How the UK and London misread their hand

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

And a bunch of native languages still alive, particularly deep in the Amazon and the northern reaches of North America.

A pretty high share of Latin America speaks something other than Spanish. In rural Mexico, Spanish often isn't the primary language, and I assume it's even more the case in more heavily indigenous cultures in South and Central America.

I've toured Chiapas (Mexico) pretty heavily and Spanish is probably less useful than English in the jungles and alpine towns (and neither are particularly useful). Oaxaca (Mexico) is pretty similar once you leave touristy areas.

Of course urban Latin America, where most people live, is basically 100% Spanish speaking, except for some indigenous newcomers.

[Steely Dan]

^ according to this Quora answer, ~93% of Mexicans are native Spanish speakers, and an additional 5.7% of the population is native in another language, but speaks Spanish as a secondary language, making for a vanishingly small percent of the nation that can't speak Spanish at all.

Source: https://www.quora.com/What-percentag...fluent-Spanish


Of course, down in South American countries like Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, etc. you do find higher percentages of native language speakers who can't speak any Portuguese/Spanish.

[Crawford]

All I know is that for about a week, our Spanish was largely useless while traveling through the highlands and rainforests of Chiapas. The locals don't speak Spanish. Even in the bigger towns, Spanish wasn't heavily used. English was slightly more effective bc they get some foreign backpackers (like us). Mexicans don't travel there much.

Also, Mexico probably lies about Spanish fluency. Rural Chiapas considers itself autonomous and Mexico is always trying to downplay indigenous culture and language. Since the Spanish age, Mexico has been a singular culture and language, according to decisionmakers.

There are also big issues with Mexicans in NYC who speak no Spanish. It's been a big challenge for the public schools and the ESL learning. And they're from Puebla, not Chiapas. Central American immigrants often have the same issue.

[craigs]

Wikipedia says the vast majority of Mexicans speak Spanish, and notes that roughly 8.3 million (out of 129 million) speak one of the indigenous languages, "with Nahuatl being the most widely spoken by more than 1.7 million, followed by Yucatec Maya used daily by nearly 850,000 people. Tzeltal and Tzotzil, two other Mayan languages, are spoken by around half a million people each, primarily in the southern state of Chiapas."

So Crawford went to one of those places that serves as an exception to the rule that Mexicans generally speak Spanish, but the rule stands.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

And French Guiana and a bunch of Caribbean islands and then all the various creoles.

And dutch in Suriname and some Caribbean islands.

And a bunch of native languages still alive, particularly deep in the Amazon and the northern reaches of North America.


So it's by no means 100%, but it's still probably true that over 90% of the people in the western hemisphere can speak at least one of the "big three" new world languages.

Fun fact: Haiti and Canada are the only independent territories in the Americas with French as an official language. Every other French speaking territory on the American continent is a department of France. Ditto for Dutch speaking territories. So 99% of people who live in a sovereign territory in North America speak English, Portuguese, or Spanish.

[eschaton]

The Dutch were pretty uniquely bad at instilling their language in their colonies in the New World.

Suriname is officially Dutch speaking, and 60% of the population understands it, but it exists in a diglossia with Sranan Tongo, a English-based creole spoken by half the population.

Then if you look at the Caribbean possessions of the Netherlands...none of them speak Dutch! Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao speak Papiamento, a Portuguese-based creole, for reasons that no one is able to really determine. On the other islands (Saba, St. Eustatius, and Sint Maarten) people just speak English.

People actually speak English on the French side of Saint Martin as well. A cabbie I had once from there said French people absolutely hate it when they go on vacation there and realize it.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by JManc

If I had a kid, I'd push them to learn both Spanish and Mandarin. I guess French would be handy if you were walking along the Champs-Élysées and had take a furious piss and needed to ask 'où sont les toilettes'

Mandarin is tough sledding. I’ve known a few non-native speakers who became fluent, but there’s not much middle ground between somebody who speaks 50 phrases that they learned in the back of their travel guide and someone who is so fluent they could go native. There’s no Mandarin equivalent of the hundreds of millions of “broken English” speakers that can get their point across in most conversations even if their grammar and pronunciation is off. And, of course, there’s no equivalent to somebody writing something out with spelling mistakes.

