The relationships between the neo-Latin languages

<<Potrivit studiului realizat de Prefectura Capitalei, 35,34% din numarul total de angajati ai institutiilor administrative si ONG-urilor vorbesc o limba de circulatie internationala. Cea mai cunoscuta este engleza. 64% dintre vorbitorii de limbi straine vorbesc engleza, urmata, in ordine de franceza (38%), germana (4%), italiana (4%), maghiara (4%), spaniola (3%), si rusa (3%)." >>

To OldAvatar: I agree with Francophilippe. The text above is doubtable. I don't see the Rumanian characters ş, ă, and ţ in that message of yours.

"Allons enfants de la francophonie, la jour de gloire est arrive!
Contre nous de la anglophonie, l'etandard sanglant est levee!"

Guys, Give over! French is important and dignified enough as it is, you don't have to hammer on about it being what everybody knows it isn't: the world's most important vehicle of communication.

You are making it really difficult to believe that French people are not really that Chauvinistic.

Carlos,

french aren't chauvinistic, you believe in clichés and of course this is your problem if you believe in clichés.

Nobody who is here said the french was the most important language or the most important culture. The french is an important foreign language in Romania, i can assure you that by the way my mother is romanian. The same occurs with spanish in France whre it is the most spoken language in France after french of course, it does not mean the spanish is the most important language in Europe. Those are facts, only facts. The fact you believe in clichés show just how you can't accept some facts wich are undoubtable.

Most Romanian websites do not use diacritics because it will limit the access. An user is supposed to have CE characters support installed in order to read them and not all computers have that. Ceausescu downfall was almost 20 years ago. Romania is completely another country now.

French language used to be the beloved language of Romanians. Unlike Britain, for example, France, as an European power, always backed up Romanians and always wanted to exist a powerful Latinised state in this part of Europe, so it can deal with former other European superpowers, like Russia, Austro-Hungarian Empire or even Germany. France always helped Romania, economically, politically, military and probably most important, culturally. Romanians are always appreciative to French people due to these facts. So, there was a great tradition of speaking French and it used to be somehow considered as the second national language. A feeling of brotherhood was established between two countries. Romania copied the French system and did it pretty well till the Second World War. Bucharest used to be named Paris of the Orient or Little Paris. In the interbelic period it has been changed into a cosmopolitan city, following French standards.

All I'm trying to say is that in Romania, nowadays, French is rapidly losing ground to English, at all levels. If you do a study about Romanian French speakers, you will see that Romanian French speakers average age is significantly higher than English speakers's. It is not an offence to French language. French is still loved in Romania, it is just that young people find English more useful than French, at least, for now, that's all.

Here's a link:
http://www.euractiv.ro/uniunea-europeana/articles%7CdisplayArticle/articleID_8336/Trei-sferturi-din-sefii-institutiilor-publice-si-ONG-urilor-vorbesc-o-limba-straina.html


Regards

carlos,

you are right, english is more and more popular today, as you said, there was (and is) a long tradition of friendship between France and Romania and we should add France, Italy and Romania. These 3 countries share a lot of common things.

I do not believe in clichés... I'm not easy pray to stereotypes, but sometimes it is difficult not to be tempted to use them as a weapon. Of late, whenever languages are discussed in a forum, I've come across French people claiming their language is more important internationally than Spanish (arguable) or English (ridiculous), and their claims are often based more on their self-perception or limited personal experience than on hard figures or serious studies.

In actual fact, I admire the efforts of the French to maintain their language pure and free from English adulteration (I wish we would do the same in Spain), I like their country and I like them, but some of them take their pride way too far.

Hey OldAvatar,

I just accessed the website you posted http://www.euractiv.ro/uniunea-europeana/articles%7CdisplayArticle/articleID_8336/Trei-sferturi-din-sefii-institutiilor-publice-si-ONG-urilor-vorbesc-o-limba-straina.html.

