Text 18160, 58 rader
Skriven 2005-12-08 00:10:48 av Raymond Yates (1:3613/48)
  Kommentar till text 18071 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
Ärende: Copyright
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 MvdV>>>>>>> First of all, conquerers seldom have long lasting success
 MvdV>>>>>>> in imposing their language on the conquered. Who has Latin
 MvdV>>>>>>> as the native language these days?

 MV> [..]

 >> So, your language like ours, already had the "foreign"
 >> components from a long time earlier.

 MV> That hardly explains why none of the conquerors managed to impose
 MV> their language upon our people.

 MV> Napoleon imposed many things on our country. The decimal system,
 MV> family names, the basic structure of our legal system, etc, etc. But
 MV> we do not speak French here.

 MV> Napolean managed to set the French language on the map, French has
 MV> been the langua franca of many international bodies such as the postal
 MV> union and the ITU. But the /people/ he conquered do not speak French
 MV> as their mother tongue.

Did he ever impose it as a requirement? Other countries, notably Britain, did
so, e.g. when they tried to eradicate Celtic and Gaelic culture. I dont'
recall that Napolean ever forced the issue, but I'm not as up to speed on this
as I'd like.

 MV>>> It seem to work different in Europe then.

 >> Most of the european languages seem to have a common root
 >> langauge, as discussed in the article. that perhaps explains
 >> why it might work differently.

 MV> Maybe.

 MV> I just observe that no conqueror here managed to impose his language
 MV> on the people here. So this "if such and so you'd be speaking
 MV> German|French|Russian" does not impress me.


 MV> Sometime I wish one of these conquerers had been successful in
 MV> imposing his language. I think one of the reasons the US economy was
 MV> so successful is that unlike Europe, they did not have the language
 MV> problems that we have. Here almost every country has it own language
 MV> and that is a big hindrance for trade relations

Oh we've had our langauge problems in the past, believe it. Especially in the
heyday years of European immigration. Thing was ta that time it was a
requirement to laen at least some English, for citizenship.

We also did not have the problem we seem to have now with illegals. Or at
least it wasn't as widespread.

The illegal imigrant situation really hurts our economy, in may ways, mostly
the drain on public services.
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 Origin: Ray's Rocket Shop - Out to Launch (1:3613/48)
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 * Origin: Ray's Rocket Shop - Out to Launch (1:3613/48)