[streetscaper]

Originally Posted by Crawford

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.

Originally Posted by iheartthed

But the closest you'll get to a large community of French speakers will be a Haitian neighborhood.

Just to shed some light on Haitian Creole... it's definitely not mutually intelligible with French. Countless times I've had to act as a translator between French/Quebecois and other Haitians while visiting Haiti. About 60-70% of the words derive from French (most of which have been transformed to the point they aren't immediately recognizable)... and then the grammar is completely different.

Also most Haitians aren't fluent in French. Figures I've seen a few years ago showed that less then 10% of Haitians can speak French (the upperclass/elite), which has been my experience as well (and hence why I have to act as a translator). That figure may be a bit higher among the Haitians that are in NYC area, but still the vast, vast majority of Haitians here can really only speak Haitian Creole.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by edale

And then there's Quebec...

The first time I went to Quebec I thought it was a joke. The signs changed to French at the Vermont border and were unrelenting. I didn't believe that these people really couldn't speak any English, but they can't. In fact some guy came up to me on my first trip to Montreal asking for directions in French. It's like, somehow I put off the vibe that I was a French-speaking native of Montreal.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

The first time I went to Quebec I thought it was a joke. The signs changed to French at the Vermont border and were unrelenting. I didn't believe that these people really couldn't speak any English, but they can't. In fact some guy came up to me on my first trip to Montreal asking for directions in French. It's like, somehow I put off the vibe that I was a French-speaking native of Montreal.

Some can't and some can.

It's a mix, really.

Kinda similar to many parts of western Europe.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by streetscaper

Just to shed some light on Haitian Creole... it's definitely not mutually intelligible with French. Countless times I've had to act as a translator between French/Quebecois and other Haitians while visiting Haiti. About 60-70% of the words derive from French (most of which have been transformed to the point they aren't immediately recognizable)... and then the grammar is completely different.
.

I don't want to overestimate my understanding but I can actually make out a decent amount of Haitian Creole.

But no, I wouldn't quite call it mutually intelligible with French.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by streetscaper

Also most Haitians aren't fluent in French. Figures I've seen a few years ago showed that less then 10% of Haitians can speak French (the upperclass/elite), which has been my experience as well (and hence why I have to act as a translator). That figure may be a bit higher among the Haitians that are in NYC area, but still the vast, vast majority of Haitians here can really only speak Haitian Creole.

It could be that those Haitians with the ability to emigrate tend to be more the ones who can speak French.

I don't think I've ever met a Haitian here who couldn't speak French and only spoke Kwéyol.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Mandarin is tough sledding. I’ve known a few non-native speakers who became fluent, but there’s not much middle ground between somebody who speaks 50 phrases that they learned in the back of their travel guide and someone who is so fluent they could go native. There’s no Mandarin equivalent of the hundreds of millions of “broken English” speakers that can get their point across in most conversations even if their grammar and pronunciation is off. And, of course, there’s no equivalent to somebody writing something out with spelling mistakes.

I'm in the midst of learning (and becoming certified!) in Mandarin and it's exceptionally difficult - definitely one of the most difficult languages one can learn. I wouldn't recommend sending someone off to learn it unless there was a definite reason to doing so - one cannot simply learn Mandarin for the sake of doing so or on a whim.

The one thing that I will say is that there's a lot of leeway for confusion and misunderstandings, not only amongst learners but amongst native speakers as well. There are so many variations, so many different dialects, so many different ways that different regions say different things that it's common for native speakers to not know what words or phrases mean. To this end, nobody ever truly has a full grasp of the language because it's simply too vast.

I'm fortunate to live in an area where I can be pretty immersed in it every day so i'm able to pick up a lot of it fairly easily, but most of it is incredibly tough sledding. Like a lot of other languages the duolingo default line of learning isn't effective in learning more common and casual sayings.

Some of it is fun, though, as fun as it can be anyway. In Mandarin Toronto is simply phonetic: 多伦多 (Duōlúnduō). New York is 纽约 (Niǔyuē). LA is 洛杉矶 (Luòshānjī). They don't really mean anything aside from sounding the same and they're easy to remember.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by streetscaper

Just to shed some light on Haitian Creole... it's definitely not mutually intelligible with French. Countless times I've had to act as a translator between French/Quebecois and other Haitians while visiting Haiti. About 60-70% of the words derive from French (most of which have been transformed to the point they aren't immediately recognizable)... and then the grammar is completely different.

