|
|
French, the second global lingua franca
French language is the only one with English to be spoken in every part of the world (1). After decolonisation, former French colonies (except Algeria - 22 millions francophons) decided freely to create a network of French speaking countries, mainly focused on culture and education.
Little by little, this network has been built despite anglo-saxon plan to promote their unique global language. The French internet is the 6th of the world. Americans and Chinese begin seriously to learn French to make business with Africa. French litterature became strong and dynamic "world litterature in French language", Quebec has secured more or less it's French language and attract people directly from all parts of the world. Countries from East Europe decided to promote French language while having strong links with USA. In Russia, French language was always the "elite language" as well as in South America. More and more countries want to belong to Francophonia.
French language, develops year after year. while remaining juridical and diplomatic language in the EU. In European Union or in Canada, it is difficult not to know French (but not strictly impossible) for somebody who lives in Bruxelles or Ottawa. (The 3 capitals of EU are in French speaking territories. Ottawa is in the other side of Quebec boundary).
France is the first touristic country of the world (80 million of people visit France each year). If you want to see paintings from Italy in Louvre, build an Airbus, if you launch a satellite from French Guyana, if you love wine or fashion, if you are working on nuclear fusion world project, you will have difficulties or miss big opportunities because of your poor French.
If you just want to travel, French is one of the six languages to learn to be understood everywhere in the world.
To summarize, it's possible to live without French language but knowing it will really help you all your life long. It's a very good long term investment!
The second global language (lingua franca) in the world
According to a very serious study, French is the second of the 6 global languages of the world (chinese is becoming intercontinental one due to it's massive diasporas). Another study gives sames results as most useful languages for travellers and a third one the same concerning socio-economic and cultural influence of languages. Whoever you are, whatever you do, French language is a good investment.
Source :
George Weber: The Worlds 10 Most Influential Languages. In Language Today (Vol. 2, Dec 1997); I would personnaly put Spanish on the same level than French.
Where French is useful to travel (+ Canada + Morocco - Algeria - Tunisia (understood everywhere), + Lebanon + often in Israel + 1/4 of caraibs, but without Vietnam - rather Chinese or English). As French is a language for elites, you can find easilly people speaking French in South America as soon as the social status become higher. My experience is that it is learned more by women as language of culture or "beautiful language" than by men (rather english or german to make money). It's just from experience, not a statistic. Now French is popular in Central Asia.
Why learning French :
» Language of institutions
» Language of culture
» Language of science
» Language of economy
» Videos (high speed connections)
http://www.fairlingua.com/why_french.html
Spanish is the second global lingua franca,not French.
I wonder what percentage of the world's population has been exposed to French. By this I mean seeing at least one word of French in print, on the internet, on on Radio or TV? We'd have to exclude exact cognates with English, restricting it to unambiguously French words, like "oui", for example.
Perhaps this percentage is above 50%, so we could say that two or three billion people, or eevn more, have been exposed to French?
This ought to give the Francophones something to boast about.
French is declining fast.
Montreal People See French Losing Ground
Mathieu Turbide
Le Journal de Montréal
18/02/2009 09h10
La langue française perd du terrain à Montréal, et l'économie se dégrade, constatent une majorité des Montréalais interrogés dans le cadre d'un sondage Léger Marketing-Le Journal de Montréal.
Trois Montréalais sur cinq trouvent que l'état de la langue Française dans leur ville se détériore.
L'opinion des Montréalais rejoint donc les conclusions de plusieurs rapports -et d'une récente enquête du Journal de Montréal -qui démontrent que l'utilisation du français recule à Montréal, particulièrement dans les commerces du centre-ville.
Le gouvernement a lancé plus tôt cet hiver une vaste campagne pour promouvoir l'usage du français dans les commerces montréalais.
Well, the situation is very easy. There is only a World language, English. English is official and important in all Continents. French or Spanish, for example are not official in Asia.
After English, Chinese (the most spoken Asian language) and Spanish (the most spoken Western language) are the most useful in a Global World.
Finally, Arabic is also a lingua franca from Morocco to Iraq, and in a lesser degree in all the Muslim World.
Other languages, like French, German, Hindi, Portuguese and Russian will be also important but a little less.
<<French or Spanish, for example are not official in Asia.>>
There must still be a lot of French speakers in Indochina. This opens up the (slim?) possibility that there will be a resurgence of French in Asia, which will see French spreading out from its Indonesian heartland into China, the rest of southeast Asia, and even over to India. If that really does happen, French could become one of the dominant languages in Asia, and hence the world.
There are French speakers in Vietnam in at least one hotel. The staff greets visitors (even English speakers) in French.
I think it will continue to be a lingua franca in west Africa, such as Senegal, Benin, Congo, etc.
