"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
French envy explosion alert...
Funny, when I was in school, that was called "pidgin." I guess "pidgin" couldn't be trademarked to sell books and take a swipe at Anglophones. None of this is new, and none of it is rocket science.
Simple words, simple sentence structure, hand gestures where they help, and maybe a few words of French, Spanish or the local language if you know them and they help. Avoid jokes and especially sarcasm, because they don't translate. When I was in Thailand, I fell into it in a day or two.
It's fine for telling a cab driver where to go or ordering a meal, but I don't see a 1,500 word vocabulary being sufficient for complex business dealings.
There was a passage in Orwells classic book "1984" where the IngSocs were boasting of the fact that their language was actually losing words each year.
Leave it to the French to be proud of doing just that.
L
“One thing you never do in Globish is tell a joke."
It's not a bug, it's a feature.
He confirms what I always suspected: They all understand English, if you speak loudly and slowly enough. Even the French. Now, if only the Brits...
Here in Slovakia, I teach English conversation in private and company lessons.
English is the international business language, and there is a great demand for native speakers.
I can find all the work I want.
We have noticed this for generations. I had a French teacher in high school who always claimed in every class that French would be the global language. My wife had a French teacher who claimed the same. Both had roots in Quebec, and naturally both claimed to speak a Parisian French. The students of course laughed at them. I live about a five hour drive to Montreal, yet have not heard French spoken in decades. Despite French being one of the official Air Traffic Control languages, I have not heard it very much when I listen to BOS's Tower.
A demonstration of its acceptance can be seen on newsgroup discussions. Someone posts a question in French, from Wannadoo.FR, and waits for an answer. And waits. And waits. Oh well, Esperento advocates said the same things.
At a guess I suspect IT and the Internet had a role to play in this; the timing correlates.
For example, years ago, I had some Russian hobby magazines ("Model Builder"). It had a monthly section, "Your Home Computer", showing a crude 1920's style line drawing of an enthusiast in rapture, sitting in front of a 1950's style rounded-corner terminal.
So...the article would go on about the monthly little recipe database project, etc., and there would be paragraphs in Russian, punctuated here and there with ((RUN)), ((SAVE)), ((LIST)), Etc. because the 8080 CPU did not care about language advocacy.
Our enemies continue to attempt to redefine and diminish any aspect of superior culture in order to destroy it altogether.
Globish??..sounds like RALPH it....
"deny that English is indeed the international language"
Apparently, the world is a changin. My BIL, who's in internet security, has been learning Chinese. His Wife, in the local school system, is learning Spanish. Of course, they do live in California.
It sunds like a hip-hop video if you do away with the idiom restrictions.
Doesn't matter. In 20 years there will be no France. I twill have been replaced by the Frankish Islamic Republic.
Is Globish the same movement that has people saying:
"dived" instead of "dove"
and adding "s" to anything to make a plural, such as:
"sheep" is now "sheeps"
"aspirin" is now "aspirins"
or is that part of Ebonics?
Him fella-fella want all speakum pidgin, yes?
Taco mon ami?
It appears that the French want the entire world to sound like Jar-Jar Binks.
Most of my posts are short, but the Globish words convey only 10% of the meaning. 90% of the meaning is carried by Globish hand gestures.