I came up with the ultimate plan for world peace.
It’s a such an astoundingly simple plan, actually, I can’t believe no one has thought of it before. (Well, perhaps Victoria did.)
Make everyone speak English – and only English.
Because really, how long has it been since two English speaking nations went to war?
Exactly.
From the comments, DrD;
It’s an interesting discussion. The specific issue of linguistics is a subset of the larger issue of “cultural diversity”. I hear touted frequently the advantages of cultural diversity, but rarely any concrete example of the supposed advantage beyond the “more pavillions at folkfest” boilerplate. While I can imagine off hand possible advantages of having linguistic diversity within Canada — facilitation of trade links with the Orient for instance, the numbers of individuals who would require such skills for the advantage to accrue to the larger population as a portion of that larger population is miniscule. Even the supposed necessity to preserve language for the preservation of cultural gems is dubious. For example, while the latin dance scene is alive and well in Calgary, tango in particular, very few of the participants speak more than a smattering of Spanish, and the leading instructor is Japanese. Since the aim of language is communication, efforts by government to artificially preserve languages which would otherwise disappear in the larger linguistic sea in which they exist are effectively efforts to thwart communication and preserve divisions which would otherwise be more likely to disappear. Unscrupulous politicians may exploit such divisions to gain political advantage, but this does not equal an overall gain for the population as a whole. While I do not advocate efforts to deliberately suppress linguistic diversity, neither do I see any reason for taxpayers to fund efforts to preserve linguistic diversity in the absence of any observable advantage for those taxpayers.
In my experience, the argument about facilitating trade through language acquisition is nonsense. I’ve exported show dogs to buyers in Denmark, Singapore, China, Brazil, and Quebec. The inquiries I’ve received over the past few years, and did not follow up on, have come from Korea, the Philippines, Mexico, Spain, Italy, etc. Those who could not speak English used the services of a translator[1] – at their expense.
Which makes complete sense, when you think about it. When one’s market extends from Asia to Europe to South Africa on any given day, which language do you propose one learn? It’s much easier to find a translator and pay them to do the job.
[1] Footnote:
A typical call goes something like this…
Translator: Ms. Catherine, I have a call from Mr. David from Brasil. Can you hold on?
Me: Sure, no problem.
Translator: Blehdyblah deblahdeblah.
Mr. David: Blehdyblahdeblahdebla hblehdyblah Ms. Catherine deblahdeblah, blehdyblahdeblah deblahblehdyblahde blah deblah blehdyblahblahblahblah. Deblah dedede Sharky blah blahdeblahdeblah. Blehdyblahdeblahdeblah blehdyblah deblah blahdeblah blehdy. Blehdy blahdeblahdeblade blah blehdy deblah. Blehdyblahdeblahdebla hblehdyblah blahdeblahdeblah. Blehdyblahdeblahdebla hblehdyblahdeblah blahdeblah blahde blah blah blah deblah. Deblah blehdy blahblahblahblah. Deblah dedede Sharky blah blahdeblahdeblah. Blehdyblah deblahdebla hblehdyblahdeblah blahdeblah blehdy. Blehdy blahdeblahdeblade blah blehdy deblah. Blehdyblah deblahdeblah blehdyblah blahdeblahdeblah. Bleh dyblahdeblahdebla hblehdyblahdeblah blahdeblah Blahdeblah deblah deblah. Blahdeblah.
Translator: OK. Thank you. Ms. Catherine?
Me: Yes?
Translator: Mr. David wants to know – is your dog Sharky for sale?
ET thinks imposing one language over the whole world is fine – and anything else is social engineering!
ET thinks cultures that aren’t ‘believable'(?) or ‘behaviourable’ (sic) (?!) should be left to die.
And guess what? ET’s gonna be the one who decides what cultures are ‘believable’ and ‘behaviourable’!
But that’s not social engineering!
And according to ET, neither is going over to ‘create a middle class’ in Iraq with the use of military force. That’s not social engineering, either!
And if you disagree with ET, that means you’re uneducated and don’t know how to THINK!
Hey – did you know Bush has been proven right!
ET says so!
