French + English = Globish

[Patricia]

For years the French Academy has been annoyed by English words creeping into their language. Now some of them have found a way to retaliate: they invented Globish.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...nt/7844192.stm

[Andybaby]

that article reads like it were on The Onion

[zelda_pinwheel]

After all, if Globish really does take over the planet with its stunted business-speak, its bland insignificance, its cultureless access-for-all availability, then where does that leave the real English?

Will the language of Shakespeare suffer by association, leaving the field open one day for the resurgence of the other great tongues of the world ? Like French?

ha HA !!! it is a cunning ploy of the académie to turn the tables !! we will now bastardise english into oblivion, so that french can rise again as the most beautiful and poetic language in the world !



but seriously, it really does drive me crazy when, for example, the french women working at the french agency in france tell me to please use "boollette poynz" (bullet points) on the list in that document i'm designing for them. i want to shout at them (in french, of course) "for god's sake, they're called puces !!!! you sound like a bunch of pretentious morons !!!!"

it also drives me crazy when i see big companies with french branches sending over american executives in high-level positions who don't even make a pretense of learning to speak french, and oblige the entire damned company of french employees in france to speak english to accomodate them. in a way they can't complain about globish ; they've really asked for it.

on the other hand, it also drives me crazy when i hear english spoken / written by native anglophones who are apparently practically illiterate and have no idea what punctuation is.

i guess i'm sort of a purist, regardless the language.

vive l'éloquence !

[Donnageddon]

It is an offense to thine ears to hear the utterance of the doggerel modern "english" from the wretched masses!

Thou shalt henceforth use only the true Elizabethan Olde English, forswearing the usage of such common dirty toungues, as those spewed by the peasants on the filthy continent, and of course, the accursed colonies.

I proclaimeth it!

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

on the other hand, it also drives me crazy when i hear english spoken / written by native anglophones who are apparently practically illiterate and have no idea what punctuation is.

i guess i'm sort of a purist, regardless the language.

vive l'éloquence !

This last bit is really funny, considering your punctuation habits. (capitalization? what's that?)

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

This last bit is really funny, considering your punctuation habits. (capitalization? what's that?)

like e.e. cummings, it is precisely because i *do* know what capitalisation is that i can allow myself the freedom to eschew it.

[slayda]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

like e.e. cummings, it is precisely because i *do* know what capitalisation is that i can allow myself the freedom to eschew it.

Don't get it caught in you esteeth when you eschew it.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by slayda

Don't get it caught in you esteeth when you eschew it.

i'm careful about that.

[Wetdogeared]

Have you ever heard of Office québécois de la langue française?

Better known as the language police.

[Patricia]

I'm just longing to see how VR would translate Globish, especially given that it forbids humour.

[RickyMaveety]

Well, with only 1,500 words with which to work, at least it would be easy to learn. I assume it would have no verb tenses, and probably is a bit like a crippled Esperanto.

It's a little hard to be linguistically bigoted here. Even in Atlanta, loads of the billboards are in Spanish, not to mention Austin where if you aren't bilingual, you are toast.

So much Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Chinese .... hell, you name it ... has invaded the English language. Every time a new immigrant group moves in, a whole new slang starts seeping in.

Eventually, there will be some sort of global language, maybe not for several more decades, but the world is getting too small for it not to happen. I'm basically lazy, so I'd rather it be some form of English if only so that I don't have to learn another language.

[Donnageddon]

RickM

It's a little hard to be linguistically bigoted here. Even in Atlanta, loads of the billboards are in Spanish, not to mention Austin where if you aren't bilingual, you are toast.

So much Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Chinese .... hell, you name it ... has invaded the English language. Every time a new immigrant group moves in, a whole new slang starts seeping in.

Eventually, there will be some sort of global language, maybe not for several more decades, but the world is getting too small for it not to happen. I'm basically lazy, so I'd rather it be some form of English if only so that I don't have to learn another language.

Sorry I quoted all most all of your post, but I agree so completely, if I were just to state my honest opinion, it would just be a restatement anyway.

Language is NOT written in stone (OK some of it is, but that was before they had paper, let alone e-ink). But there are few people alive today that could read Beowulf in it's original transcription (I certainly couldn't). Hell, most people are confounded by Shakespearian prose. If not for the KJV of the Bible, most people wouldn't have any experience with "Thou" or "Thine".

Language will always be fluid. And ever changing.

While that presents challenges, I think it is a good thing. The bigger the palette, and the larger the canvas, the greater the ability to create new and wonderful things.

Of course, some people will just make graffiti on that large canvas, but that is a price that should be willingly shouldered.

As long as the canvas has a basis in English.

Oops! I just got bigoted.

[Donnageddon]

And to Queen Zelda, the most high, What is with the gender specific "the"?

Ain't that sexist? Why should a pencil have a gender, or a banana?

Don't be obvious!

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Donnageddon

But there are few people alive today that could read Beowulf in it's original transcription (I certainly couldn't).

I can .

Hell, most people are confounded by Shakespearian prose. If not for the KJV of the Bible, most people wouldn't have any experience with "Thou" or "Thine".

There are a number of dialects of British English where "thou" and "thy" are alive and well. Where I live, people will automatically make a distiction between saying "is tha' well?" to one person, and "are you well?" to a number of people.

Language will always be fluid. And ever changing.

Absolutely.

[acidzebra]

The French can go suck an onion - it is the only country in Europe where many people are able to speak a few words of English but outright refuse to. So in my big international company I find it highly amusing to make them speak English when they need IT support:

"Mon Ordinateur, she is without connexion to le réseau".
"Your what is not connected to what?"
"...Ordinateur is not connected to le réseau"
"your what?"
"COMPUTER!"
"Oh, you should have said so! And you can't connect to what?"
[urgent discussion on other side]
"ZEE NETWORK!"
"Oh, have you tried restarting it?"

...I'm a bâtard (which I think is a word they nicked from the English).

If the French and their Latin rip-off babble had wanted to dominate the language world they should have invented Internet instead of Minitel (which they co-developed with the Brits). Muahahaha!