<<French or Spanish, for example are not official in Asia.>>
French is official in the Indian district of Pondicherry (largely outnumbered by Tamil though).
And you should not overlook the neighboring Pacific area. With its Pacific territories France has one of the world's largest largest EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone), second only to USA, not by much:
United States - 11 351 000 km2
France - 11 035 000 km2
Australia - 8 148 250 km2
Russia - 7 566 673 km2
The EEZ of France covers approximately 8% of the total surface of all the EEZs of the world, whereas the land area of the French Republic is only 0.45% of the total land area of the Earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_Economic_Zone
"<<French or Spanish, for example are not official in Asia.>>
French is official in the Indian district of Pondicherry (largely outnumbered by Tamil though).
And you should not overlook the neighboring Pacific area. With its Pacific territories France has one of the world's largest largest EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone), second only to USA, not by much:
United States - 11 351 000 km2
France - 11 035 000 km2
Australia - 8 148 250 km2
Russia - 7 566 673 km2
The EEZ of France covers approximately 8% of the total surface of all the EEZs of the world, whereas the land area of the French Republic is only 0.45% of the total land area of the Earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_Economic_Zone"
And among fish, crustaceans, phytoplankton and relatives, how many does speak French there? (lol)
"Well, the situation is very easy. There is only a World language, English. English is official and important in all Continents. French or Spanish, for example are not official in Asia.
After English, Chinese (the most spoken Asian language) and Spanish (the most spoken Western language) are the most useful in a Global World.
Finally, Arabic is also a lingua franca from Morocco to Iraq, and in a lesser degree in all the Muslim World.
Other languages, like French, German, Hindi, Portuguese and Russian will be also important but a little less."
Apart from overestimating Spanish, I think you're right. What I mean with Spanish is that its influence is most in the western hemisphere whereas in Asia or Africa (apart from Northern Morocco) the influence of Spanish is almost nonexistent.
I'd say that in parts of Africa, Portuguese is a lot more important than Spanish for obvious reasons.
"And among fish, crustaceans, phytoplankton and relatives, how many does speak French there? (lol) "
Well, there is Bob l'éponge et son ami Patrick, but Bob is a sponge and Patrick is a starfish.
Oui, I speak French. My friend Godzilla speaks also a little. He was created by the nuclear French bombs, and it is always very annoying.
Plankton, Mr. Krabs, Sandy, Squidward, Patrick, Gary, and a jellyfish also speak a little French.
So, if you consider all lobsters, fish and krabs, French is obviously, a Global (fishy) language.
<< Montreal People See French Losing Ground
Mathieu Turbide
Le Journal de Montréal
18/02/2009 09h10
La langue française perd du terrain à Montréal, et l'économie se dégrade, constatent une majorité des Montréalais interrogés dans le cadre d'un sondage Léger Marketing-Le Journal de Montréal.
Trois Montréalais sur cinq trouvent que l'état de la langue Française dans leur ville se détériore.
L'opinion des Montréalais rejoint donc les conclusions de plusieurs rapports -et d'une récente enquête du Journal de Montréal -qui démontrent que l'utilisation du français recule à Montréal, particulièrement dans les commerces du centre-ville.
Le gouvernement a lancé plus tôt cet hiver une vaste campagne pour promouvoir l'usage du français dans les commerces montréalais. >>
Spanish is fragmenting and eroding in Hispanic Amerrica
Language policy in Spanish-speaking Latin America deals with challenges to the status of Spanish as the official language, a status inherited from the colonial administration of the New World. These challenges come from several sources: the assertion of the rights of indigenous groups, the ‘danger’ of fragmentation of Spanish into a multitude of local dialects, the growing prestige of English and influence of the United States, and along the southern border of Brazil, contact with Portuguese.
In the initial phase of colonization, the Catholic Monarchs and later Charles V required all of their new subjects to learn Spanish, just as their predecessors had imposed the learning of Castilian on the conquered Arab territories in order to bind them more closely together in the nation governed by Castile. However, it soon became clear that the linguistic diversity of the New World was too great to allow for the immediate implantation of Spanish, and some allowance had to be made for the usage of indigenous languages in teaching and evangelization. In 1570 Phillip II reluctantly authorized a policy of bilingualism in which instruction could be imparted in ‘the’ language of each Viceroyalty: Nahautl and in New Spain and Quechua in Peru, with the consequent extension of these two languages into territories where they were not spoken natively. Even this measure was not enough, however, and in 1596 Phillip II recognized the existent multilingualism: Spanish for administration and access to the elite, and a local indigenous language for evangelization and daily communication in indigenous communities. This policy lead to a separation of colonial society into a minority of Spanish/creole Spanish-speakers governing an indigenous majority speaking one of many indigenous languages. The separation became so great that it all but halted the Hispanization of rural areas and created local indigenous elites with considerable autonomy from the central adminstration. A reassertion of central authority commenced in 1770 when Carlos III declared Spanish to be the only language of the Empire and ordered the administrative, judicial and ecclesiastic authorities to extinguish all others. After Independence, the new nations and their successors maintained the offical status of Spanish as a means of strengthening national unity and pursuing modernization through education. This tendency was reinforced at the turn of the century through the 1940’s with notions of Social Darwinism, in which the vigorous hybrid groups of Latin America would eventually overcome the ‘weaker’ indigenous groups. It is only since World War II that this policy has suffered any substantial change.
