Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 12:05 am Post subject: Romance languages in decline?
I just read an article about very small percentage of young Polish people choosing romance languages for their "matura"exam (secondary school-living examination). Only 1% of them are taking French or Spanish.
A vast majority have chosen English (of course), one can also speak about the rebirth of Russian. An intervied expert said that these days a foreign language is a product on the market - young people think of what will be useful for them when they start looking for a job. English - that's obvious. Russian - there are prospects of the revival of economic contacts with Russia. German - it's our neighbour's language, the knowledge of which would be an asset. French, Spanish, Italian - people learn these languages for pleasure. It means only around 1% of the population learn foreign languages for pleasure (even if you add some people, including me, learning English for pleasure it will not change the statistics significantly).
I think it's sad. It doesn't mean people should not be pragmatic but I always appreciate when someone says they learn a language for pleasure rather than for pragmatical reasons ("it's necessary to get a good job").
This is the signum temporis. On the other thread I listed some positive aspects of the former Polish political system. I could now add that people were less orientated for doing professional career, they more frequently did something as hobby, just for pleasure. I remember many people from the older generation learnt Latin. Now teenagers would ask: "what for? what's the reason for doing things which don't bring profits, don't help your career; isn't it a waste of time?"
I miss the old times a little. People were more human. Today, when I meet the representatives of the younger generation of people I have the impression that I speak to cyborgs at times...
Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 10:14 am Post subject: Re: Romance languages in decline?
KSa wrote:
This is the signum temporis. On the other thread I listed some positive aspects of the former Polish political system. I could now add that people were less orientated for doing professional career, they more frequently did something as hobby, just for pleasure. I remember many people from the older generation learnt Latin. Now teenagers would ask: "what for? what's the reason for doing things which don't bring profits, don't help your career; isn't it a waste of time?"
I miss the old times a little. People were more human. Today, when I meet the representatives of the younger generation of people I have the impression that I speak to cyborgs at times...
Nie martw się : nic nie jest nieodwracalne. Le succès des langues va et vient : Poland has a rich tradition & long history of foreign language acquisition (Latin, German, Italian, French, Russian etc) and there is no reason this strength should weaken in the future. To each decade its specific vogues and we don't know what foreign language will be fashionable or useful in Poland in 2050. As you certainly know, things can and do change completely at a relatively fast pace.
There are really not many people learning foreign languages for pleasure. I'm 17 years old now and I'm able to say something about the situation of foreign languages acquisition by the youth. My school (lycaeum) is said to be the best in my town (not big though, it's got 80k inhabitants). My class-profile is mathematiacal-physic and again these class profiles in this school are considered to be the best in my town.
And, what I observe, my class colleagues, as KSa has already written, see that it's necessary to learn English due to it's use everywhere - informatics, worlds science, technical trades and so forth... Thus, they learn English, more eagerly or less, but they do it.
Of course in Poland there is a school (gymnasium and lycaeum) obligation of learning two foreign languages. It's possible to choose what language do one want to learn, sometimes we can choose between german/french, german/russian etc. (it depends on class profile, for example: biological classes has latin in teaching programme). Generally, russian, german, french and latin are taught at my school. I'm in german group, so I will write only about this language teaching. About half a class thinks, that german is a "necessary evil". ". huh - in Germany people speak English, they have to though, but they speak, don't they?!" Rest of the group, except, lets say 2 or 3 persons, learns german but it's because this part is more dilligent, than the first part. And remaining 2 persons are me, my friend and maybe someone hidden :D We learn both german and English as we see: that it's useful to know more than one foreign language, we (me at least) like german.
I'm almost certain, that this trend won't change unless people see that it's useful to know many languages. English is everywhere nowadays, in commercials, television, loadwords, computer games... People see this language and want to learn it so that they understand the surrounding world. And german? french? italian? Noone sees them and this is the reason, why knowledge of this languages is treated as unnecesary. _________________ "- Med tid og tålmodighet, blir morbærbladet silke.
- Mit Zeit und Geduld, wird das Maulbeerblatt Seide
- With time and patience, the mulberry leaf becomes silk"
There are really not many people learning foreign languages for pleasure.
Sure. It is probably safe to say that in many parts of the world (excluding those where multilinguism and/or colinguism is traditional → a not so tiny chunk of the planet, though) 80 % or more of the population is not interested in languages or language acquisition. Which leaves us with a sizeable remaining lot of 20 % — the happy few...
