LL-L "Language politics" 2004.09.11 (03) [E/V/French]

Sat Sep 11 20:17:47 UTC 2004

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From: Liesbethvlaomse at aol.com <Liesbethvlaomse at aol.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2004.09.10 (01) [E]

In a message dated 10/09/04 18:36:03 Romance Daylight Time,
lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net writes:

  Question to Liesbeth:did you mistreat your french on purpose or what ?

Monsieur Bouchonlemaitre ,

         Est-ce que c'est votre but m'Ãªtre conduit insolent avec cette
question Ã  l'Ã©gard ?  Qu'est-ce que j'ai  fait Ã  vous une telle comme Ã§a ?

         Wadde heb ikke aon gij gemaokt om te hebben gij dadde der g'segd?

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From: Mike <botas at club-internet.fr>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2004.09.09 (06) [E]

Moin, Moin, Lowlanders,

Roger Verhiest wrote:

>It has been and will always been the goal of political power to create
uni-lingual states -

and John Feather replied:

It seems to me that the first statement is unequivocally untrue.

John then dives into British history and succeds in proving RogerÂ´s
statement untrue for extended periods.
John, allow me to be as categoric as you are:
RogerÂ´s statement is unequivocally true - today - ever since nationalism
arose and with it the idea of "nation states". Nowadays "sovereign"
governments are - all over the world - extremely wary of anything that they
see as a threat to "national" unity, last not least one of the raisons
dÂ´Ãªtre of this List. The state of Switzerland might have to be around for
another 1000 years before people catch on to the idea.
To John and myself, however, I should like to give the following advice:
Nothing is ever unequivocally true or untrue, especially in the field that
is the object of this List, dealing with people and all their
idiosyncrasies.
Mike Wintzer

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From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at worldonline.nl>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2004.09.10 (11) [E]

Hi Tom,

I recognize that, for me it's easier to understand (and be understood by)
the English of a non native speaker
than that of someone from the UK, Ireland, Australia etc. (North American
English is somewhat less difficult
because of all the songs, movies, TV-series, news etc).
Probably because we'd both speak slower, simpler and clearer and don't have
a British (or so) accent that's
quite different from what we learned at school.
Furthermore I must admit that I  can feel quite insecure about my English
when I meet a native, so when I
speak with someone else in GLOBBELISH who doesn't notice my faults that
problem is out of the world.
 Ingmar

> From: Tom <jmaguire at pie.xtec.es>
> Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2004.09.10 (07) [E]
>
> Hello All,
>
> There have been a few postings now on the language/country/power
> politics subject.
>
> English now seems to be accepted as a global lingua franca. My
> experience is that when we are in a non-English speaking country I leave
> most of the talking in English to my Spanish wife. She seems to be able
> to communicate in this lingua franca much better than me.
> I have concluded that global English is another language. What will we
> call it?
>
> Regards,
>
> Tom [Maguire]

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From: john feather <johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Language politics

Mark Brenchley wrote:

"Latin in the Seventeenth Century as a means of communication meant that 1)
people could communicate on a more neutral level ... 2) they could
communicate in the one language, helping to avoid any of the noise/loss of
meaning that might occur through translation ...<

In "Mother Tongue" Bill Bryson writes: "Even in its greatest flowering" [the
Age of Shakespeare] "English was still considered in many respects a
second-rate language. Newton's _Principia_ and Bacon's _Novum Organum_ were
both published in Latin. Sir Thomas More wrote _Utopia_ in Latin. William
Harvey wrote his treatise on the circulation of blood (written in 1616 [?],
the year of Shakespeare's death) in Latin. Edward Gibbon wrote his histories
in French and then translated them into English."

