In a world where English marginalizes French, where even the Francophonie won't behave, where French businessmen won't behave, where French speakers don't understand the mother tongue, where literature, la fleur du français, becomes a stunt -- ah, mes amis, what can be done?

Subvert English.

LANGUAGE NOT PRONOUNCED TRIPPINGLY ON NATIVE TONGUE

August 6, 2006 (IHT/NYT) - When the Iranian president proposed last month to ban English words like "helicopter," "chat" and "pizza," Iran became the latest country to try to fight the spread of English as a de facto global language. ... "It's a lost cause to try to fight against the tide," said Jacques Lévy, who studies globalism at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and is a native speaker of French.

Leave it to a native of France - a country that itself in the 1990s briefly [Huh?*] required that 3,000 English words be replaced by French ones - to suggest that this simpler English be codified. Jean-Paul Nerrière, a retired vice president of IBM, calls his proposal Globish [global + English = Globish].** It uses a limited vocabulary of 1,500 words, taken from the Voice of America, among other sources, which can be put together clumsily to express more complicated thoughts. Little concern is given to the complexities of grammar... The typical conversation in Globish could be grating to a native speaker, but get the job done between, say, a Kenyan and a Korean trying to navigate a business deal or asking for help at the airport check-in

Vocabulary poor and grammatically limited. Yes, well, we can't imagine too many business deals being navigated in Globish other than a street purchase of a Rolex knock-off.

"Globish is not a language, it will never have a literature, it does not aim at conveying a culture, values," Nerrière wrote in an e-mail message. "Globish is just a tool - practical, efficient, limited on purpose."

Nerrière said he got the idea from his travels in Asia while working for IBM. "I observed that my communication with my Japanese or Korean colleagues was much easier, much more efficient, and much less inhibited than what I could observe between them and the American associates traveling with me," he said.

Personally, we have never met any Japanese who did not strive to improve their English and were shy about the effort. We know of no Japanese or Korean acquaintances who prefer pidgin to conventional English. Perhaps M. Nerrière should consider his personal charms as the source of ease, efficiency, and uninhibitedness among his interlocutors.

Globish is something that an American would need to learn as much as a non-English speaker, he said, although a book he has written about the idea is not available in America [scil., in English***]. (There are French, Korean, Italian and Spanish versions.)

Lévy, who reviewed Globish for an online journal, said he liked Globish's idea of reminding native English speakers that they cannot assume that the entire world is as fluent as they are. "The global English world is not a world where Anglophone people speak the same as they would at home," he said.

"We have to force native English speakers to limit the use of these tools."

Yes, let's get those smug English speakers to cripple themselves with a crippled, limited, defective pidgin English. Why should they enjoy the superior advantages of English intacto?

An artificial language, like Globish, or a non-formalized language, like Globish, or a dumbed down language, like Globlish -- these are fashions, curiosities.

"Binos prinsip sagatik, kel sagon, das stud nemödik a del binos gudikum, ka stud mödik süpo."†

The above is in Volapük, a universal artificial language with a worldwide base of 20-30 recreational speakers some 100 plus years after its conception. We know of only one successful universal working language in use today as much as it was yesterday.

English will have its day as did Greek and Latin before it. The ingenuity and needs of English speakers will make of it what it becomes, for good or bad. Language, any language, cannot be made effortless by dumbing it down or thinning it out or tossing out its difficulties. Language is made effortless by use.

* As far as we know the Toubon law is still on the books and in force.

† "There is a maxim which states that a little study a day is better than a lot of study all at once."

PFFT (What is this?): Killing English 3¼ | Effectively killing English ¼ | Rayonnement français 0

Does IHT/NYT really think that "pizza" is an english word? Or is it intended as a joke?

The whole "globish" thing has two sides. First, it is true that native English speakers can't expect foreigners to be as fluent as they are, and that two non-native speakers, say a German and a Japanese, would usually understand each other better speaking English than a native speaker and one of them would. Unless the native speaker pays special attention speaking slowly with rather simple words.
On the other side, building a limited language that would be used by non native speakers instead of English is just preposterous. It doesn't make any sense, as it contradicts the very basis of the initial analysis. If non-native speakers make mistakes coming from their mother language, you can't ask them to use one artificial language.

Plus, as a non-native speaker who lived in an English-speaking country and met many immigrants who were learning English too, it has struck me that what makes English such a powerful language is its ability to let people express numerous ideas even with a limited vocabulary and grammar, because anyone can understand what you mean. I don't think Globish could offer this ability.

Is "pizza" an english word? I didn't know that ...

First, it is the Iranians who have identified "helicopter", "chat", and "pizza" as English. Second, of the three cited, only "chat" is aboriginal English. "Pizza" is a loanword, absorbed by English from the Italian, where it derives from the Latin "pinsere", to pound, to crush, to press, to crumble, to grind, to reduce to pulp. "Helicopter" is a transcription of a French neologism using Greek compounds:

The two Greek words that are the origin of helicopter may be particularly hard for English speakers to spot. Helicopter was borrowed from the French word hélicoptère, a word constructed from Greek heliko- and pteron, "wing." Heliko-, the combining form of helix, "spiral," has given us helico-, which can be joined with other words and word forms to create new words. The consonant cluster pt in pteron begins many Greek words but relatively few English words. English speakers unfamiliar with Greek are thus not likely to recognize the word's elements as helico-pter; many analyze the word into the elements heli-copter, as is shown by the clipped form copter.

If the Iranians didn't identify English with America, we believe they would easily live with "chat", "pizza", "helicopter", and a good deal else.

DGB

Bonjour,

Pourquoi continuer à parler le sabir américanoide ?
Du fait du comportement malthusien (Malthus un Anglais d'ailleurs) , des peuples qui le parlent (WASP américains , Australiens etc) il est mécaniquement en régression pour des causes démographiques !
L' americanoide une langue du passé ….
Tournons-nous vers les langues de l 'avenir:
-Le Chinois
-L' Espagnol ,en expansion du fait de la démographie explosive latino (qui pousse les Yanks à d'atroces campagnes de stérilisation forcée en Bolivie etc ,etc) et qui grignote des parts de marchés sur le sol même des USA.
-Et le Français , mécaniquement en expansion du fait de la démographie africaine...

Les USA , un pays en déclin du fait d' un modèle économique dépassé (GM etc) ,il n' y a que les Yanks qui ne le savent pas.

Good luck to your country in Iraq !!!!