and will be a regional languageeven more , in addition Germans speak, particularly during business meetings, English fluently, so there will be no need to learn this language in the future.
But Arabian, Chinese, Italian, Japanese and Russian are regional languages too. Aside from English the rest are regional languages.
Well, China is a bigger region than Central Europe. The size is always important.
But, my question is different. We know than people are not interested in languages. They study at school one or two, and they only remember some basic phrases when they are adults.
It is worse when you are an adult and you want to start a language. You have no time to study "a difficult" language.
You only have time to study one "easy" language.
Perhaps, there is a very important factor in this new hierarchy: the difficulty of a language.
I think that in Western World, Arabic and Chinese won't be very popular. They are too much difficult. Some languages like Spanish or French will have always more students.
What do you think about?
I think so. Chinese and Arabic are cool. When people start to study them, it won't be cool. They are very difficult.
In Western World people will study European languages: English, Spanish, French...
I have also a lot of doubts about the study of Chinese and Arabic in USA and European Union.
We have several European languages much easier than the Asiatic ones. It must be frustrating to make an incredible effort to study Chinese and to know only a little of the language (the tonal phonetic and the writing system are extremely difficult).
With the same effort you can have a very good command of Spanish or French.
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