So it’s true!
volik thinks that paraphrasing, removing context and twisting statements makes him win arguments!
Volik knows that every argument can be boiled down to George Bush!
And guess what? volik knows that for every action, there was an equal and opposite GWB evil reaction.
But that’s winning arguments according to volik!
volik says so!
So it’s true!
Yukon Gold – so is ‘culture’ a species? People have great difficulty with Abstract Nouns – perhaps English teachers are at fault for not explaining the existance of nouns that cannot be identified by the five senses. Why? Because a “culture” that does not ascribe to Abstract Nouns is indeed a dead culture (language).
Ever wonder why English songs are known and sung all over the world – often by people who do not understand English? Inspiration is universal, me thinks.
Jema54,
I see the trap I have fallen into there… and yes, you got me.
My point is that culture changes language. Language is forced to adapt to our needs, while culture is reflected in our needs.
To use language as the driving force of a culture is, for lack of a better word, suicide. By doing that, you tether the dogs to the back of the sled.
By the way, how was Rendezvous this year? Specifically, how was the airshow?
Kate’s response at 11:26:
“There would be nowhere to deport anyone to. They’d all speak English. That’s the beauty of it. C’mon, Ringo – work with me here. This is exactly the kind of big-picture solution that originated with the left! Mao, Stalin, Douglas, Suzuki…. I’d have thought someone like you would have been the first to endorse?”
Wow, that’s, like, real witty. Must be that famous Delisle humour I’ve heard so much about.
So, anyway, back to my question: under your proposed English only policy, will my parents still be able to speak Polish in their own home, as well as in some public places when they’re out with their friends? Or is that like, a no go?
Are you even capable of answering questions about your posts, or do you have to hide behind “Quick, look over there!!” answers? My first language is not English, nor is my family’s, and since you’re the most popular Canadian blog and foremost among the Blogging Tories – as well as holding influence on a national stage, given your links to Conservative MPs and your National Post column – I’d appreciate an answer. You are, after all, proposing a rather massive form of social engineering.
I’m betting on the YAHOOS over the SWAMP SINGERS.
“So, anyway, back to my question: under your proposed English only policy”
Are you honestly this stupid or are you so eager to be outraged that you can’t tell when you’re being goaded?
I’m betting on stupidity. Can’t help it, I always take the safe bet.
I’d rather hear back from Catherine, if you don’t mind. It was her Great Idea, not yours, little boy.
“Why do English speaking people call French people frogs?”
Posted by: Bour3 at February 23, 2008 12:46 PM
The story I had always heard was that the nickname dates way back to sometime around the 18th century, when Paris was surrounded by many swamps…The French nobility that would visit Versailles apparently tended to refer to Parisians as frogs because of the swampy surroundings…and only later did the term get picked up to describe the French in general.
JohnnyRingo’s got his lawyers already on retainer to act on this outrage. He will not stand for this. His parents, god bless their Polish souls, are confused now that JohnnyRingo has called and told them to burn all their foreign language literature.
He will not stop until the threat of a single language is stamped out. He will not sleep until he can suss out the grand plans and the ministries already in place to act once the Conservatives get a majority. He will not take a breath until Kate explains herself.
He is, a champion of justice. He demands satisfaction.
JohnnyRingo — you are a hero. I stand behind you, protector of the Polish grannies.
JohnnyRingo. Don’t try to be clever, it doesn’t become you. I won’t answer for Kate, or for anyone else here for that matter, but my initial feeling is that it would be fine for them to speak Polish at home. What I REALLY don’t want is for them to spend any time together in bed. One pinhead troll like you is all that one set of loins should spawn. Be gone.
From the comments, DrD;
….efforts by government to artificially preserve languages which would otherwise disappear in the larger linguistic sea in which they exist are effectively efforts to thwart communication and preserve divisions which would otherwise be more likely to disappear.
As a sixth generation English speaking person born in Quebec, when I read this part of the comment I couldn’t help but think of Quebec. I don’t think French will ever completely disappear from Quebec, but the government is doing a great disservice to it’s French speaking residents by discouraging them from becoming bilingual. It restricts them to working in Quebec. In a recent situation in the Alberta oilfields a French speaking person was either not hired or lost their job because they lacked the skills in English to understand work safety issues.
I’m not a fan of Hillary Clinton, but I thought her comment regarding language issues in the US was bang on. She said she would rather not make English the official language, but emphasize it as a unifying factor among all Americans. Which brings us to the French factor in Quebec, it would seem they would prefer to use the language issue as a dividing issue. Perfectly qualified doctors and nurses have lost their jobs because their French wasn’t up to snuff.
When I go to the Harry Hayes building in Calgary to request information from the Federal Government I expect to be served in English. When the person on the other side of the counter is obviously French, and their English language skills are lacking to the point of having to get a third person involved, then something smells in the state of Denmark.
If you are bilingual and your mother tongue is English, the feds test your French speaking abilities to hell and back, but if your mother tongue is French, they obviously don’t have to undergo the same amount of testing as evidenced by my experience at the Harry Hays building. My brother is retired from the CAF with very much the same experience for chances of promotion, if you’re French and bilingual, no problem, start climbing the ladder now, but if you’re English and bilingual, you’re out of luck, take a number and go to the back of the line.
Now that we’ve reached this point, the real question becomes “At what point did SDA actually jump the shark?” Whenever it was, there really is no recovery now. It’s all downhill, even if you fight it – in fact, AS you fight it.
Maybe I spoke to quickly. This article speaks the truth, brothers and sisters, about the need to protect European culture. We need to protect our superior white European culture, right? The forces of darkness push on us relentlessly, but we should not be afraid to push back. It’s our right to protect what is ours, RIGHT? Freedom of speech guarantees that we can speak out about the dangers of cultural invasion, and about the inherent superiority of our own, RIGHT!?! Who’s with me?!?
LJ – exactly. Official bilingualism has deeply harmed Canadians, because it has set up an official governance that exists in the imaginary world of Neverland.
We are not, and never will be, bilingual. No monies spent, no authoritarian dictates, nothing, will ever change this. Language doesn’t belong to government; it belongs to the people who use it to communicate with each other. Period.
Therefore, bilingualism results in situations where govt mandate requires someone speaking French in all govt offices, even if there isn’t a single person in the near and far vicinity requiring such services. But, this person must be hired, and their inability to communicate in English is irrelevant.
Equally, officialdom requires that a flight from Calgary to Vancouver also provide services in French. Chinese would be useful; French is useless.
In Quebec, this insistence on ‘French’ harms the youth of Quebec, for Quebec’s geographic situation in N. America, a ‘sea of English’ means that without English, these young people are trapped within the province. Perhaps that is the agenda. But, in our globally networked world, to be without English, is to be without the ability to operate in this global economy. That’s unfair to these youth.
Languages are alive; they evolve and can disappear. We don’t speak Chaucer’s English.
Do we convert everyone to english just before or just after everyone converts to Islam? Mo won’t like that you know.
JohnnyRingo
why worry about speaking pohlackish, this IS canada, and we speak ENGLISH here. You can always go back. Polish is spoken over there till we fix the problem:-)))))
Looks like it was sometime in January.
http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=s17smalldeadanimals&r=36
The shark died.
It’s a bit too late to be concerned about an English world…It’s time to learn Mandarin.
PS to johnnyring: GYM to jest durny chuj!
Anony. I find your almost pathological defense of white Europeans quite worrying. Nobody here was speaking against a diversity in culture, or against tolerance of all by all. Please remove yourself and your hateful xenophobic attitude from this blog immediately. WK has ways to deal with closet Nazis like you. Have you been drawing synbols in men’s rooms in Toronto? Shame on you.
Now, be gone pissant troll.
…amazing how the mind wanders on those long and lonely Sask/Manitoba roads…
😉
Please…low-grade xenophobia is par for the course around here. I thought it sounded right at home.
I’ve heard from people who speak English, but for whom it’s not their first language, that English isn’t that difficult to learn TO SPEAK. (For starters, let’s conjugate a verb in English, say, “to run”: I run, you run, s/he runs, we run, you (pl) run, they run.)
Real hard.
Try conjugating a French, Spanish, or German verb, let alone a Greek, Ukranian, or Greek verb.
