Dominant languages can spread even without coercion • Hacker News Board

Re: Dominant languages can spread even without coercion

#41

Post by inglor_cz » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 7:25 AM UTC

lotu wrote: post #9

slibhb wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For some reason, the entire anglosphere[1] is just plain bad at language education[2]. That's not to say that learning a new language is easy, of course. It's just that we aren't even really trying. The anglosphere is perfectly willing to just sit and make the rest of the world speak our language. Is this fair framing? Doesn't it seem likely that English speaking countries are bad at learning languages precisely be…

I kinda think that the lingua Franca, is very sticky. Think base 10 or the Gregorian calendar or QWERTY . None of these are the only or even best solution but they are going to all stick around forever just because it will never make sense to change them.

Another example: Quechua, the lingua Franca of the Incan empire, is still widely spoken on its past territory, even though the empire ceased to exist 500 years ago and the conquerors brought with them a very different language and civilization (Spanish/Christianity).

The cultural switch brought about by the Spanish conquest succeeded fully on the coast, but not so much in the mountains.

Re: Dominant languages can spread even without coercion

#42

Post by exolymph » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 7:25 AM UTC

madrox wrote: post #39

tinco wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Americans gave us Cartoon Network. If the Germans had better cartoons we probably would be speaking German a lot better. In my opinion there's actually great economic incentive to speak German fluently. For me personally I've had multiple meetings with friends and business relations where I sometimes felt left out because I can't understand German well when it's spoken at native speed. Besides that I know of mult…

> The Americans gave us Cartoon Network. If the Germans had better cartoons we probably would be speaking German a lot better. It wasn’t until you said this that I considered my motivation to learn Japanese as part of this conversation. My whole reason for doing so was for better appreciation of anime.

Similarly, a lot of people get into learning Korean because of k-pop or k-dramas!

Re: Dominant languages can spread even without coercion

#43

Post by r_hoods_ghost » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 7:44 AM UTC

tinco wrote: post #35

jillesvangurp wrote: post #27

The keyword here is incentive, not coercion. Most of the world uses English as a second language because the British used to run a fairly large part of it and most of their former colonies still have a lot of English speakers and quite a few even maintain it as an official language. And then after two world wars, their former colony the USA of course became a super power. So, for the past few centuries, understanding…

The Americans gave us Cartoon Network. If the Germans had better cartoons we probably would be speaking German a lot better. In my opinion there's actually great economic incentive to speak German fluently. For me personally I've had multiple meetings with friends and business relations where I sometimes felt left out because I can't understand German well when it's spoken at native speed. Besides that I know of mult…

I don't think the dominance of English has much to do with the quality of English or American cartoons or their wider culture. Even ignoring the British Empire, the USA has been one of the largest ever continental empires for 200 years and is now a quasi hegemonic global empire with around 600 overseas military bases and the ability and willingness to launch military strikes and enforce it's will across large swathes of said empire. Knowing the language of your overlords has always been a good idea and English is now even more widespread as a second language than when the British were stomping around engaging in the odd genocide and searching for a decent meal. I suspect that even if Germany produced the most amazing cartoons in the world only a tiny fraction of people would ever to learn it compared to English. That's what dubbing and subtitles are for.

Having said that, between roughly 1850 and the end of the second World War it was considered necessary for engineers and scientists in the UK and USA at least to know German because of the German's achievements in science and technology (especially chemistry) and the political and economic power of the various central European states and empires controlled by German speaking elites. Gaining a competitive advantage over your peers and expanding your knowledge has always been a good incentive to learn another language independent of wanting to learn what your occupiers are saying.

Re: Dominant languages can spread even without coercion

#44

Post by adrianN » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 7:48 AM UTC

kmeisthax wrote: post #5

What's already happening is that languages that aren't tied to their own unique literary cultures are slowly shrinking. The countries that don't have their own media import it, and will often learn other languages to access it rather than waiting for translations of varying quality. France, Germany, South Korea, Japan, and India all have enough unique, untranslated culture to get people to consider learning the langu…

Learning a new language to fluency takes hundreds of hours at least, some languages require thousands of hours. That's not the fault of educational practices. It just takes time to memorize thousands of unknown words and figure out in which context they are used.

Re: Dominant languages can spread even without coercion

#45

Post by morelisp » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 7:57 AM UTC

lotu wrote: post #9

slibhb wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For some reason, the entire anglosphere[1] is just plain bad at language education[2]. That's not to say that learning a new language is easy, of course. It's just that we aren't even really trying. The anglosphere is perfectly willing to just sit and make the rest of the world speak our language. Is this fair framing? Doesn't it seem likely that English speaking countries are bad at learning languages precisely be…

I kinda think that the lingua Franca, is very sticky. Think base 10 or the Gregorian calendar or QWERTY . None of these are the only or even best solution but they are going to all stick around forever just because it will never make sense to change them.

Well, it's sticky, but not sticky enough that it's known as the "lingua angli". It will probably outlive QWERTY, but I'm not so sure about the calendar, and it'll die long before base 10.