This is cherry-picking. Der arme BB is concerned only with trying to prove a
point. What does "in many respects a second-rate language" mean, anyway?
There were practical reasons for writing technical texts, at least, in a
language that all of the few scholars interested in the subject could read.
Everybody in Europe did it. Latin could also be a way of avoiding
censorship. Bacon published his "Advancement of Learning" in English in 1605
though he expanded it in a Latin version in 1623 - to find a wider audience?
See how casual BB is about dates. _Decline and Fall_ was written 260 years
after _Utopia_ and there was certainly no feeling that English was
"second-rate" by this time. The truth seems to be simply that Gibbon was
educated in Lausanne and wrote some early essays in French. D&F was
published in English in London.

On the question of audiences for technical works it is extraordinary how
many scientists work within horizons defined by their language skills, as
shown by the prior literature they cite. Science is not nearly as
"international" as the lay person might think.

John Feather johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

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From: Mark Brenchley <lagrandefenetre at hotmail.com>>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2004.09.10 (11) [E]

>From: Tom <jmaguire at pie.xtec.es>
>Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2004.09.10 (07) [E]
>
>Hello All,
>
>There have been a few postings now on the language/country/power
>politics subject.
>
>English now seems to be accepted as a global lingua franca. My
>experience is that when we are in a non-English speaking country I leave
>most of the talking in English to my Spanish wife. She seems to be able
>to communicate in this lingua franca much better than me.
>I have concluded that global English is another language. What will we
>call it?
>
>Regards,
>
>Tom [Maguire]
>
>--
>Carpe Diem.
>-Visit Nlp in Education  http://www.xtec.es/~jmaguire
>-Join Nlp-Education  mailto:nlp-education-subscribe at yahoogroups.com
>
>----------
>
>From: john feather <johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk>
>Subject: Language politics
>
>Mark Brenchley wrote:
> >multilingualism in English seems to continue until ... at least until
>just
>after Shakespeare's time. G. L. Brock in "The Language of Shakespeare",
>gives a remarkably simple explanation for the use of three nouns/adjectives
>in succession in many of the plays (One Latinate, one "Teutonic", one
>French
>(if I remember correctly) - to ensure that all sections of the audience
>would have at least some idea of what was going on.<
>
>That's fascinating.
>
>Something which has puzzled me ever since I first noticed it is the scene
>in
>Henry V in which Katherine is taught English. It leads up to the demure-ish
>princess pronouncing the words "foot" and "gown" but both with a long "oo"
>and so presumably to be heard as the French words "foutre" and "con". A
>joke
>the groundlings didn't get would have been a theatrical disaster,
>especially
>if the stage-side Johnnies had got it and laughed. It seems that these
>foreign words, at least, must have been well-known to a London audience.
>
>John Feather johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk

That's not so surprising. Given the fairly cosmopolitan atmosphere of
Elizabethan London, with plenty of mixing between merchants, sailors,
thieves, &c (all the more "vulgar" elements of society) there would have
been at least some common knowledge of the vernaculars, particularly of such
things as slang and swear words. In fact, the joke may well have been geared
towards precisely those elements, rather than the nobility - look at the
pretty little thing being all unknowingly crude!

That said, Shakespeare's plays are very confusing things indeed. Some of
them would have been put on primarily for royal performance (audience of
one) before moving on to the public stage, and may well have existed in
(many) different versions. The texts are also inherently unreliable - there
is really very little certainty as to their sources (Shakespeare's fair
copy? his rough copy? the prompter's copy? authorised transcript of a
performance? unauthorised transcript?) and, since plays weren't really
considered "high art", there wasn't the kind of care that went into
producing such a text as would have gone into, say, a serious philosophical
work.

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From: Mike <botas at club-internet.fr>
Subject: LL-L "Language politics" 2004.09.10 (07) [E]

Moin, Lowlanders,

Ron wrote:

"Aside from that, I don't think many people would argue against the need of
linguae francae, nationally, regionally or globally.  Promotion and use of a
lingua franca is one thing; smothering native or minority languages is
another thing.  The former does not need to lead to the latter.  I think
this is what we have been talking about here."

AMEN
Mike Wintzer

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