Comments on: Faux Pas

By: graduate bum

graduate bum — Fri, 23 Jul 2004 00:37:26 +0000

“I’m not sure that the sort of knowledge one picks up from learning another language – the knowledge of the case system, being able to describe verb tenses, etc. – really helps that much in producing, say, good English prose.” why not? in my experience, being more conscious about word choice and grammatical subtleties in a “second language” spills over into greater precision in one’s use of his or her native language.

By: Scott Martens

Scott Martens — Tue, 20 Jul 2004 16:06:57 +0000

Luis – I was making a joke, suggesting that the number of dictators might be a reason for someone of that political disposition to prefer French. French is a language of richer people on the average. Could Marcos really speak Spanish? He was a US educated Filipeno and he couldn’t even speak Cebuano. As for dictators… well, the francophone ones have less populism and better fashion sense. Too many Latin American dictators have tried to actually improve their countries, however ineptly. But I’m hard pressed to think of a francophone populist dictator except for Houphouët-Boigny and, of course, Napoleon.

By: luis

luis — Tue, 20 Jul 2004 14:46:26 +0000

ianj: I’m not saying that the corpus is more impressive overall, I’m saying one corpus is dynamic and one corpus has been basically stagnant for my entire lifetime. If I wanted to study a language where nothing interesting is being written, I’d go back to Latin. scott: Obviously Chinese is the #1 choice based on a purely economic analysis, and by a large margin. (Well, probably behind English.) I’m merely comparing to French. Really, if you want to compare because there are more French-speaking dictators who have concentrated wealth… that’s potentially the silliest argument I’ve ever heard. For every Duvalier I’ll match a Marcos.

By: IanJ

IanJ — Tue, 20 Jul 2004 12:47:31 +0000

Luis, if you think the corpus of Spanish-language literature is more impressive than that of French-language literature, you probably know nothing about anything written before 1985. Hint: Quite a lot was… Ianj

By: Sean

Sean — Tue, 20 Jul 2004 10:26:10 +0000

Interesting – so we can correlate Canada’s descent to eunichhood with the increased use of French! WHODA THUNK?

By: epist

epist — Tue, 20 Jul 2004 09:18:23 +0000

I have to add, being from Quebec, with a French mother, but raised anglo, I railed against the racist language policies of the Partie Quebecois in the 70’s and 80’s. I still think they were (and are) wrong, but I failed to see then what I see now that I have moved to the southwest US. From 1972-1985 the PQ made French co-equal with English officially, throughout the country, and they made French dominant in Quebec. At the time, French speakers were 20% of the total population, and 60% of the Quebec population. And, at the start of this period, the French in Quebec were being treated exactly like this bitch is treating the Spanish in Southern Cal, as peasants. Needless to say, this is not the case anymore. Currently, Spanish speakers comprise 12% of the total US population, and 40% of the Southwestern States (on average) CA, AZ, NM and TX. What will the Spanish PQ be called? How quiet will that revolution be?

By: Matt McGrattan

Matt McGrattan — Tue, 20 Jul 2004 09:12:53 +0000

Scott Martens wrote: “Alas, “learning language X leads to better English” is demonstrably true for every language in the world. This is one of the few things studies fairly uniformily show. One of the biggest barriers to teaching solid native language skills is getting students to think of their language as a language. Monolingual people are almost completely unaware of the actual properties of their own language. ” Yeah, this is a fair point. I studied the English Language at degree level and did 4 years of ‘university level’ English grammar so perhaps I am being a little unfair. For most people their only exposure to the grammar of English will be when learning another languge. [Indeed, for my own part it was really only when I had to learn Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse that I was able to ‘internalize’ and make sense of a lot of the grammar I’d been taught. On the plus side, I’d have been able to read those Icelandic signs one of the earlier commentators mentioned.] However, is it really the case that that kind of higher-order knowledge about English affects one’s ability to produce good English? I’m not sure that the sort of knowledge one picks up from learning another language – the knowledge of the case system, being able to describe verb tenses, etc. – really helps that much in producing, say, good English prose. Although I’m open to persuasion on this – having some knowledge of English grammar has been invaluable to me in explaining, when asked, to non-native speakers where they have made a mistake.