Re: Dominant languages can spread even without coercion

#46

Post by oblio » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 7:58 AM UTC

r_hoods_ghost wrote: post #43

tinco wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Americans gave us Cartoon Network. If the Germans had better cartoons we probably would be speaking German a lot better. In my opinion there's actually great economic incentive to speak German fluently. For me personally I've had multiple meetings with friends and business relations where I sometimes felt left out because I can't understand German well when it's spoken at native speed. Besides that I know of mult…

I don't think the dominance of English has much to do with the quality of English or American cartoons or their wider culture. Even ignoring the British Empire, the USA has been one of the largest ever continental empires for 200 years and is now a quasi hegemonic global empire with around 600 overseas military bases and the ability and willingness to launch military strikes and enforce it's will across large swathes…

It's not the military.

Most people really learn English because of economics. American companies are big trade partners, customers and of course, employers.

Many of the others learn it for cultural reasons, as said. Cartoons, movies, TV series, songs, etc.

Re: Dominant languages can spread even without coercion

#47

Post by tinco » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 8:31 AM UTC

r_hoods_ghost wrote: post #43

tinco wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Americans gave us Cartoon Network. If the Germans had better cartoons we probably would be speaking German a lot better. In my opinion there's actually great economic incentive to speak German fluently. For me personally I've had multiple meetings with friends and business relations where I sometimes felt left out because I can't understand German well when it's spoken at native speed. Besides that I know of mult…

I don't think the dominance of English has much to do with the quality of English or American cartoons or their wider culture. Even ignoring the British Empire, the USA has been one of the largest ever continental empires for 200 years and is now a quasi hegemonic global empire with around 600 overseas military bases and the ability and willingness to launch military strikes and enforce it's will across large swathes…

I had excellent reading and listening comprehension by the age of 12, and could speak fairly fluently by 16. I don't think geopolitics had anything to do with that. The kids in my class that didn't watch foreign TV had significantly less skill in this regard.

German kids watched TV with dubs because their network execs deemed it worth it, I don't think that was very political either.

Re: Dominant languages can spread even without coercion

#48

Post by flohofwoe » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 9:12 AM UTC

tinco wrote: post #35

jillesvangurp wrote: post #27

The keyword here is incentive, not coercion. Most of the world uses English as a second language because the British used to run a fairly large part of it and most of their former colonies still have a lot of English speakers and quite a few even maintain it as an official language. And then after two world wars, their former colony the USA of course became a super power. So, for the past few centuries, understanding…

The Americans gave us Cartoon Network. If the Germans had better cartoons we probably would be speaking German a lot better. In my opinion there's actually great economic incentive to speak German fluently. For me personally I've had multiple meetings with friends and business relations where I sometimes felt left out because I can't understand German well when it's spoken at native speed. Besides that I know of mult…

> The Americans gave us Cartoon Network.

...and MTV, and the Brits the music to go with it! That's how I learned English as a teenager anyway.

Re: Dominant languages can spread even without coercion

#49

Post by flohofwoe » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 9:15 AM UTC

r_hoods_ghost wrote: post #43

tinco wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Americans gave us Cartoon Network. If the Germans had better cartoons we probably would be speaking German a lot better. In my opinion there's actually great economic incentive to speak German fluently. For me personally I've had multiple meetings with friends and business relations where I sometimes felt left out because I can't understand German well when it's spoken at native speed. Besides that I know of mult…

I don't think the dominance of English has much to do with the quality of English or American cartoons or their wider culture. Even ignoring the British Empire, the USA has been one of the largest ever continental empires for 200 years and is now a quasi hegemonic global empire with around 600 overseas military bases and the ability and willingness to launch military strikes and enforce it's will across large swathes…

In Eastern Europe the Soviet Union was that "hegemonial force", yet most people didn't care to learn much Russian, even though it was mandatory in school (for instance in Eastern Germany) and fluent Russian would have opened up some juicy carreer paths. My English was much better than my Russian, mainly because of the cultural influence via Western radio and TV. The Soviet Union simply wasn't "cool" for an East German teenager in any way.

Re: Dominant languages can spread even without coercion

#50

Post by JaumeGreen » Thu, Jan 20, 2022, 9:41 AM UTC

All languages can spread without coercion. I knew people learning Catalan without even living anywhere nearby, and even not knowing Spanish, French or Italian. Maybe it was an elective in their university and they were bored, maybe they heard a song and loved it, ... plenty of different reasons.

But dominant languages have plenty of advantages.

First of all just by being spoken by lots of people make then a "de facto" common language, and sometimes people change to the dominant language in a conversation just because one person spoke in that, EVEN when all the people can talk and understand the same non-dominant language. I've seen it happen, and this may be a leftover from times when it was persecuted to speak the non-dominant one.

Second there's lot of non-aggresive coercion. You may have less job opportunities if you don't use the dominant language, your works less promotion, not considered serious, ... . I'm sure that (except for the novelty) a punk-rock Navajo band singing in Navajo would have less media exposure that the same band using English.

And third, there's lots of remanent coercion. People being agressive because you are using the "wrong" language, not being able to use the language in a trial (in the same country that contains the dominant and dominated languages), ... .

If you add all three it's clear that without some organized help the dominated languages have a hard time. And when a language is lost some of the knowledge is lost, because a language is not only a means of communication, it's also a way to see the world. The expression the language holds gives us a unique view on different ways of thinking.