6 ms·
This might be me being overly cautious here, but I would be wary of the political implications of the study. It's from an open University that's a project for
by kace91 6y ago
This might be me being overly cautious here, but I would be wary of the political implications of the study.
It's from an open University that's a project for lifelong learning funded as a public service in Catalonia - promoting the catalan language in the region is a key point of the project, so studies finding out that bilingualism is something great to have raise red flags about the nationalist agenda behind it.
To be clear, I'm not trying to make a point against catalan people or taking a position in any political side whatsoever. I'm just pointing out the potential for local context affecting the scientific method here.
- kiliancs 6y agoIt is a common point of view from modern Catalan nationalism that the bilingual status-quo is conducive to the minoritization of the Catalan language long term. Bilingualism can also mean Catalan and English. On the other hand, pro-union parties [0] and organizations [1] often defend bilingualism under the opposite premise: that supposedly Catalan has an advantageous position over Spanish. [0] https://www.elmundo.es/cataluna/2019/04/25/5cc192b4fdddff712d8b464b.html https://www.elmundo.es/cataluna/2019/04/25/5cc192b4fdddff712... [1] http://convivenciacivicacatalana.blogspot.com/p/administracion-bilingue.html http://convivenciacivicacatalana.blogspot.com/p/administraci...
- lottin 6y agoIf you see past the rhetoric you will find that Catalan nationalists would like Catalan to be the dominant language in Catalonia while Spanish nationalists would like Spanish to be the dominant language instead. Neither of them are really concerned about English because English is not in a position to replace either Catalan or Spanish.
- pvaldes 6y agoReplace "spanish nationalists" by "everybody else" and you have it. The idea that the main language of a nation, the only that everybody share and knows, should be deterred from part of the territory is surrealist.
- JaumeGreen 6y agoIt's bizarre that people want to eliminate the language that is historically from a region, and people in there speak it. Spain is not a single nation, its a state with several historical nationalities.
- lottin 6y agoDeter who from what? I don't think you know what deter means.
- pvaldes 6y agoEnlighten me, please
- dllthomas 6y agoIt's not the meaning so much as the choice of prepositions. When you say "deter X from Y", usually Y is the thing being reduced/prevented and X is the actor who is now less likely to Y. So the use of "[action] deterred from [region the action might occur in" was surprising and possibly incorrect. If you'd said "[...] deterred in [...]", it would have been perfectly grammatical English. It's a weird nit to pick in such harsh language, especially on a comment section that's more likely than the typical HN comment page to attract people who are not native English speakers.
- pvaldes 6y agoOkay. Well, X is specified in the phrase "... The main language of a nation... should be deterred..." Spanish is the main language in Spain, the only spoken by everybody, therefore can be inferred easily that X = Spanish Having this in mind, 'Y' can be inferred easily also. "the idea that Spanish should be deterred from [being used in] part of a territory is surrealist" Territory means 'Spain' in this context. Hope this helps
- lottin 6y ago
- speedgoose 6y agoI understand your point but you can make the same for a lot of research. You do research on what you get founding for. They may simply research on topics they get founding and publish the nice results.
- lottin 6y agoIn general, Catalan nationalists tend to see bilingualism as a process by which one language (Catalan) is gradually being supplanted by another (Spanish). They are not really advocates for bilingualism.
- 082349872349872 6y agoI recall "Catalunya si, España también" being a unionist slogan. Did I misunderstand? TIL there's an ¡Ay Carmela! movie. Recommended or not?
- personlurking 6y agoAs an aside, here's a breakdown of who speaks Catalan vs Spanish, in Catalonia, as of 2018: https://www.idescat.cat/novetats/?id=3446&lang=en https://www.idescat.cat/novetats/?id=3446&lang=en The quick version, in a single image, with the lightest area being the region of Barcelona: https://i.imgur.com/tPiOuiz.png https://i.imgur.com/tPiOuiz.png
- esroyo 6y agoYes It is.
- wazoox 6y agoWeird to call it "Spanish". Catalan is also "Spanish" (though you'll find a very small number of speakers in Southern France). Usually Catalan is opposed to Castilian.
- marcan_42 6y agoThe common term for the language we're talking about here is Spanish (in the English language), which is a distinct language from Catalan. Catalan may originate in Spain (and thus could be called Spanish-the-adjective, though that doesn't seem terribly useful conversationally), but it is most definitely not a dialect of Spanish-the-language. Castilian Spanish, when used in English, is often used to denote the dialects spoken in Spain, as opposed to the dialects spoken in Latin America. This is not the topic at hand here, so there isn't much point in calling it Castilian (especially since many English speakers would not be familiar with that term) over Spanish.
- ptato 6y agoSpanish /ˈspanɪʃ/ adjective relating to Spain, its people, or its language. noun 1. the people of Spain. 2. a Romance language spoken in Spain and in much of Central and South America.
- marton78 6y agoIt would be interesting to see how the described effect depends on linguistic proximity. Does bilingualism of e.g. English and Chinese or German and Turkish protect better against cognitive decline than Castilian and Catalan?
- 082349872349872 6y agoThat would be interesting. FWIW the US State Department has observed a factor of 3 difference in time to teach anglophones various languages (think dutch vs mandarin) to B2 level: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24677256 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24677256
- kjaftaedi 6y agoIt's always good to be wary, but so far it seems that most studies in this area are in agreement, and that this phenomenon isn't specific to language, it seems to be the same for musicians. So in theory you could potentially realize similar benefits without learning another spoken language.
- fit2rule 6y agoBy the same token, anyone claiming that this must be agitprop designed to promote a political agenda, is promoting their own agenda of nationalism. Vielleicht sind die zweisprachigen Sprecher jedoch besser darauf vorbereitet, die Wahrheit zu finden: Sprache ist Politik - Es wird besser, je mehr Sie es verwenden.
- 082349872349872 6y agoGanz meine Meinung. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23858477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23858477 > "The facts—man, happening, amount, place, time—are true in each case. They could be sworn to by the whole membership of an interfaith conference. But the interpretation placed on them—who communicates these facts to whom? why? when?—makes them into propaganda."
- vmception 6y agoWhich could just as easily be a congratulations on the world creating the convoluted incentives to research this