How the UK and London misread their hand

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Has nothing to do with foreign cosplaying. There's strong Irish support for Irish reunification.

Also, these decisions are almost never based on economics. I mean, why the hell did West Germany absorb the economic disaster of East Germany? What were they thinking? It should have wrecked their economy.

And the economic argument misses the point that NI is presently economically stunted largely bc it's a forgotten "island" of the UK.

I mean, why did the Union absorb the Confederacy, right? Talk about an economic lead weight around the neck...

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by eschaton

My grandfather was one of those "proud to be Irish" folks, despite being 1/4th Swedish and all of his Irish ancestors having lived in the U.S. since the 1840s.

Used to go to lots of "Irish fairs" with him as a child, where he always made sure to drop some money in the collection box for "the cause."

You even have Plastique Paddies here in Québec who are native French speakers in everyday life.

Not saying he is one of the poseurs but among many famous ones a senior member of the current Québec government is called Pierre Fitzgibbon.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Spanish is probably the second most useful language to be fluent in besides English. .

Spanish and French have different advantages in terms of being global languages.

Spanish has more first language speakers and more countries where it is the official language, and is the main language of a fairly large region of the world.

Spanish also benefits from being the second (though unofficial) language of the world's superpower. It gets some cultural heft too as a result of this.

French has more range across a much wider area of the world than Spanish does. Outside of a few enclaves on the north coast, Spanish gets you nowhere in Africa. Same goes for the Middle East and Oceania where French still has a decent presence. Even in Asia there is more residual French in places like Vietnam than residual Spanish in the Philippines. French is also equal to Spanish or maybe ahead of it in the Caribbean and Europe outside of Spain itself. And of course there is little old Canada.

French also has residual global prestige from its language of diplomacy era, and rightly or wrongly French culture is seen as more high class. Ironically this latter perception about Spanish Is also due to its presence in the US.

I speak French natively and also basic Spanish (used to be way better) and I don't think I have ever used Spanish as a lingua franca in a place where it is not the official language or does not have a major local presence (ie the US). Whereas I have used French on multiple occasions. Though way less than English of course.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Acajack

You even have Plastique Paddies here in Québec who are native French speakers in everyday life.

Not saying he is one of the poseurs but among many famous ones a senior member of the current Québec government is called Pierre Fitzgibbon.

I match on 23 and me to a lot of people in Quebec despite having no French ancestry. I can only presume it's some assimilated Irish ancestry, since I know the Irish in Quebec became Francophones.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Spanish and French have different advantages in terms of being global languages.

Spanish has more first language speakers and more countries where it is the official language, and is the main language of a fairly large region of the world.

Spanish also benefits from being the second (though unofficial) language of the world's superpower. It gets some cultural heft too as a result of this.

French has more range across a much wider area of the world than Spanish does. Outside of a few enclaves on the north coast, Spanish gets you nowhere in Africa. Same goes for the Middle East and Oceania where French still has a decent presence. Even in Asia there is more residual French in places like Vietnam than residual Spanish in the Philippines. French is also equal to Spanish or maybe ahead of it in the Caribbean and Europe outside of Spain itself. And of course there is little old Canada.

French also has residual global prestige from its language of diplomacy era, and rightly or wrongly French culture is seen as more high class. Ironically this latter perception about Spanish Is also due to its presence in the US.

I speak French natively and also basic Spanish (used to be way better) and I don't think I have ever used Spanish as a lingua franca in a place where it is not the official language or does not have a major local presence (ie the US). Whereas I have used French on multiple occasions. Though way less than English of course.

Spanish allegedly importance is more an US/Hispanic America thing. Here in Brazil no one speaks it nor ever will. Ditto for Europe, let alone Africa and Asia.

In any case, aside very specific situations, only English really matters. But of course, people shouldn't learn a foreign language only because it's important. The learning should be the end in itself.

