[Corpora-List] Re: 'Standard European English' ?

[Somers, Harold]

In a recent paper I made a distinction between "minority" language and
"minor" language, the former being defined in terms of numbers of
speakers, the latter in terms of language engineering resources. Of
course the irony is that languages which are far from being minority
ones worldwide (Hindi, Urdu) are still minor languages. A more-used term
however is "less resourced" or "under-resourced" language, or indeed
"lesser-used language" (see thread on this forum of some moths ago!). 

Harold Somers  

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-corpora at lists.uib.no 
> [mailto:owner-corpora at lists.uib.no] On Behalf Of TadPiotr
> Sent: 07 March 2006 20:18
> To: 'Briony Williams'; 'FIDELHOLTZ_DOOCHIN_JAMES_LAWRENCE'
> Cc: corpora at lists.uib.no
> Subject: RE: [Corpora-List] Re: 'Standard European English' ?
> 
> One interesting question is: what is a minority language? I 
> am a native speaker of Polish and I was somewhat surprised to 
> see Polish included as a topic at a minority language 
> conference. From the point of view of the size of the 
> population it is hard to consider Polish as a minority 
> language, from the point of view of the cultural impact it 
> has, it certainly is a minority language. But I would say 
> that the same is true of Russian now. So, where to draw the line?
> Best regards,
> Tadeusz Piotrowski
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-corpora at lists.uib.no
> > [mailto:owner-corpora at lists.uib.no] On Behalf Of Briony Williams
> > Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2006 7:09 PM
> > To: FIDELHOLTZ_DOOCHIN_JAMES_LAWRENCE
> > Cc: corpora at lists.uib.no
> > Subject: Re: [Corpora-List] Re: 'Standard European English' ?
> > 
> > FIDELHOLTZ_DOOCHIN_JAMES_LAWRENCE wrote:
> > > Perhaps there is a desire to actually communicate with 
> the largest 
> > > possible group, which almost certainly has a higher
> > probability in the
> > > unmarked Internet case in English, given the political, 
> globalized 
> > > facts of life (as well as the obvious fact that English is the 
> > > most-taught and most-used second language in the world, although 
> > > Chinese begins to look like it may give us a run for our money).
> > 
> > There are two potentially competing demands here:
> > a) To reach the maximum number of readers.
> > b) To use one's native language.
> > 
> > This is a hot issue in the case of minority languages. If 
> someone were 
> > to send a message to this list in Welsh, for instance, the expected 
> > number of responses would probably be zero. Even sending 
> the message 
> > bilingually (with an English
> > translation) would be a little pointless, unless there was at least 
> > one other list member who would be able to respond in Welsh.
> > 
> > > In any case, I have never seen any actual resolution on this list 
> > > about the language to use, and aside from us monolingual 
> Americans, 
> > > most English speakers with any academic pretensions at all
> > (ie most of
> > > those on this list, I assume) can at least read in a couple of 
> > > non-English languages.  In short, as far as I am concerned,
> > at least,
> > > people are welcome to contribute here in Spanish, French 
> or German.
> > 
> > At least in the case of Spanish, French, German, etc., 
> there is a high 
> > probability that many people will at least be able to read that 
> > language, even if they then respond in English.
> > But where do we draw the line? What about Dutch, Finnish, 
> or Urdu? In 
> > practice, each person has to estimate the likely audience 
> size for any 
> > given language. Since the primary criterion seems to be "maximum 
> > audience size", English will win every time.
> > 
> > What this means for minority languages is that they will 
> continue to 
> > be squeezed out of the domain of academic discourse. Even 
> some state 
> > languages (Dutch, Finnish, etc) tend to be squeezed out as well. 
> > Although my native language is English, I am sorry to see 
> this happen, 
> > and my professional efforts for many years have been bent towards 
> > helping to ensure that the Welsh language at least has a stake in 
> > speech and language technology. This is the reason I set up 
> the ISCA 
> > Special Interest Group in "Speech And Language Technology 
> for Minority 
> > Languages" (SALTMIL) - see http://isl.ntf.uni-lj.si/SALTMIL/
> > 
> > On the other hand, if anyone sends a message to this list 
> in French or 
> > German, I might attempt at least a simple reply in that 
> language - and 
> > then continue in English!  :-)
> > 
> > Best regards
> > 
> > Briony Williams
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
>