Re: peculiar sentences -right or wrong?

On 11/12/07 07:48, Wilstrup wrote:

Did you know that we here in Denmark are having a severe debate on "domain loss" - that is a fear that English will one day overtake the
Danish as our first language?

I have the same fear. One of my ambitions, as a post-retirement
exercise, is to learn both the Scottish and Irish dialects of Gaelic, on
the grounds that these are the languages that my ancestors spoke; but an
inhibiting factor is that they are dying languages. In Ireland the Irish
language is a compulsory school subject, but I have been told by Irish
people I know - including a former AUE RR - that the children just don't
take it seriously. Even in the Gaeltacht (the areas where Irish is the
dominant language) the children are aware that fluency in English is
what will gain them a better job.

Some friends of mine once visited Denmark for a while, and hoped to
acquire some fluency in Danish. They were greatly frustrated by the fact
that everyone wanted to speak to them in English.

At Schiphol airport (the main airport of the Netherlands) I once greatly
offended a woman at a money change counter when I asked her "Spreekt U
engels of frans ?" Her reply: "Of course I speak English." It was
utterly unthinkable that she should not be completely fluent in English.
I can understand why people working at an international airport should
have some command of foreign languages, but this was going too far.

This morning I was helping my ex-wife to order a Christmas cake chez a
French pattissier. (She's really struggling to take over the jobs that I
used to do.) At a certain point the man was having trouble expressing
something in English, and I was forced to interject "Elle parle
français, si ce serait plus simple." Here were two native speakers of
French struggling to communicate because they felt that they had to
communicate in English.

Back in the days when every educated person was supposed to have some
fluency in Latin, everyone still used their native language for most
purposes. Nowadays everyone is supposed to be able to use English, and
it's killing off their native languages. As a native speaker of English,
I should be delighted that I can get around the world so easily; but it
still bothers me. If I wanted to visit Denmark, then - in my opinion - I
should be obligated to learn at least a few simple phrases of Danish. I
actually resent the fact that I can get around in Denmark knowing only
English. The killing off of non-dominant languages is, to me, just as
great a tragedy as the death of some animal species. If we eventually
move to having a monolingual world, it would be a serious loss of our
shared culture. I don't speak Danish at all, as it happens, but I still
share the pain of those Danes who worry about the fate of their language.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
.

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