The original 2nd paragraph is:
"Potrivit studiului realizat de Prefectura Capitalei, 35,34% din numarul total de angajati ai institutiilor administrative si ONG-urilor vorbesc o limba de circulatie internationala. Cea mai cunoscuta este engleza. Mai mult de jumatate dintre vorbitorii de limbi straine vorbesc engleza, urmata, in ordine de franceza (38%), germana (4%), italiana (4%), maghiara (4%), spaniola (3%), si rusa (3%)."

You posted:
"Potrivit studiului realizat de Prefectura Capitalei, 35,34% din numarul total de angajati ai institutiilor administrative si ONG-urilor vorbesc o limba de circulatie internationala. Cea mai cunoscuta este engleza. 64% dintre vorbitorii de limbi straine vorbesc engleza, urmata, in ordine de franceza (38%), germana (4%), italiana (4%), maghiara (4%), spaniola (3%), si rusa (3%)."

Compare the original and what you posted and you will find out that
"Cea mai cunoscuta este engleza. 64% dintre vorbitorii de limbi straine vorbesc engleza"

Oh please be realistic don't take everything away what belongs to others
because you have most.

OldAvatar, French maybe losing to English but not so rapidly. Romanians are not like the people of other countries who go gaga over English.

Maybe there are more people who study English in Romania than any other languages but it does not mean they will not be able to speak French. In fact a Romanian or Portuguese speaker can teach himself how to speak French without enrolling in a language school by listening and as if he's learning another dialect without so much effort since their languages are so similar to each other.

Hey OldAvatar,

I just accessed the website you posted http://www.euractiv.ro/uniunea-europeana/articles%7CdisplayArticle/articleID_8336/Trei-sferturi-din-sefii-institutiilor-publice-si-ONG-urilor-vorbesc-o-limba-straina.html.

The original 2nd paragraph is:
"Potrivit studiului realizat de Prefectura Capitalei, 35,34% din numarul total de angajati ai institutiilor administrative si ONG-urilor vorbesc o limba de circulatie internationala. Cea mai cunoscuta este engleza. Mai mult de jumatate dintre vorbitorii de limbi straine vorbesc engleza, urmata, in ordine de franceza (38%), germana (4%), italiana (4%), maghiara (4%), spaniola (3%), si rusa (3%)."

You posted:
"Potrivit studiului realizat de Prefectura Capitalei, 35,34% din numarul total de angajati ai institutiilor administrative si ONG-urilor vorbesc o limba de circulatie internationala. Cea mai cunoscuta este engleza. 64% dintre vorbitorii de limbi straine vorbesc engleza, urmata, in ordine de franceza (38%), germana (4%), italiana (4%), maghiara (4%), spaniola (3%), si rusa (3%)."

Compare the original and what you posted and you will find out that
"Cea mai cunoscuta este engleza. 64% dintre vorbitorii de limbi straine vorbesc engleza" ** IS NOT FOUND **

Oh please be realistic don't take everything away what belongs to others
because you have most.

Hello Erratum,

I'm sorry, I'm not sure if you'll believe me but I really didn't do it on purpose. The idea was to sum the other languages percentages, having the purpose of a better statistic, since the English speakers number is not mentioned. :(

So, if you do that, the result will be 56%. That will make 44% English speakers and, of course, not 64%.

On the other hand, and probably the cause of my misjudgement and mistake, the text says that "Mai mult de jumatate dintre vorbitorii de limbi straine vorbesc engleza" which means "more than half of the foreign language speakers do speak English". Quite weird since the others are 56%, right?

I guess is a messed up text anyway. Thanks for pointing that out!


Sorry again.

Carlos,

The fact some french think their language is superior or the most superior in the world means they are unhonnest and stupid.

Spanish is also more spoken then the french in the world.

I think spanish is also less influenced by the english, you have for example more singers in spain which are good. If you compare it with France, there are a lot of singers who are really borring.
France (by my point of view) is more influenced by the english. But i don't think it is a problem? Why should it be. All the language are evolving during their life, french is not an exception and those (like the Accadémie française) who think they can stop that are really stupid and blind.

You are right, sometimes when we get nerved, it is easy to use clichés as a weapon, i understand what you mean.