[Acajack]

Even in the NE US in a place like NYC it could be argued that French should be learned as a second language due to proximity with Quebec and Canada, France as a bigger trading and strategic partner than Spain, and French's place in international organizations.

Hitching your entire wagon to Spanish because your hood bas bodegas is as if I prioritized Arabic to English because there are way more Lebanese than anglos on my street, and we have awesome shawarma shops here.

I am being a bit facetious here, but still...

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Yuri

Spanish allegedly importance is more an US/Hispanic America thing. Here in Brazil no one speaks it nor ever will. Ditto for Europe, let alone Africa and Asia.

Right, but Portuguese is sorta mutually intelligible with Spanish.

One of my wife's best friends in Brazilian, and they frequently converse in Spanish/Portuguese. My wife doesn't know Portuguese and her friend doesn't know Spanish, but they often find such a conversation is more comfortable than English-English (even though both are totally English fluent).

I can't do the same with spoken Portuguese, probably bc I'm not a native Spanish speaker. Written, yes.

Spoken Dutch-German is sorta similar, except only for Northern Germans. I can't do it, as I speak the Southern variant; spoken Dutch is completely unintelligable to me; written is easy, though).

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Even in the NE US in a place like NYC it could be argued that French should be learned as a second language due to proximity with Quebec and Canada, France as a bigger trading and strategic partner than Spain, and French's place in international organizations.

Spanish is definitely the second language of NYC, but French has currency. There's a surprisingly large French expat community in Brownstone Brooklyn, with a whole ecosystem of schools, shops, services, etc. Of course there's also an elite French-speaking Manhattan presence, with the diplomatic and corporate presence, and the fancy lycees.

Also, there's a big French Caribbean presence in the Outer Boroughs. I believe Haitian Creole is mutually intelligible, and they're everywhere in black immigrant neighborhoods.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Right, but Portuguese is sorta mutually intelligible with Spanish.

One of my wife's best friends in Brazilian, and they frequently converse in Spanish/Portuguese. My wife doesn't know Portuguese and her friend doesn't know Spanish, but they often find such a conversation is more comfortable than English-English (even though both are totally English fluent).

That's a bit odd because they're fluent in English. In those cases, people usually choose English.

I gather your wife's friends has some notion of Spanish. Brazilians do learn it in school. No one learns it, but you can pick up the pronouns, a couple of verbs. Without it, conversation could be challenging. And for Spanish-speaking even more.

In Uruguay I just spoke Portuguese, but then again, Uruguayans are quite competent in Portuguese. It's funny because most of the times I couldn't tell if they were speaking Spanish or Portuguese with a strong accent with me.

Originally Posted by Crawford

I can't do the same with spoken Portuguese, probably bc I'm not a native Spanish speaker. Written, yes.

Spoken Dutch-German is sorta similar, except only for Northern Germans. I can't do it, as I speak the Southern variant; spoken Dutch is completely unintelligable to me; written is easy, though).

I remember in South Africa I risked Afrikaans a lot precisely because I had some knowledge of German. And as Afrikaans is basically a simplified version of Dutch (no conjugations, for instance), things were even easier.

------------------------------------

But back to the languages, I have this feeling Spanish is just another language. People have this perception it's 2nd to English, but in reality where is it? Maybe in the US people have this impression as 1/6 of population speaks Spanish and foreign-languages are not popular. Spanish ends up to be the most obvious pick.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Even in the NE US in a place like NYC it could be argued that French should be learned as a second language due to proximity with Quebec and Canada, France as a bigger trading and strategic partner than Spain, and French's place in international organizations.

Hitching your entire wagon to Spanish because your hood bas bodegas is as if I prioritized Arabic to English because there are way more Lebanese than anglos on my street, and we have awesome shawarma shops here.

I am being a bit facetious here, but still...

Incidentally, French is the fastest growing European language because West Africa. Aside their strong population growth, more and more people there are adopting French as the first language over their native languages.

