LL-L "Language politics" 2008.08.28 (02) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 28 August 2008 - Volume 02
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From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2008.08.27 (02) [E]

Surely all sport is "entertainment business" these days. Are we going to see
language requirements at the Olympics as well?  The fact that the post-game
interview is seen as the exciting bit says something about golf in my
opinion.



Paul Finlow-Bates

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From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2008.08.27 (03) [E]

I think the EU should adopt one of the "little" languages as a standard, to
even up the playing field a bit. My personal choice would be Danish or
Frisian, but that's probably cheating a bit for an English speaker. Maybe
Estonian, or Latvian?



If we go for the "size matters" principle, logically German would over-ride
everything else.  That'd suit me too, but probably not a lot of the rest of
Europe.



Paul Finlow-Bates

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language politics

Paul,

I suggest the choice between the landless, impartial languages Romany and
Yiddish. And that'd give everybody something to do for a change.



By the way, I know quite a few native speakers whose English is atrocious.
Does this mean they'd have a better shot for the jobs than non-native
speakers?



Reinhard/Ron

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From: Brooks, Mark <mark.brooks at twc.state.tx.us>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2008.08.27 (03) [E]

Marlou wrote: "almost every EU job offer requires English as a native
language."

Wow!  I never knew that.  That seems very strange to me.  It seems like it
limits EU employment to people from the UK or Ireland.  Surely, they don't
represent a very large percentage of EU "citizens."  Wouldn't that make for
some kind of discrimination?  It seems completely contrary to the EU policy
about valuing minority languages.

I can certainly understand requiring EU employees to speak a certain
language for the smooth operation of the organization, but I certainly
wouldn't have thought they would require native speakers English.  That
seems almost racist for lack of a better word.  Language chauvinism I
suppose.  How did they ever get that past the French ;-) ?  But seriously,
that's a preference based on national origin.  Here in the USA we have laws
against that sort of thing.  How un-European!

Mark Brooks

•

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