Bridging the Gap

» GeorgeP_6 - Ethnologue thinks Arabic is not one single language

Interesting that you omit the putonghua from your list. Ethnologue comes up with different figures from Culbert's: he had 853/999 in the 1997 Almanac, they have 836/885. Comparing Culbert's figures for Mandarin and English, we get 146 L2 speakers for Mandarin and 157 L2 figures for English. Presumably, of course, the bulk of those L2 Mandarin speakers are in the PRC...

In any case, I think you've given some good backup for your intuitive understanding... insofar as we can have confidence in Ethnologue's sources and analysis. Thanks!

Have you ever seen Karl Bunday's article where he ranks languages by number of speakers times GNP of the countries where their L1 speakers reside? Interesting.

-- posted by GeorgeP_6

» pseudoerasmus - I forgot to mention that according to Ethnologue, Indonesian has

-- posted by pseudoerasmus

» pseudoerasmus - auxilliaries

Until recently, mastery of an auxiliary preceded entry into public life in most societies... Eastern Europeans drew on classical Greek, Indians on Sanskrit, East Africans on Swahili.

Well, I suppose here your "auxilliary" is more commonly referred to as a "lingua franca". OK, when are you saying Sanskrit was the lingua franca of India? And when for Classical Greek in Eastern Europe?

Authentic Latin pronunciation has become so rare it is now worthless as an auxiliary.

What is an "authentic Latin pronunciation"? The accent of classical Romans? If so, then that hasn't been used for the last 1500 years. Yet it was a lingua franca among the educated of Western Europe for 1200-1300 of those years.

Colonial languages sometimes establish themselves as de facto auxiliaries. These are the tongues of nations looking to build an empire, be it military, economic or cultural. English is the most active colonial language in the West. Russian, Arabic and Mandarin dominate other parts of the world.

Where are Arabic and Mandarin "colonial languages"?

-- posted by pseudoerasmus

» pseudoerasmus - Arabic

Derija, or the colloquial language of Morocco and parts of the rest of the Maghrib, is altogether mutually unintelligible with the colloquial Levantine speech of Damascus. They are separate languages. Speakers of these disparate languages are joined by their education in Modern Standard Arabic.

-- posted by pseudoerasmus

» rkhen - Leaping in with the odd observation:

Latin deteriorated over many centuries, until it reached its current status of dead language. Throughout its decline it became progressively less useful as peoples pronounced it more and more like their native tongues, and therefore sandbagged it as an auxiliary. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries there was a movement to reverse this problem by returning to Roman pronunciation. (For example, "vice versa" would be pronounced "week-ay where-sa.") By this time, national pronunciations had become so entrenched that the movement failed, and Latin was relegated to history. (However, the Vatican still uses Latin, pronounced the Roman way.)

Sanskrit was the language of scholarship across the Indian subcontinent for several centuries. There were identifiable traditions within the larger community, though I don't know to what extent they were mutually intelligible. For example, a recent project to put ancient Bon texts on computer ran into some initial difficulty because Tibetan Sanskrit included characters not found in classical Sanskrit, therefore existing software could not be used.

Greek was the language of the Byzantine Empire and the Orthodox Church, and as such the lingua franca of Eastern Europe. This is why the Cyrillic alphabet, used by most Slavic societies today, closely resembles the Greek alphabet.

"Colonial" in this respect, as I pointed out in the article, refers not just to formal colonies but also to those drawn into the spheres of influence of larger or more activist cultures. Arabic is a colonial language throughout the Islamic countries, especially in the Near and Middle East. Mandarin in a colonial language in the PRC and to a lesser extent in other parts of Asia.

"Separate languages" are a matter of opinion. As I have stated elsewhere, I use the terms "language" and "dialect" as a convenience only. While some linguists enjoy scrapping over these terms, since neither has any basis in science it's really no more useful than scrapping over whether smooth peanut butter is better than crunchy. (The answer is "smooth," by the way.) As for me, I find the issue unproductive and so avoid it.

-- posted by rkhen

» pseudoerasmus - sundry

But not a lingua franca. You're mistakenly making an analogy between the place of Latin in Europe and Sanskrit in "India". (There was no India before the British.) The various princes of across India did not communicate with each other in Sanskrit.

(However, the Vatican still uses Latin, pronounced the Roman way.)

No. The Vatican uses the Church pronunciation. Vice versa would be pronounced veeche verrsa.

Click here to hear Catullus I spoken in restored Classical pronunciation.

Click here to hear the first few lines of the Odyssey in the restored Attic pronunciation.

Greek was the language of the Byzantine Empire and the Orthodox Church, and as such the lingua franca of Eastern Europe.

Greek was the language of the Byzantine Empire and the Greek Orthodox Church. Greek was NEVER a lingua franca in Eastern Europe. This is total nonsense. The language of various Orthodox Churches in the Slavic countries was Old Church Slavonic.

This is why the Cyrillic alphabet, used by most Slavic societies today, closely resembles the Greek alphabet.

No, it's because St. Cyril based it on Greek. But the Cyrillic alphabet resembles the Roman alphabet as much as it resembles the Greek. Do you want to compare letter by letter?

"Colonial" in this respect, as I pointed out in the article, refers not just to formal colonies but also to those drawn into the spheres of influence of larger or more activist cultures. Arabic is a colonial language throughout the Islamic countries, especially in the Near and Middle East. Mandarin in a colonial language in the PRC and to a lesser extent in other parts of Asia.

I wasn't picking on your definition of "colonial". I was questioning your statement that Arabic is an "auxilliary" in non-Arabic Muslim countries. That's just not true. False absolutely and unequivocally. No one learns Arabic in Pakistan or Indonesia or Iran as an "auxilliary language". No one. Outside Arabic speaking countries, the use and knowledge of Arabic in Muslim countries is limited to reading the Koran.

The same with Mandarin. It's a lingua franca nowhere outside the PRC and Taiwan.

"Separate languages" are a matter of opinion....As for me, I find the issue unproductive and so avoid it.

It was earlier claimed that: "there's no more difference between, say, the Arabic of the Maghrib and the Arabic of Damascus than between my English and Strine..." This is simple false. The two are mutually unintelligible. Ask any Moroccan.