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> That "casual English" is somewhat part of the language of the new generation. It's a near global lingua franca and the Internet has only accelerated that. I
by nkozyra 2y ago
> That "casual English" is somewhat part of the language of the new generation.
It's a near global lingua franca and the Internet has only accelerated that.
I wonder how long it will be until English just sort of becomes first language in non-native English speaking countries with the current trajectory and momentum of English-first Llama.
Shame it couldn't be a more cohesive spoken language.
- throw__away7391 2y agoI have observed in dozens of countries that the youngest generation now speaks English quite fluently in most of the world. Boomers might know only a few phrases, many millennials can speak well enough, but quite a lot of teenagers now are speaking fluently, using slang and making jokes.
- razakel 2y agoI've heard of kids becoming fluent in English before their mother tongue simply from exposure to subtitled TV and movies! It's usually countries where the market is too small to justify dubbing.
- johnisgood 2y agoLike Lojban?
- keybored 2y agoIt won’t happen except in the imagination of mono-lingual-future dreamers on HN (popular idea here for some reason).
- altruios 2y agoWell, speaking in different languages facilitates different modes of thinking which results in different thoughts. Some thoughts are easier to have in one language than another. It takes all sorts to make a world and multiple languages means a broader mental space to explore ideas. People against that tend to lean totalitarian. People for a monoculture, that is. That is an inherently limiting philosophy which can only die out as it narrows the 'acceptable ideas' list over time.
- keybored 2y ago> Well, speaking in different languages facilitates different modes of thinking Sapir-Whorf? Can’t that just be put to bed by now? > People against that tend to lean totalitarian. People for a monoculture, that is. On the topic of languages at least. Some technologists seem to want to get rid of all ostensibly useless things. More than one language being one of them.
- FabHK 2y agoExactly. Culture obviously influences thinking, language less so. Sapir-Whorf has been refuted, except for some minor minor areas (names of colours - some people call these two colours two different names, some call them the same - big deal!; left-right vs north-east-south-west; etc.)
- numpad0 2y agono, that's just chomskists getting desperate. Polyglots can't be Sapir-Whorf denialists, and Internet is only broadening paths to be that, so support for UG theory must increasingly become irrational and negative.
- keybored 2y agoI understand that polyglot means at least three languages most commonly, but I’m bilingual and haven’t experienced this effect. Would it come with my third language?
- numpad0 2y agoI'm a Japanese speaker with maybe above Japanese average but way below professional English and effectively nothing else except I've taken _a_ Chinese class, and it's currently obvious to me that UG theory is largely BS and most of the rest tautological, except I have no ability to succinctly point it out in a logical, academia accepted language. There's been too many anecdotal cases I've had that aren't going to fit with the basic premise of UG theory that there's a hard-wired common human language engine with output stage that is language. Like they seem to have logical constructions that feels sound but aren't going to be linguistically valid in languages I know in Chinese, and there are of course phenomena of people's attitudes switching along with their languages, etc. One counter example to UG theory I've come across recently is an easily understood phrase "verbalizing one's feelings": if UG theory holds some water, feeling == thoughts == language, or at least they should be close to each others, and we should be able to just `^C dump-sumerian<CR>` at any moment at zero cost, and we can't. Not that it takes unreasonable bandwidth or storage to do so but we can't. Doesn't that perhaps suggest that languages are both external yet natural to yourself as much as a keyboard is to a man? Maybe it actually needs exposure to the third language so your subconscious can eliminate the possibility that you're just not good at the second one, I don't know, though I do believe multi(>=3) lingualism is sufficient condition.
- Wytwwww 2y agoDepends on the country probably. In some places, at least reasonably high English fluency is near universal. It wouldn't be surprising if these countries eventually became effectively bilingual.
- keybored 2y agoThat’s different. GP said “first language”…
- nkozyra 2y agoYeah, the multi-lingual stuff isn't what I'm talking about. I'm referring to countries where English is spoken enough by this generation that it may just leak into a first language for their children or grandchildren.
