What results when a language is made into a museum piece and is imbued with snobbism? Hhmmm. A language of limited utility and no broad appeal. (Hat tip: Valerie)
WHY FRENCH TEACHERS HAVE THE BLUES
The French language is in dramatic decline around the world, including in its traditional foreign heartlands, according to international language teachers recently gathered in Paris ...for the Expolangues trade fair, dedicated to language teaching, learning and translating.
[The Expolangues site fittingly illustrates Francophony's predicament. Although sponsored by the French and held in Paris the site for this polyglot fair comes in only two flavors, French, bien sūr -- and English.]
A teacher from Portugal, Teresa Santos, said in her country 70 percent of Portuguese students preferred to take English courses, compared to just 10 percent for French."English is magnifique!" a teacher of Ancient Greek at the Aristotle University in Thessalonika, Thalia Stephanidou, said. "Even in poorer neighbourhoods, that language - which replaced French right after the second world war - is taught, even to old people," she said.
Even in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, English has crowded French out of the classroom, despite French being one of the country's official languages.
In Russia, where speaking French was once a prized talent among the tsars, French is trailing "far behind English" in Moscow and Saint Petersburg schools, Mascha Sveshnikova, of the Russian Cultural Centre, said.
The merits and difficulties of the French language aside, France might want to consider her mother tongue's decline in light of its association with, well, France and everything that is French, and that, in a world trending toward democratic ideals, French snobbism has zero cachet.
The decline of French, the very haecceity of Frenchness, helps us understand why when the French look to the future it is usually in the direction of the 19th century.
Hardly surprising. English is a natural, living language whereas french is as artificial as esperanto and will soon enough be as living as latin.
The amount of puerile idiocy on Pave will never cease to amaze me and Jay, you're an idiot.
English is by far the most popular language today, SO WHAT and WHAT'S NEW???? And no, "the French" don't care either, terms like "blog", "email", "chat", "copyright" etc... are routinely used nowadays, no one is losing sleep over that.
p.s. what's "esperanto"?
Esperanto, "the international language". A language that was made up so that everyone would be at the same disadvantage when trying to communicate. Proponents fantasize about eventual Esperanto media (movies, newspapers, etc.), but it's just as bad an idea as it sounds.
Is there really not a French word for "copyright"? For some reason I thought that the idea of intellectual property originated in France.
Zoomerx:
So what the hell is a couriel?
And I'm reminded of a true story.
Me, innocently: "I was watching a documentary in which a very elderly Chinese was being interviewed, and they were speaking French. I was a little surprised as I might have thought his European tongue would have been English, although I would of course have expected a Vietnamese to speak French as an European language."
Pompous Acadian idiot: "All civilized people speak French as their second language".
Me, not so innocently: "And English as their first".
Real cute posting in effect "I don't understand what you said so *you're* an idiot".
Is there really not a French word for "copyright"? For some reason I thought that the idea of intellectual property originated in France.
"Droits d'auteur/reproduction" in French. I've seen "copyright" used. I'm not sure if they originated there but copyright laws are extremely strict in France.
"Bon weekend ", as we also say in French.