Also most Haitians aren't fluent in French. Figures I've seen a few years ago showed that less then 10% of Haitians can speak French (the upperclass/elite), which has been my experience as well (and hence why I have to act as a translator). That figure may be a bit higher among the Haitians that are in NYC area, but still the vast, vast majority of Haitians here can really only speak Haitian Creole.

That makes sense.

Come to think of it, I've only ever come across one Haitian here in the U.S. that wasn't fluent in English. She was very lost on the subway so she was either a tourist or had just moved to the city.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

In fact some guy came up to me on my first trip to Montreal asking for directions in French. It's like, somehow I put off the vibe that I was a French-speaking native of Montreal.

Perfectly normal. I recall once, I had someone ask me for directions in Wisconsin. (In English!) I couldn't help them, I was also just passing through and likely further from home than them.

Nothing special. Just means you physically aren't that distinguishable from a local.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Acajack

It could be that those Haitians with the ability to emigrate tend to be more the ones who can speak French.

I don't think I've ever met a Haitian here who couldn't speak French and only spoke Kwéyol.

Same here, but IMO it's almost certainly because the ones who move here quickly pick up decent French.

Thinking back about it, my Haitian neighbor in FL spoke Creole (his native language) and English, but no proper French -- though I could understand a good bit of Creole, especially if he speaks slowly and we're allowed back-and-forth (which increases the chances of hitting pockets of mutual intelligibility with French).

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I don't want to overestimate my understanding but I can actually make out a decent amount of Haitian Creole.

But no, I wouldn't quite call it mutually intelligible with French.

There are thousands of Haitians in São Paulo, specially here in Downtown. I don't understand a word what they say. Only intonation is a bit Frenchy. My French is not good (B1-B2), but to me they are very very different.

[streetscaper]

Originally Posted by Acajack

It could be that those Haitians with the ability to emigrate tend to be more the ones who can speak French.

I don't think I've ever met a Haitian here who couldn't speak French and only spoke Kwéyol.

Lio's response below hits the nail on the head:

Originally Posted by lio45

Same here, but IMO it's almost certainly because the ones who move here quickly pick up decent French.

Thinking back about it, my Haitian neighbor in FL spoke Creole (his native language) and English, but no proper French -- though I could understand a good bit of Creole, especially if he speaks slowly and we're allowed back-and-forth (which increases the chances of hitting pockets of mutual intelligibility with French).

Yup the vast majority of Haitians in Haiti and the US are not fluent in French

[JManc]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Mandarin is tough sledding. I’ve known a few non-native speakers who became fluent, but there’s not much middle ground between somebody who speaks 50 phrases that they learned in the back of their travel guide and someone who is so fluent they could go native. There’s no Mandarin equivalent of the hundreds of millions of “broken English” speakers that can get their point across in most conversations even if their grammar and pronunciation is off. And, of course, there’s no equivalent to somebody writing something out with spelling mistakes.

Not so much for very young kids; due to their brain's elasticity and rapid neural development. Older kids/ teens and adults will be much harder. My niece was learning to count in Mandarin while she was learning to count in English. Had she stuck with it, she'd probably be conversational by now (she's 15).

[Shawn]

As I understand it, kids' brains are most primed for secondary language adoption between ~8 years old and ~11 years old. This seemed true for my wife, who moved from Japan to America when she was 8. She went from ESL-only classes to a full-time integrated student between 2nd and 4th grade. This was back in the early 90s in the Bay Area. I imagine ESL is more advanced than it was back then too.

My cousin went to a Catholic elementary school in New Hampshire in the late 80s, and from the first day of 1st grade, she had full immersion French for half the day. She was native fluent by 3rd grade.

I started learning Japanese . . . once I landed here when I was 20. It's been over two decades now, and I'm still not fluent at a native-level, despite daily full immersion. I'm fully "business fluent" and I have the cultural/situational social understanding necessary to speak at a native level, but I will never be fully literate: I'm just never going to remember how to write the 2,500+ kanji. I can read nearly that number, but I cannot commit all those stroke orders to memory. Especially because of how you input kanji on phones or PCs.