- keybored 2y agoFirst language means the first language, the mother tongue. Which implies supplanting the existing first language. Kids becoming bilingual is a different thing. It’s sort of weird if that was what you were talking about.
- nkozyra 2y ago> Kids becoming bilingual is a different thing. It’s sort of weird if that was what you were talking about. It explicitly isn't. I'm talking about English becoming the first language in countries where the mother tongue is currently still the first language.
- keybored 2y agoGood. That is wrong for all the reasons I’ve stated.
- ywvcbk 2y agoIf you’re a born in a Welsh speaking household English is of course technically not your fist language. Yet by the time you’re an adult you’ll probably be indistinguishable from a native English speaker and likely use this as your primary language outside of your home. It really matters very little that English isn’t technically your “first” language in a situation like this.
- darby_nine 2y agoEh it'll probably be the de-facto public/professional/transactional register and people will speak another language at home.
- keybored 2y agoBased on what? Again we’re just throwing eventualities out there with no basis in current reality. People are pretty good at understanding English in Norway. But the only factor that introduces English into the conversation is when someone does not speak Norwegian. In my experience. People are extrapolating from the fact that people use English-borrowed slang to these far-fetched scenarios. Yeah? Slang and words have always been borrowed. Not even medical doctors speak Latin to each other.
- darby_nine 2y ago> Based on what? I never expected to be taken as declaring an objective fact; I just notice that this is already how workplaces are shaping up. I could easily be very wrong. Anyway, with the internet the understanding of proximity changes. With an increasingly global economy everyone will be closer to people they only share english with. Or maybe mandarin, if you want me to emphasize skeptacism.
- numpad0 2y agoNo offense, but sometimes an annoying aspects of monolingual people(those without substantial second language training, not just ** monolingualism totaritarianists) is that sometimes the only aspect of the concept of a language some of them understand is words. About 30% each of English vocabulary is to have been borrowed from French. That means the phrase "it's all French to me" in free standing could logically imply that you do have good idea of what is being said. That's obviously never the case. That's because dictionary vocabulary is just an asset file for a language. It's a major, but still a part of a language. Integrating bunch of words into a language only inflates that dataset. Dinitrogen tetroxide(N2O4) is apparently called "tetraoksid diazota" in Russian. Do memorizing bunch of those compounds in Russian makes you fluent in that language? I'd very much doubt it.
- Yeul 2y agoPretty much already happening across the well to do city folks here in the Netherlands. Ultimately you have to choose a language that everyone can express themselves in and it sure as hell ain't Dutch lmao.
- acomjean 2y agoMy mom was a German / English technical translator in the US. At one point she said those Germans need to decide, English or German. I guess the French from time to time make French words for those with English roots. Though the German word for cell phone, “handy” is pretty great.
- ethbr1 2y agoThe French are pretty serious about preventing linguistic hegemony and fund measures to slow/prevent it.
- dylan604 2y agoBut the English euphemism for "handy" would sure cause some confusion, and potential disappointment. Just like the 'merican slang "double fisted" takes a whole other meaning in the UK
- em-bee 2y agoas a native german, speaking english fluently it drives me nuts. i mean, "handy" is not even borrowed like "computer" but invented by germans as a pseudo-anglicism.
- CRConrad 2y ago> Though the German word for cell phone, “handy” is pretty great. But it sounds rather silly in the standard German pronounciation of "henndii".
- retrac 2y agoDutch is so close to English that at times it is almost a dialect of English. "Ik zag de boot zinken." / "I saw the boat sink." The rest of the world can't watch English TV with subtitles for a few months/years and come away with a passing understanding of English. It's a much steeper cliff. The technical term is diglossia and it's much more common when the two languages are closely related. Latin being the written standard when the spoken language had evolved into Old French or Old Spanish is another classic example.
- pseingatl 2y agoIt happened in Ireland in the 19th century.
- broken-kebab 2y agoIt's completely different thing: Ireland was a province loosing its language to metropoly. FWIW English wasn't even accepted as global lingua franca back then.