What price culture?........
Discussion
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Stealing someone else's culture more like. Seems to be a London thing tbh, I don't hear many Glaswegians talking like wannabe Jamaican rude boys.Words change all the time but I can't remember anyone I know talking in a different accent. Upwards inflections excepted. I can't see how it's snobbery to question it either.
If you want to keep minority languages and cultures alive, there's a case to be made for saying that you'd be better off trying to ban them.
Many of the Spanish regional languages were slowly dying out before Franco decided to ban them. Now, they're thriving, as the bloody-mindedness of the people who spoke them kicked in. Of course they're funded now, and certainly in Catalonia it is the first language, and all schools teach in Catalan, but it could've been very different. As a Spanish colleague once said, it rather changes your outlook on life when your (his father's) earliest memory in life is of the Guardia Civil clubbing your grandfather unconscious in the street for refusing to talk Castellano. His Grandfather couldn't speak Castellano. He only spoke Gallego.
When I lived in Spain in the early 90s, I'd often find people in some of the more rural parts of Valencia province claim that they couldn't speak Castellano and only spoke Valenciano. Once I'd apologised (in Valenciano) for being English and only speaking Castellano, they suddenly became fluent in Castellano!
The French government, on the other hand, was far more subtle. Beyond saying that the public sector has to work in French, they've never tried to ban their languages, they've largely just stopped them being taught in schools.
A few years back, my wife and I went to see a Son & Lumiere show in Carcassone, which turned out to be in Occitan, with subtitles in English & French projected onto the castle walls. I'd never even heard of Occitan before then, but found it easy to understand as I speak both French and Spanish fluently.
When I asked a friend of my parents about it, he said that you'd occasionally still here some of the real old boys who farmed up in the hills speaking it when they came into town for the market, but other than that, it was a thing of the past.
He was 60 at the time (about 6 years ago), and told me that I was already doing better than his own kids, as they couldn't understand a word of it. He could understand it, but didn't really speak it. His parents spoke it fluently, and his grandparents didn't even speak French.
So, two contrasting approaches. If you try to kill a language, the chances are it will flourish. If, on the other hand, you just ignore it, chances are it will die out. Personally, I think indigenous linguistic diversity is something worth preserving.
Many of the Spanish regional languages were slowly dying out before Franco decided to ban them. Now, they're thriving, as the bloody-mindedness of the people who spoke them kicked in. Of course they're funded now, and certainly in Catalonia it is the first language, and all schools teach in Catalan, but it could've been very different. As a Spanish colleague once said, it rather changes your outlook on life when your (his father's) earliest memory in life is of the Guardia Civil clubbing your grandfather unconscious in the street for refusing to talk Castellano. His Grandfather couldn't speak Castellano. He only spoke Gallego.
When I lived in Spain in the early 90s, I'd often find people in some of the more rural parts of Valencia province claim that they couldn't speak Castellano and only spoke Valenciano. Once I'd apologised (in Valenciano) for being English and only speaking Castellano, they suddenly became fluent in Castellano!
The French government, on the other hand, was far more subtle. Beyond saying that the public sector has to work in French, they've never tried to ban their languages, they've largely just stopped them being taught in schools.
A few years back, my wife and I went to see a Son & Lumiere show in Carcassone, which turned out to be in Occitan, with subtitles in English & French projected onto the castle walls. I'd never even heard of Occitan before then, but found it easy to understand as I speak both French and Spanish fluently.
When I asked a friend of my parents about it, he said that you'd occasionally still here some of the real old boys who farmed up in the hills speaking it when they came into town for the market, but other than that, it was a thing of the past.
He was 60 at the time (about 6 years ago), and told me that I was already doing better than his own kids, as they couldn't understand a word of it. He could understand it, but didn't really speak it. His parents spoke it fluently, and his grandparents didn't even speak French.
So, two contrasting approaches. If you try to kill a language, the chances are it will flourish. If, on the other hand, you just ignore it, chances are it will die out. Personally, I think indigenous linguistic diversity is something worth preserving.
I have a colleague who developed and delivered a government website which, as it was the Welsh government who commissioned it, had to be in both English and Welsh versions.
A couple of weeks after 'go live' they were checking stats on the sites, and the Welsh language version showed 8 visits. This was being hailed as 'success' (which is pathetic in itself) until it was pointed out that at least 7 of those visits were the project team during post go live checks.
Money well spent etc.
(Cool Story Bro...)
A couple of weeks after 'go live' they were checking stats on the sites, and the Welsh language version showed 8 visits. This was being hailed as 'success' (which is pathetic in itself) until it was pointed out that at least 7 of those visits were the project team during post go live checks.
Money well spent etc.
(Cool Story Bro...)
thismonkeyhere said:
I have a colleague who developed and delivered a government website which, as it was the Welsh government who commissioned it, had to be in both English and Welsh versions.
A couple of weeks after 'go live' they were checking stats on the sites, and the Welsh language version showed 8 visits. This was being hailed as 'success' (which is pathetic in itself) until it was pointed out that at least 7 of those visits were the project team during post go live checks.
Money well spent etc.
(Cool Story Bro...)
I'm always surprised that people get duped into parting with money on fake government websites for passports, road tax etc.A couple of weeks after 'go live' they were checking stats on the sites, and the Welsh language version showed 8 visits. This was being hailed as 'success' (which is pathetic in itself) until it was pointed out that at least 7 of those visits were the project team during post go live checks.
Money well spent etc.
(Cool Story Bro...)
Everyone knows a real government website has a "would you like to see this in Welsh?" option in the corner.
PRTVR said:
Can you imagine the size of the roadsigns if they covered multiple languages, what is wrong with English and symbols? Everything else is pandering to minorities, a language is a living thing, it evolves or dies, to maintain it on life support helps nobody, it builds divisions and serves no purpose.
this. unfortunately pandering to minorities is one of the very few things we do well in the uk these days.Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff