The global spread of English is a seismic event in Man's history

The Times (UK) ^ | 1/15/05 | Matthew Parris

[Pro-Bush]

No Habla.

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[ROTB]

>"We're having a party" compared to "We're partying!"

Dude!

[geopyg]

"... but still get their point across."

I've bragged on this once before, but - My 7-year old had to write in Sunday School something that was good that happened to her. She was proud of her spelling test on Friday and wrote "I speld dinosaur rite".

[Terpfen]

I hope you've corrected that problem.

[geopyg]

We don't worry too much about the spelling if they haven't learned the rules yet. They start the kids writing in kindergarten nowadays with "creative spelling". They learn to write and only get knocked down on words they should know (my girls are in first grade now). They love writing in their "journals". And it doesn't seem to hurt them in the long run (our son in fourth grade learned the same way and gets 100's in spelling, as do his sisters).

Quite a bit different from how I learned to say the least, and took some talking with the teachers (especially math!). 2 + 2 can't just be 4. In first graded they have to draw pictures, use pictures of their fingers and show how they got the answer. It all goes to "numbers sense" - not just knowing the answer - but what the numbers actually mean and represent. (It makes sense to me now). They also do the straight math memorization.

[xJones]

A language with seven tones, in which the slightest change of inflection changes "go fishing" to "f--k fishes" or "My shoes are all wet" to "My vagina is all wet,

Note to self: never go fishing with a Cantonese.:)

[Terpfen]

Well, as long as it works.

I learned strict spelling from the beginning, and I seem to have a pretty good ability to translate sound to letters, so I can't really understand how so many people can trip up over things like "your" versus "you're."

[radiohead]

I speak both Mandarin and Cantonese fluently

I took a year of Mandarin back in the days when Nixon was opening China and I thought I might want a career in the State Department. I didn't have a big problem w/the tones (I've studied several languages and seem to get the sound ok), but writing characters was my bane.

I'm in higher ed now, and what surprises me is to find that graduate programs in other countries are now being offered in English. These aren't programs geared toward admiting international students who all need to speak one language, but regular programs for natives who'll have to be fluent in English to be admitted.

Plus, nowadays, a lot of the research literature they're reading isn't in German, Russian or French anymore, it's in English, so they're all reading English anyway, even when they aren't speaking it in the classroom. Interesting.

[StACase]

English is a awful language to learn. ...Latin-based language, like Italian, Spanish, or Portuguese...Their grammatical rules are typically much more elegant.

Maybe so, but it is efficient. Next time you look at any document printed in several languages, take a look at the lengths of each translation. English is always the shortest.

[JockoManning]

Reminds me of Back to School night when my daughter was in 2nd grade. Each child had made a poster about themselves and these were displayed about the room for parents to view. My daughter listed her favorite subject as, "Spealling". Folks were kind enough to stifle their laughter to snickering as they read it.

[JockoManning]

Yor right about that!

[JockoManning]

Uh, remind me never try to speak Cantonese.

[Lorianne]

Great article. Thanks

[texasbluebell]

When I was in College the "one world language" being promoted was Esperanto.

George Soros' father Tivador Soros was one of the prominent Esperanto writers. According to wikipedia, George Soros was taught to speak Esperanto from birth.

Figures, doesn't it?

[You Dirty Rats]

My company's worldwide official language is English, including in our headquarters in Germany. It simply isn't practical to be a global company and have any other language that English as the means of communication.

[texasbluebell]

Isn't it?

[VOA]

French is dying outside France.

Just my amateur view, but that's one cost of folding up in WWII.
(and not planning intelligently to prevent it)

I've heard that just before WWII, there were plans afoot to make French
the required common language of the expanding number of airports around the world.

Fastforward through WWII, the end of France as a real military power, the
crumbled ruins of the Luftwaffe...and having thousands of Americans, subjects of
the UK (and Commonwealth) that came out of the air forces of the Allies...
...and that plan for French as the official airport tower language went on the
ash-heap of history.