It will eventually surpass Spanish in the number of speakers. Portuguese will also benefit with this African boost. And unlike happen in other African countries, it's already a massive mother tongue. In Angola 71% speaks at it's mother language. In South Africa, for instance, only 3% of Blacks speak English or Afrikaans at home.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Spanish is definitely the second language of NYC, but French has currency. There's a surprisingly large French expat community in Brownstone Brooklyn, with a whole ecosystem of schools, shops, services, etc. Of course there's also an elite French-speaking Manhattan presence, with the diplomatic and corporate presence, and the fancy lycees.

Also, there's a big French Caribbean presence in the Outer Boroughs. I believe Haitian Creole is mutually intelligible, and they're everywhere in black immigrant neighborhoods.

Whenever I go to NYC, inevitably on a few occasions people with an extremely basic knowledge of French who overhear us speaking in French will try out of a few words or phrases, or ask us about it.

That basically never happens in, say, Toronto, where the number of local native French speakers is also relatively small, but everyone learns it in school.

The only people in Toronto who speak to us in French are usually transplants who are native French speakers themselves, but of course those people are present in NYC too.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Yuri

Incidentally, French is the fastest growing European language because West Africa. Aside their strong population growth, more and more people there are adopting French as the first language over their native languages.

It will eventually surpass Spanish in the number of speakers. Portuguese will also benefit with this African boost. And unlike happen in other African countries, it's already a massive mother tongue. In Angola 71% speaks at it's mother language. In South Africa, for instance, only 3% of Blacks speak English or Afrikaans at home.

Ironically, Canada which has the third largest French speaking population in the world, and arguably the second-largest population of native speakers in the world, is perhaps the only country in the world where French is seen as passé, in decline and moribund.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Ironically, Canada which has the third largest French speaking population in the world, and arguably the second-largest population of native speakers in the world, is perhaps the only country in the world where French is seen as passé, in decline and moribund.

French is in decline in the US as well.

In 1960 it was the #1 foreign language among higher education in the US, with roughly 38% of students who studied a foreign language opting to learn French.

My own mother (German ancestry) and father (Irish ancestry) were two of those american kids who studied French in high school/college back in the '60s.

Today, the percentage of higher education kids in the US who opt for french has plummeted down to only 12.4%.

Over the same time frame Spanish has grown to over 50% among that same group.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Even in the NE US in a place like NYC it could be argued that French should be learned as a second language due to proximity with Quebec and Canada, France as a bigger trading and strategic partner than Spain, and French's place in international organizations.

Hitching your entire wagon to Spanish because your hood bas bodegas is as if I prioritized Arabic to English because there are way more Lebanese than anglos on my street, and we have awesome shawarma shops here.

I am being a bit facetious here, but still...

If all the cheap labor people who mowed your Gatineau lawn, cleaned your house, fixed basic things for you, etc. were always almost all unilingual Arabic AND you rarely ever crossed the river and didn’t forecast that changing, then it would actually make sense, no?

Also, “France is a bigger trading partner than Spain” is not the correct metric. The correct metric is whether the global Francophonie is a bigger trading partner than the global Hispanophonie.

Who cares about Spain. Bringing Spain up is like a Québécois deciding to learn German as a second language rather than English, on the grounds that Germany has a higher GDP than Britain.

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

French is in decline in the US as well.

In 1960 it was the #1 foreign language among higher education in the US, with nearly 38% of students who studied a foreign language opting to learn French.

My own mother (German ancestry) and father (Irish ancestry) were two of those american kids who studied French in high school/college back in the '60s.

Today, the percentage of higher education kids in the US who opt for french has plummeted down to only 12.4%.

Over the same time frame Spanish has grown to over 50% among that same group.

This is what I’ve noticed too. Most people that I talk to that took French in high school regret it. They either wish they took Spanish or Mandarin as they are more useful especially here in California.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lio45

If all the cheap labor people who mowed your Gatineau lawn, cleaned your house, fixed basic things for you, etc. were always almost all unilingual Arabic AND you rarely ever crossed the river and didn’t forecast that changing, then it would actually make sense, no?