By: Scott Martens

Scott Martens — Tue, 20 Jul 2004 07:44:13 +0000

My goodness, where do I start? “French leads to a deeper understanding of English” – not any more than Spanish will, but ironically it can improve your spelling in English a great deal. Go figure. But to translate Ms Seipp’s remarks into the common tongue, I don’t need to speak the language of the peasants, the peasants need to learn my language. How very… conservative. Now on to the comments: Eks has noted, Beavis and Butthead style, that the dismal beigist suburb between Fremont and San Jose (that’s San Ho-Zay, for all y’all) ends in “as”. Alas, the local pronunciation does not rhyme with “ass” it rhymes with “penis”, as every student at “Mill-penis” High knows. There indeed is an example of a faux pas that a slightly broader knowledge of the romance languages might prevent: there is little that demonstrates your lack of left coastal sophistication than to think that “Ell Co-Joan” is a suburb of San Diego or that Intel’s offices are in “San Josie”. (Or to ask your dealer for a dime bag of “mary-jew-wanna”. Spanish really does come in handy.) As for the status of French with respect to other global languages, alas, we live in a world where money counts, and French speakers tend to have more of it on the average. French is and has been the language of a wide variety of African, Asian and Carribean dictators, from Papa Doc Duvalier to Prince/President/King Sihanouk. That is exactly the kind of thing that makes French so very much more important than the language of campesinos and gauchos. Luis makes a case for learning Spanish on GDP and GDP growth grounds. Unfortunately, this is not an especially economically efficient way to decide. The language that offers the highest rate of return is quite variable. Japanese and Chinese, for example, offer an enormous earning potential over the long run, far larger than Spanish. Spanish is certainly helpful in the US southern border states, but it is also widely spoken in them. Supply and demand suggests that the best way to capitalise on language learning would be to learn something less common, but where demand exceeds supply more acutely. Arabic is a real moneymaker right now, especially Levantine and Mesapotamian colloquial Arabic rather than the more widely studied modern standard Arabic. However, the effort spent in learning Spanish in LA is a good deal lower than learning Arabic there. And by effort, I mean money. Spanish is offered on a flexible schedule at a reasonable price by a wide variety of institutions in LA and can be practiced with a large portion of LA’s population, as well as enjoying extensive media support. Arabic, in contrast, will cost you tens of thousands of dollars to learn in a structured, inflexible academic environment in LA, or for somewhat less in an overseas immersion environment. (I’m told the University of the UAE is the place to go these days.) Can I just say that the “learning language X leads to better English” argument is a dumb one? If you want better English, study English! Alas, “learning language X leads to better English” is demonstrably true for every language in the world. This is one of the few things studies fairly uniformily show. One of the biggest barriers to teaching solid native language skills is getting students to think of their language as a language. Monolingual people are almost completely unaware of the actual properties of their own language. Anglophones in particular have difficulty distinguishing adjectives from adverbs, but most monolingual people are hard pressed to correctly identify syntactic dependencies and ambiguous structures in their own native languages. A second language is absolutely essential to developing a critical sense of your own language. H.E. Baber has hit on something that merits some more consideration: That people who can’t speak English often feel very ashamed, as if they were illiterates, while anglophones rarely even notice that they’re monolingual. This can be ever bit as disempowering and destructive as feeling inferior because of your race or gender. I see this in Belgium all the time. Global English is deeply disempowering and at least the French are putting up some resistance. One of the reasons Quebec is so very strict about forbidding English is because they want to guarantee that at least in Quebec no needs to feel inferior just because their English isn’t very good.

By: Adam Kotsko

Adam Kotsko — Tue, 20 Jul 2004 05:19:53 +0000

Ibsen was from Norway, dude. I was pretty hardcore in Spanish in high school, and I really tried to convince myself that it was worth it from my perspective as an amateur lit nerd—but having a few good novelists just does not cut it when you look at the vast cultural production available in English, French, or German. If you’re into high culture, it seems dreadfully obvious to choose French over Spanish.

By: Thlayli

Thlayli — Tue, 20 Jul 2004 04:34:05 +0000

It’s extraordinary that for a Germanic language English is such a Romance language. It’s both, really. English is a mishmash of Norman (Romance) and Saxon (Germanic).

By: q

Tue, 20 Jul 2004 03:24:59 +0000

If Garcia Marquez is one of the most vital authors of the last century, this is a new scary definition of “vital” to me. One Hundred Years of Solitude = unreadable trash for “urban intellectuals who feign reverence for the simple wisdom of peasants.” Indeed.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Tue, 20 Jul 2004 03:09:32 +0000

It has just struck me that a corollorary of my theory is that we should invade other countries and demand by force of arms that they produce any significant works of literature they are planning in the English language. Before you dismiss this, I would point out that it worked a treat in Ireland, whose guttural Celtic language would otherwise have been quite a bore to learn.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Tue, 20 Jul 2004 03:02:41 +0000

Yep, and Swedish is the language of Ibsen.

By: Jeremy Osner

Jeremy Osner — Tue, 20 Jul 2004 02:52:50 +0000

Daniel—your comment seems a little bizarre to me. Spanish is the language of a quite huge body of modern literature which includes some of the most vital authors of the last century (Garcia Marquez and Borges to name just two) and I reckon of the coming century as well.

By: h. e. baber

h. e. baber — Tue, 20 Jul 2004 01:23:33 +0000

It’s awkward in some places because if you speak English it’s arrogant but if you ask whether they speak English they get a little huffy—of course they speak English: it’s the universal second language of educated people, like Latin used to be. Are you suggesting I’m illiterate? This was, in any case, the way I felt in Iceland where I was unexpectedly dumped (long story) without any preparation. Icelandic is impossible, even for a native English speaker with a little bit of German. You can’t even make out the signs. It’s extraordinary that for a Germanic language English is such a Romance language. Even where something SHOULD be intelligible it’s not because as soon as we see a foreign word we read it as French or Latin. At breakfast there were two pitchers full of white liquid labeled “mijlk” (no problem with that) and “surmijlk”—which I immediately inferred was cream, the top of the milk, and poured into my coffee. It didn’t occur to me that it was sour milk until I tasted the results.