So, English would make sense as a “universal language.” It’s when people begin to read and write English that things get more complicated: through, though, trough…hmmm
Low grade?
AQS – you’d go to war over this??? you’re just another liberal parasite…. what are you doing on an ENGLISH blog site??? shouldn’t you be watching Toute le Monde or something ???
ahhhh, so Johnny Ringo is Polish, well, that explains everything
All words and any words are English words.it absorbs and uses ever word. Having two prolific roots-Germanic and Latin there is a doubling of all words in English even as a base language. It is nearing 1 million words. the closest rival is Czech with a mere 400k.
French, like Islam has locked itself into the past.Rules and structure limit progress and languages ,like lifeforms , that do not adapt, perish.
90% of all technical books are published in English, most in English only.
In my experience, the second clients start speaking English is the second they start getting mouthy.
Well, it’s not often I take exception to something in SDA but this was pure and utter tosh.
And the opinions expressed herein on the relative merits of different languages were nothing short of risible.
English is already the universal language for pilots and air traffic controllers.
“English is already the universal language for pilots and air traffic controllers.”
Except when you’re in Quebec…
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2000/04/06/airfrance000406.html
English has no intrinsic linguistical qualities that mark it as more suitable than any other language for global pre-eminence.
The plain fact is that English owes its position in the world to one simple historical reality: the last two political, military and economic superpowers back-to-back have been English-speaking.
Suppose you are with a group of 30 random tourists from around the world about to embark on a siteseeing trip. Germans, Dutch, Japanese, Argentinians, etc.
It could be the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, Machu Picchu, the Pyramids of Giza, it does not matter: the language the tour guide will use, in most cases, is English, even if native English speakers make up a tiny percent of tourists.
What about the Austro-Prussian war? Any modern civil war?
Language is by no means a barrier to war. The better point to make is that fellow democracies do not tend to fight each other (although Serbia may be sorely tempted in the next few weeks). I’d argue the American Revolution and 1812 were civil wars as well…
The American Revolution would have been a civil war had the American rebels lost.
But they did not and, consequently, the War of 1812 was not a civil war either.
Almost everyone on the planet uses the metric system, why not all use one language?
I see only advantages.
… … …
And for what it is worth,
even though this is “sacrilegious” to some, here is a little secret about me,
I am a Quebecois who learned to speak French first then later as a teenager learned to speak English
BUT
I prefer the English language and have believed for many years things would be easier if we all spoke one language, not only in Canada but in the whole world.
And English seems like a fine choice to me.
Not only is it already a relatively universal language used for business, computers, the internet, air control and about 90% of scientific research is published in English,
but as far as I know it is a very efficient language, and a user friendly language.
I know English is definitely more concise than French is.
Here is one example I found a few years ago in a tire shop I like to use as evidence.
“Tire tread depth” in French becomes
” Profondeur d’usure des sculptures de la carcasse du pneu”
Almost a chapter in French versus 3 words in English.
Most Quebecois Francophones I know who are also fluent in English agree with me, English is a superior language.
One example,
Just like I do, when they have to read the owner’s manual for a new thing they bought, they go the English section because it is easier to understand, yes easier even to someone who’s first language is French.
I think I have said too much…
Latinitas regnat. Lingua latina ubique et semper.
From the Language Log:
How many words are there in the English language?
There is no single sensible answer to this question. It is impossible to count the number of words in a language, because it is so hard to decide what counts as a word. Is dog one word, or two (a noun meaning ‘a kind of animal’, and a verb meaning ‘to follow persistently’)? If we count it as two, then do we count inflections separately too (dogs plural noun, dogs present tense of the verb). Is dog-tired a word, or just two other words joined together? Is hot dog really two words, since we might also find hot-dog or even hotdog?
It is also difficult to decide what counts as ‘English’. What about medical and scientific terms? Latin words used in law, French words used in cooking, German words used in academic writing, Japanese words used in martial arts? Do you count Scots dialect? Youth slang? Computing jargon?
(http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002809.html)
Besides the fact that if we all spoke English at some point the language would diverge over time anyway, the existence of multiple languages help linguists and psychologists understand the human brain.