French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’ • Hacker News Board

Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

#241

Post by tsimionescu » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 10:23 PM UTC

beebeepka wrote: post #222

tsimionescu wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literary French is quite phonetic, at least outside proper names. What are some examples where you feel that French writing is not in a one to one relation with pronunciation?

Granted, my experience with French is rather limited and the language could be pretty consistent internally. But there's lots of utter madness such as "beacoup" which is literally "buku". Sorry for being blunt but pronouncing 50% of the letters is extremely non phonetical. There's just no other way of putting it

Beaucoup is 'boku', not 'buku'. And having groups of letters be pronounced as a single sound is not the opposite of being phonetical, as long as the groups are used consistently (e.g. -eau- is always pronounced 'o', -ou- is always pronounced 'u', final consonants are never pronounced etc.) .

Granted, the sibling comment lists quite a few exceptions to these rules, but it is still quite a regular language.

The system of silent consonants is quite useful in keeping the language have somewhat regular declensions/conjugations. If they were not preserved, it would seem that French conjugations are mad, inventing consonants out of thin air. For example, coup/coupee, meaning to cut/ cut (up), are pronounced ku/kupe. This would make it seem like the participle is adding -pe to the infinitive (and it would add -te or -ze or many others), when in fact the participle is almost always adding -e, which forces the consonant in the root to be pronounced, since French really hates hiatuses.

If anything, French phonetics are the real problem, aggressively dropping consonants of the end of words, but loathing hiatuses, sometimes even between words in literary contexts (where sometimes a 't' or 'z' sound is added between a word ending in a vowel and the next word beginning with a vowel, 'la liaison').

Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

#242

Post by popsicum » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 10:25 PM UTC

If the request is for longer than 6 months, then I don't get the argument.

How is this multiculturalism? I and many other people that rely on English as a language to communicate across nations feel left out. Looking at the comments, there seems to be a distorted impression that EU=France (or any major Western country) and on top of that, the rest of the countries should be grateful for being given a chance to be put in uncomfortable situations that require a costly readaptation, aka, be glad your language skill is now obsolete because we decided so.

It's ignorance towards the rest of EU member states. I don't even have a problem with French per say, I speak French and understand the urge to speak your own language. Just the approach of assuming that one of the member states knows best is mind-boggling to me and disrespectful. Looking forward to see the upcoming countries, each getting cocky about forcing their language. That's going to take us nowhere... So much for democracy.

Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

#243

Post by justnotworthit » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 10:27 PM UTC

The only thing to see here is the humor of the highest French diplomats reforcing extreme ethnocentric stereotypes about the French people -- the man on the street will snobbishly ignore your request of directions if not attempted in French first -- on the global stage: The EU president will ignore your country's pleas if not communicated in French first.

Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

#244

Post by tsimionescu » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 10:29 PM UTC

nescioquid wrote: post #235

tsimionescu wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literary French is quite phonetic, at least outside proper names. What are some examples where you feel that French writing is not in a one to one relation with pronunciation?

How many ways are there to spell the sound ō (as in l’eau) in French? I once read that it was over 30, but it might have been a tongue-in-cheek joke, like "ghoti" as an alternate spelling of "fish"[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghoti

As far as I know, there are two: 'o' (as in 'bon') and 'eau' (as in 'beau').While that's one more than it should have been necessary, it's not that bad I think.

Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

#245

Post by Koshkin » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 10:33 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #42

Tsiklon wrote: post #15

I’d have thought they would have kept English as it’s effectively a neutral language at that point - it would be convenient to avoid accusations of German or French dominance should either push for their’s in English’s place

Shame there's no real-world interest in the powers that be to officialize Esperanto.

No... We don't deserve this (not yet).

Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

#246

Post by tsimionescu » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 10:33 PM UTC

dwohnitmok wrote: post #216

tsimionescu wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literary French is quite phonetic, at least outside proper names. What are some examples where you feel that French writing is not in a one to one relation with pronunciation?

Apart from all the silent letters, which are fairly regular (and I assume is what you're getting at) there's a fair number of pronunciation exceptions. See the different ways of pronouncing "tous" or the different words that have irregularly silent "l"s (e.g. fusil) and other irregularly silent consonants in the middle of words (e.g. automne). French has quite a lot of exceptions to its pronunciation rules in additio…

Those are some good examples, you're right. It is quite a bit less regular than I remembered from my high-school days.

For 'er' though, isn't the rule essentially that it is pronounced 'a' at the end of verbs, and 'ar' otherwise? I realize that is not a phonetic rule, though.

Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

#247

Post by ptr2voidStar » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 10:33 PM UTC

ciarcode wrote: post #208

throwaway-571 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m french and most of the content i watch is also in english, made mostly by americans with an american point of views and ways of resolving problems. Sometime in british english with british point of view. I think it’s sad that that you don’t seem to realize that it’s a problem that most of the content we are exposed comes from a single culture. As for the move, it’s totally useless, and if they wanted to be strong…

I don’t understand, you think that switching to French will expose us to each single European country culture?

Haha, OP has no awareness of his/her bias!

Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

#248

Post by Bayart » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 10:33 PM UTC

cinntaile wrote: post #160

mywittyname wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This behavior isn't limited to France. French Canada sure would like it if more people spoke French.

Perhaps this can be generalized? Language entitlement seems to be a thing among French speaking regions. Whether it's French Canada, French Belgium or France?

Funny to see so much drab posturing about our supposed « language entitlement » while almost calling for languages to be rolled over and wiped out by English.

I'm quite certain the position of French-Canadians has little to do with « entitlement », and more with how trapped they feel. Not that Anglo-Canadians would give a rats ass about the actual motives of Québec's cultural policy, as long as it can get weaponized for political currency.

Frankly this entire thread reeks.

Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

#249

Post by Koshkin » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 10:36 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #67

Apocryphon wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shame there's no real-world interest in the powers that be to officialize Esperanto.

Si. Esperanto havas problemojn, kaj tio estas la plej gravan.

  Se ti sabir
  Ti respondir
  Se non sabir
  Tazir, tazir

Re: French set to replace English as EU’s ‘working language’

#250

Post by Bayart » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 10:38 PM UTC

tgragnato wrote: post #239

throwaway-571 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m french and most of the content i watch is also in english, made mostly by americans with an american point of views and ways of resolving problems. Sometime in british english with british point of view. I think it’s sad that that you don’t seem to realize that it’s a problem that most of the content we are exposed comes from a single culture. As for the move, it’s totally useless, and if they wanted to be strong…

I'm quite disillusioned about the future of the Union because of ridiculous stunts like this. Using English exposes people to a certain way of thinking that is more linked to a set of cultures or traditions. It's an undeniable fact, both semantics and linguistics teach us that. But if the aim is to help politicians think from a different perspective, French is a bad choice. If that was the purpose, a reasonable choic…

>a reasonable choice would be to opt for languages related to cultures of more practical rationality

That's essentialist nonsense. How are German or Scandinavian cultures more « practically rational » in an empirical sense ? Is there anything to it beyond short-sighted stereotypes ? That's not even getting to the fact that rationalism and positivism have French input stamped all over it, with German philosophy generally pulling in the exact opposite direction.