Several processes converged in the post-War period to shake the linguistic status quo. One is the growth of industrialization, which requires an educated workforce and thus lends urgency to effective education. Another is agrarian reform, which raises the social status of the farmer while increasing his need for vocational training. These two processes create a growing pressure to learn the language of technology and mechanization, Spanish. As a counterpoint to this pressure, there was an understanding among policy makers of the failure of the pre-War incorporationist policies to acheive their goal of Hispanization. The confluence of these tendencies was a shift towards the usage of indigenous languages in primary schools to ease the transition to Spanish. Moreover, the dynamic of questioning the entire model of development grew, a dynamic that was reinforced by the emergence of indigenous activists educated in the new national schools. These contradictions came to a head during the labor and peasant movements of the 1950’s and 60’s, where calls for the preservation of indigenous languages served as a vehicle for the preservation of entire indigenous societies. The subsequent official response to these movements had diverse outcomes throughout Latin America. In Mexico, the new indigenous consciousness continued to grow unabated, as it did among the Bolivian Aymara and Ecuadorian Quechua, and to a lesser extent among the other Quechua speakers of Bolivia and Peru. Elsewhere, many organizations were driven into marginality or outright armed resistence, with the paradoxical result that often the only officially-tolerated supporters of indigenous languages were foreigners: scholars pursuing linguistic or anthropological fieldwork, linguists trained by the Summer Institute of Linguistics for the translation and dissemination of Christian texts, or members of other non-governmental organizations engaged in aid or relief work.
Only recently have indigenous defensors of indigenous languages found any standing on the national stage. This new tolerance has been said to reflect the neo-liberal reforms required as conditions for loans from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund since the early 1990’s, with the threat of Communist takeover having receeded. There are now a multitude of protective measures that go from bilingual primary education (Honduras), to constitutional protection (Columbia), to the establishment of indigenous languages as co-official with Spanish (Guatemala).
With respect to the status of Spanish among native speakers, Independence lead to the creation of national educational institutions and a desire to reform Spanish orthography so as to facilitate its learning by American speakers, as well as to foster a literary tradition independent of Spain. Such reforms come to little in the face of the turbulence created by Independence, but a second round of standardization began as part of the modernization process initiated around 1870. Increasing immigration to Latin America and the strengthening of trends towards democratization lead to the fear among the intellectual elite that the linguistic unity of Latin America would collapse into a cacophomy of local variants, much as the Latin of the Roman Empire fragmented into the variety of Romance languages.
The final threat to the official status of Spanish is the growing contact with other European languages: with English throughout Latin America, and with Portuguese along the southern border of Brazil. Contact with English arises through migration to the United States for economic or political reasons or sojourns for business or education. This contact is particularily acute in the case of Puerto Rico, where its adminstrative dependency on the United States has led to an extensive diffusion of English, as well as the threatened imposition of English as the official language should Puerto Rico ever gain statehood. This threat has sparked intellectual debates that echo the Spanish-vs.-indigenous-language debates heard on the mainland: language is an expression of identity, perhaps the fundmental expression of identity, and it should not be given up lightly.
Selected references
Angel Rama (1996) The Lettered City. Duke University Press.
[spelling reform after independence, p. 43ff; foundation of Spanish American Academies, Cuervo, Caro & Bello p. 59ff]
Julio Ramos (1989) Desenceuntros de la modernidad en América Latina. Literatura y política en el siglo XIX. Tierra Firme, México.
[Ch. II sobre Bello]
Julio Ramos (1996) Paradojas de la letra. Ediciones eXcultura, Caracas, Miami, Quito.
[Ch. 1 sobre Bello]
http://www.tulane.edu/~howard/Pubs/LALangPol.html
meus Mon Jul 27, 2009 2:24 pm GMT
Spanish is the second global lingua franca,not French.
*******************************************************
You're talking bullshit. Spanish is spoken in Hispanic America by hispanics. Nothing more or less.
French is spoken by 1/5 of non-francophone Europeans, Brazilians, Aregentinians, Colombians, Puerto Ricans, Catalans, Israelis, non-francophone Africans and lots of non-francophone earthlings.
|