Losseh wrote:
About half a class thinks, that german is a "necessary evil". ". huh - in Germany people speak English, they have to though, but they speak, don't they?!" Rest of the group, except, lets say 2 or 3 persons, learns german but it's because this part is more dilligent, than the first part. And remaining 2 persons are me, my friend and maybe someone hidden :D We learn both german and English as we see: that it's useful to know more than one foreign language, we (me at least) like german.
Peu importe le flacon pourvu qu'on ait l'ivresse, goes a French proverb. As long as you learn a language new to you, no matter what your ultimate motives are, there is more than hope for a truly multilingual world.
Losseh wrote:
I'm almost certain, that this trend won't change unless people see that it's useful to know many languages. English is everywhere nowadays, in commercials, television, loadwords, computer games... People see this language and want to learn it so that they understand the surrounding world.
Yep, agree totally. One thing though : the surrounding world is changing fast and we don't know what the future will be in, say, 50 years. There are sure signs the linguistic world in 2060 won't look like that of today. My bet is multipolarity is on its way, bringing on more multilingualism.
Greg: I agree with you that we don't know too much about the future. Do you think that Chinese can play a role considering economic significance of China? What will happen to English - do you think that the majority of people will use the simplified version of English which will hardly resemble the language we have learnt? Do you believe in the rebirth of French? What will happen to artificial languages in 50 years?
First, whether or not Romance languages are in decline I think depends on what region of the world you're talking about. According to some estimates, the number of native Spanish speakers will exceed native English speakers soon, making Spanish the language with the second highest number of native speakers in the world. English may still have the greater number of second language speakers.
I don't see English in decline as a second language anytime soon. Depends on who holds the economic and cultural superpower scepter and for how long.
I don't think the status of artificial languages will change at all in the next 50 years. Esperanto may gain a few speakers, but nothing more. They'll all remain a curiousity amongst enthusiasts but that's about it. Its taken Esperanto 100 years of so to gain the perhaps 1 million speakers it has, and of those, probably 250,000 are fluent. Another 50 years may add to that figure but not to Esperanto's influence, and its the most popular Conlang.
So much for my predictions, anyone want their palm read?
Do you think that Chinese can play a role considering economic significance of China?
Oh yes, certainly. I have no idea what that role will be but it is likely Chinese will be enticing more and more people across the globe.
KSa wrote:
What will happen to English - do you think that the majority of people will use the simplified version of English which will hardly resemble the language we have learnt?
I don't know what the evolution of native speakers' English will be in the next 50 years. That said my intimate conviction is this : the gap between non-natives' globish and natives' English (North-American variants especially ) will slowly but surely widen (particularly, but not solely, in terms of phonology), thus making more room for an alternative in terms of Grecoromanolatin-looking lingua franca — even if English is obviously a Germanic language with a Grecoromanolatin air de famille...
KSa wrote:
What will happen to artificial languages in 50 years?
I think Esperanto will keep going along its merry way. I hope that Interlingua (or any kind of constructed Grecoromanolatin for that matter) will start being a success story as did Esperanto earlier last century.
KSa wrote:
Do you believe in the rebirth of French?
No for it doesn't have to be reborn ! I think French is now thriving and its future is more than safe. There sure have been many a doomsayer predicting a gloomy future for the French language but they're certainly wrong for they missed out on the real picture : never has there been so many Francophones, not just in Europe but across the world → French benefits from a geographical basis that's intercontinental. Perhaps the rebirth you were referring to was the kind French did experience in the past, between the Middle-Ages and the Age of classicism (from the XVIIth century on), when it gained, lost and regained international influence and prestige. If this is the kind of rebirth you meant, I believe growing multipolarity as well as the enhancement of multilingual translation fast services will enable *all* languages of the world to be born again : common people (I mean those — the majority actually — not interested in languages or lacking the amount of time language acquisition requires) will want, technology permitting, to interact genuinely and that means using their native idoms while being heard or read in the addressee's language.
Greg, vous m'impressionnez. Votre Anglais est superbe. Je t'accord sur l'importance de la langue française. Si on regarde la démographie Européenne, la France est la seule nation qui vais développer plus grand.
Greg, vous m'impressionnez. Votre Anglais est superbe. Je t'accord sur l'importance de la langue française. Si on regarde la démographie Européenne, la France est la seule nation qui vais développer plus grand.
La Pologne est aussi la nation qui développe très vite, c'est a cause de la géneration née en 75-85 ("bapy boom population") qui a déja commencé à reproduire De plus, la situation économique a amélioré récemment - le facteur qui aussi influe sur l'augmentation de la population.
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De plus, la situation économique a amélioré récemment - le facteur qui aussi influe sur l'augmentation de la population.
Je le pratique très rarement.