I am fluent in one language and speak three others passably, and have order-a-beer/ask-for-a-toilet/get-directions ability in a few others. It does not matter to me which language I use to communicate. Why should it? The one I am fluent in is not the language of any of my ancestors if I go back just a couple of generations. So what?
My children are natively fluent in two languages. Neither of their languages is a second language.
Which language should I tell them is their primary language?
Are you trying to make a point or..? It's a bit unclear. People can have multiple languages they're native in, that doesn't mean we should try to replace every language with English.
> that doesn't mean we should try to replace every language with English
Where did I say that everyone should speak only English? I do not care what language people speak.
> Are you trying to make a point or..?
Why are you being unkind? Or hostile, or whatever this is?
I was asking a question. I understand that people think they will lose something if they speak a different language. My native language is not the same as any of my ancestors from just a few generations ago, and I want to know what difference it makes?
Speaking a different language than your great great great grandfather ("a few generations ago") is not always very impactful, though even this means you can no longer read letters or poetry or novels that they may have written or just loved. You can no longer understand laws that they might have obeyed, understand speeches that influenced them, and so many other things that keep a culture going beyond generations.
However, that pales in comparison to what the transition means, not speaking the same language as your grandparents. You get a huge gulf of distance from relatives who, for the majority of humanity, are some of their most beloved and close relationships.
Language and culture go hand in hand. I don't understand how you've learnt 1 fluently and 3 passably and are deemingly completely missing this aspect to it. So to standardize language is to attempt to standardize culture which I would imagine we don't wanna do, right?
And it doesn't matter what your ancestors spoke, of course. But it does matter what those around you speak, now. Neither the person you originally responded to or me have mentioned ancestors.
Usually people have one primary language which is usually the one predominantly used in the home they grew up in (or maybe the one used for their primary education).
If you have multiple, that's fine, but your disregarding the reality for 90%+ of people if you don't think most people have a language that is their "primary".
> It does not matter to me which language I use to communicate. Why should it?
For most people language is tied to their culture and history. I'm just saying that we should not mandate that people use a certain language as their "primary". It would be nice if we had a global way to passably communicate though.
I think something changed culturally as well. When my parents grew up any moderately educated person was expected to speak different several different languages.
Very few in my generation speak three languages, even in my rather international field. Yet my older colleagues speak french, German and Spanish like it is nothing. And my international colleagues often speak 4+ languages.
I am fine with English being a de facto Lingua Franca, but I can't help feeling something has been lost.
Speaking and using professionally is not the same. One of my friends speaks 6-7 languages, but can't use most of those for work, it's better to know 2 sufficiently well than imagining yourself being a polyglot.
Yeah, I get what you are saying. I would never want to mandate any language. I think it is dumb when countries have official languages as opposed to e.g. operating languages.
I just think that people are more worried about the homogenization of language than they need to be. In fact, with how quickly culture is homogenizing around the world, I think that it is even possible that language differences outlast cultural differences over the medium term. Teenagers in a lot of the world I have been to in the past years dress/behave/express themselves ... not very differently.
Everywhere I go in the world, old shit is different, but modern shit is depressingly the same, or really similar anyway.
> Everywhere I go in the world, old shit is different, but modern shit is depressingly the same, or really similar anyway.
That seems like a very reductive take. Of course trends and culture is more global since we now communicate globally, but there are definitely regional cultures and values and those are expressed many different ways.
If I travel from my small european city to a city in the american midwest or a city in nigeria that are going to be massive differences regardless if the teens are doing the same tiktok dance or whatever metric of homogenization you pick. But in all of those places I almost everyone I will meet can speak english.
I imagine having offical languages dictates that all the state functions have to operate in said official languages. If you have a government office for example, your website, pamphlets, administered tests etc for example have to be printed in the official language. Would be a mess if that was not enforced
My children are natively fluent in two languages. Neither of their languages is a second language.
Which language should I tell them is their primary language?