It is true some french are unhonnest, like some spanish, english...Some people have a tendency to view their country only by their own eyes and they can't accept somebody to criticize it negatively.

Personnaly, i think it does not have any importance, french, spansih, english, it is all artificial and in a few decades, centuries, people's view will be absolutly different.

Spanish, Portuguese & Italian are the SAME Language, only a slightly bit of differences from spelling grammar & pronounciation, but they are the same: the people, their cultures, traditions, religions, heritages, etc. As for the French, Romanian, Catalonian, those are quite different when compared to ESP, POR & ITA, PERIOD!

Hey OldAvatar! Do you have a background on Romanian language because I could see in the messages that you posted you do not have.

"Potrivit studiului realizat de Prefectura Capitalei, 35,34% din numarul total de angajati ai institutiilor administrative si ONG-urilor vorbesc o limba de circulatie internationala. Cea mai cunoscuta este engleza. Mai mult de jumatate dintre vorbitorii de limbi straine vorbesc engleza, urmata, in ordine de franceza (38%), germana (4%), italiana (4%), maghiara (4%), spaniola (3%), si rusa (3%)."

"Conform EUROSTAT, 26% dintre romani vorbesc engleza, urmata de franceza, care ocupa locul."

You said "So, if you do that, the result will be 56%. That will make 44% English speakers and, of course, not 64%." with respect to the first paragraph above.

But how can you reconcile it with the second paragraph above that just 26% of Romanians who speak English.

If you are going to analyze the first paragraph above the survey/study was done in Romanian Capital Prefecture in order words within the vicinity of Romania. So there is no truth in your findings that more Romanian speak English than French because it didn't mention in the site http://www.euractiv.ro/uniunea-europeana/articles%7CdisplayArticle/articleID_8336/Trei-sferturi-din-sefii-institutiilor-publice-si-ONG-urilor-vorbesc-o-limba-straina.html that the survey/study was done nationwide.

I have a very little knowledge of Romanian but htanks to my knowlege of major Romance languages, I could decipher written Romanian.

And I agree that site was not made by a native Romanian script because of the abscence of ş, ă, ţ, and other diacritical marks inherent to the Romanian languages and you reasoned "Most Romanian websites do not use diacritics because it will limit the access. An user is supposed to have CE characters support installed in order to read them and not all computers have that. " is not believable. Nice try.

This is "cyberworld" a world of "virtual reality" which means one can upload websites with misinformation or post messages far from reality which are "make believe" things.

1. "Mai mult de jumatate dintre vorbitorii de limbi straine vorbesc engleza"
means
"More than half of foreign language speakers do speak English."

2. <you reasoned "Most Romanian websites do not use diacritics because it will limit the access. An user is supposed to have CE characters support installed in order to read them and not all computers have that.>
Just surf <.ro> domains and you will find the remark rather believable.

3. EUROSTAT was a different statistic. EUROSTAT reffered to the hole population while the first study was just on a Prefecture's Employees level.

4. I already said that I've done a mistake when I calculated the percentages. The phrase mentioned in paragraph one was the one which determined me to make a mistake.

I've never said that the study was done nationwide, I just pointed out a study which I thought that had some relevance. That's all. I was trying to back up my statement with a link which unfortunately wasn't quite good. That doesn't mean I'm totally wrong...

Again, I'm sorry about this mistake and please receive my appologise. I already said thanx for pointing out the wrong info. What exactly do you want from me?

The text from the mentioned link was exactly as followed. I'll try a better translation now since, you're doinga great job in monitorising every phrase of mine:

"Potrivit studiului realizat de Prefectura Capitalei, 35,34% din numarul total de angajati ai institutiilor administrative si ONG-urilor vorbesc o limba de circulatie internationala. Cea mai cunoscuta este engleza."

"According to the study realised by the Capital City Prefecture, 35.34% of the total number of administrative institutions and Non-Governmental Organisation's employees do speak a worldwide known language. The most known foreign language is English."

Again. What exactly do you want from me? I don't wanna argue with anyone, I'm just sustaining my point of view. If you do not believe it, that is all right, just try to prove your point of view...

Best regards