Also, “France is a bigger trading partner than Spain” is not the correct metric. The correct metric is whether the global Francophonie is a bigger trading partner than the global Hispanophonie.

Who cares about Spain. Bringing Spain up is like a Québécois deciding to learn German as a second language rather than English, on the grounds that Germany has a higher GDP than Britain.

I did say I was being a bit facetious, though it would be interesting to see how highly Québec ranks as a trading partner for NY state, or the NE US in general.

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Today, the percentage of higher education kids in the US who opt for french has plummeted down to only 12.4%.

Over the same time frame Spanish has grown to over 50% among that same group.

If you live long enough, you might witness Spanish Castilian overtaking English within the US itself.
That will shock the WASP on the long run.

As for French, people out here are worried about the fact that it might turn into some kind of dead language only spoken by some elite, just like ancient Latin.
But I think African demographics will save and keep it popular enough in the end.

Moreover, our neighbors (Italy, Spain, Germany...) still like learning French. Metropolitan France's location is interesting in peace time. It is like the big crossroad in Western Europe, so I'm not so worried about the survival or evolution of our language.

Of course it will be challenged and change over the course of time. For instance, even some Arabic words might be included into the official language.
When I was a kid, verb "kiffer" used to be a slang with an Arabic background. The French Academy that runs the international language found that the etymology of the term made some good sense, so they made a regular verb of it and not just a slang.
Things like this happen, being a very aspect of a living language.

[samne]

Learning French as a second language is definitely growing in popularity in Toronto and Ontario schools in recent years. French immersion is offered in many public schools. Many parents look at it as a free private school.

https://www.tdsb.on.ca/Elementary-Sc...rench-Programs


https://www.ontario.ca/page/french-s...guage-programs

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Spanish and French have different advantages in terms of being global languages.

Spanish has more first language speakers and more countries where it is the official language, and is the main language of a fairly large region of the world.

Spanish also benefits from being the second (though unofficial) language of the world's superpower. It gets some cultural heft too as a result of this.

French has more range across a much wider area of the world than Spanish does. Outside of a few enclaves on the north coast, Spanish gets you nowhere in Africa. Same goes for the Middle East and Oceania where French still has a decent presence. Even in Asia there is more residual French in places like Vietnam than residual Spanish in the Philippines. French is also equal to Spanish or maybe ahead of it in the Caribbean and Europe outside of Spain itself. And of course there is little old Canada.

French also has residual global prestige from its language of diplomacy era, and rightly or wrongly French culture is seen as more high class. Ironically this latter perception about Spanish Is also due to its presence in the US.

French is more useful in parts of Africa and the Middle East, yes, since there's no Spanish speaking country in Africa. But I think English is just as useful, if not more useful in that region. So if you want to be able to travel end-to-end with almost no language barriers then French makes sense as a complement to English. OTOH, French is virtually useless in South America outside of French Guiana.

Professionally speaking, I've never come across a condition where being fluent in French was a significant benefit. I have come across situations that greatly benefited people who were fluent in Spanish, Mandarin, and even Portuguese. This might be due to international business in the U.S. being focused more on the Americas, western Europe, and east Asia.

Originally Posted by Acajack

I speak French natively and also basic Spanish (used to be way better) and I don't think I have ever used Spanish as a lingua franca in a place where it is not the official language or does not have a major local presence (ie the US). Whereas I have used French on multiple occasions. Though way less than English of course.

I once used Spanish to communicate with a French woman in Brazil who didn't speak English (and I don't speak French).

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Yuri

Spanish allegedly importance is more an US/Hispanic America thing. Here in Brazil no one speaks it nor ever will. Ditto for Europe, let alone Africa and Asia.

Well Spain is in Europe lol. I've also definitely come across Spanish speakers in London, the Netherlands, and Italy. And I'm sure there are still some Spanish speakers in the Philippines.