# Languages of ex colonies



## portumania

This question is suitable for Cultural Discussions, but since that forum is available only for special users, ill post it here.
I wonder, the English of England, the French of France, the Spanish of Spain etc are they supposed to be more "correct" dialects than those of Americas and other ex-colonies? I am talking in a linguistic way, not nationalist.

In a nationalist way, do e.g. English people feel that the USA is "usurping" their language? Do the Americans of English origin feel that the English language is part of their inheritance? What do American citizens of other origin, Germans, blacks, Spaniards that were born and raised in the USA, feel about English language? Do they feel that they are using a foreign language? Or they feel that they are using their national language, which just happens to be also the language of another 52 countries? why many people in the USA, regardless of their origin, promote only the use of the English language as the official language of the country? Is it just for practical and economic reasons? Or they internally feel Englishmen?


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## Frank06

portumania said:


> I wonder, the English of England, the French of France, the Spanish of Spain etc are they supposed to be more "correct" dialects than those of Americas and other ex-colonies? I am talking in a linguistic way, not nationalist.


Linguistically, there is nothing as a "more correct" dialect per se. 
If we have a green ball and a red ball, we cannot say that the green ball is a bad red ball or even a bad _ball_ because of its, erm, green-ness.

I'll make a few abstractions here, and limit myself to what is normally perceived as the standard dialects of British and American English, or standard varieties, if one would prefer that term.

Native British English speakers normally speak British English quite well, native American English speakers normally speak American English quite well. There isn't any reason to think that American English is bad (British) English.


Sociolinguistically, I think we get another story. Maybe I am using "sociolinguistically" in an incorrect way here. 
So, what the perception of some native speakers of the old colonising country is concerned, we often get a different opinion.

I remember more than one (rather old) threads in the Dutch forum on how Dutch people speak bad Dutch (by which was probably meant Belgian Dutch), or the other way round (and then we aren't even talking about ex-colonies!).
I used "probably", because people often express rather vague ideas about their own language and tend to discard anything which doesn't sound like their idiolect, their supposed standard tongue or their regional variety, whether or not idealised or fantasised.

I think one can change "Dutch" into "Spanish" or "Portuguese" etc. and change the two countries mentioned into "ex-coloniser" and "ex-colonised" and could get a similar story.



> In a nationalist way, do e.g. English people feel that the USA is "usurping" their language?


There might be a few of them, but, well, we have people with ... how to put it nicely... with weird ideas everywhere, haven't we? 

I think we know that a language doesn't get owned by the "original speakers" (whatever that is supposed to mean), that a language cannot get stolen or usurped. 

Nevertheless, quite often the arguments used in such (non-)debates are very illogical and dodgy and they don't betray any sense for the history of the language.

If we look at the USA and Great Britain, and simplify a few things for the sake of the debate, then we can only conclude that both groups, British and American English speakers, "usurped" the English variant(s) spoken at the period of the colonisation, in different ways. As far as I know, Elisabethan or Jacobian English isn't a common variant in contemporary England anymore.


I think there is even another angle, which you didn't mention. If your nick suggests a mania for Portuguese, you might be interested in the writings of  Marcos Bagno, who describes how certain _Brasilian _language pundits often hold the Portuguese variant in higher esteem than the local (standard) varieties. For example, in _Preconceito lingüístico_, he treats the language myth "Brasileiro não sabe português. Só em Portugal se fala bem português". The booklet is from 1999. I don't know, however, if the situation he describes is still a valid rendition of the situation in contemporary Brasil.


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## Nonstar

> Originally Posted by *Frank06*
> I think there is even another angle, which you didn't mention. If your nick suggests a mania for Portuguese, you might be interested in the writings of Marcos Bagno, who describes how certain Brasilian language pundits often hold the Portuguese variant in higher esteem than the local (standard) varieties. For example, in Preconceito lingüístico, he treats the language myth "Brasileiro não sabe português. Só em Portugal se fala bem português". The booklet is from 1999. I don't know, however, if the situation he describes is still a valid rendition of the situation in contemporary Brasil.


His rendition is very much valid here, Frank. I've recently been in touch with Marcos Bagno's material on the subject you mention. I've gained more insight and become aware of linguistics as a more reliable means for understanding the thing. I also recommend reading his works and interviews.


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## Jamaisleño

Well, I was born in Jamaica, but raised in the United States. In Jamaica, the standard English used is British English. Due to this, regardless of the fact that I was raised in the U.S. I still write in British English. Ex: I write "_programme_" NOT "_program_" and "_honour_" NOT "_honor_", etc.

The common belief in Jamaica is that British English is the correct English and American English is what the U.S. twisted that into b/c it wanted to be different... just like the nonuse of the metric system or centigrade, I suppose.

As a personal opinion, I feel that when a language changes *NATURALLY,* like the case of Castilian in SO MANY Spanish speaking countries, there's no right/wrong dialect. However, when the language is purposely changed in order to be different, then I think that's debatable. 

An example of this is Canadian French - Quebecois. In Quebec they have a government institution that changes the names of words, so inevitably they differ from European French/English. 

EX: in European French, "_hamburger_" = "_hamburger_", in Canadian French it's "_hamburgeois_".

The U.S. can pull this off because of how important and influential of a country it is, so I think American English is currently a completely accepted form of English. However, if a tiny, unimportant, English speaking country decided to create their own spelling, etc. it would be considered incorrect to the rest of the Anglophone world.


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## Angelo di fuoco

Frank06 said:


> I think there is even another angle, which you didn't mention. If your nick suggests a mania for Portuguese, you might be interested in the writings of  Marcos Bagno, who describes how certain _Brasilian _language pundits often hold the Portuguese variant in higher esteem than the local (standard) varieties. For example, in _Preconceito lingüístico_, he treats the language myth "Brasileiro não sabe português. Só em Portugal se fala bem português". The booklet is from 1999. I don't know, however, if the situation he describes is still a valid rendition of the situation in contemporary Brasil.



José Saramago:
"A língua é minha, o sotaque é seu". Em resposta a um estudante brasileiro que disse não perceber a sua pronúncia durante uma conferência.


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## WyomingSue

> ... why many people in the USA, regardless of their origin, promote only the use of the English language as the official language of the country? Is it just for practical and economic reasons? Or they internally feel Englishmen?


 
First, I will say that I, personally, am not in favor of the English-only movement.  However, in my experience the reasons for that movement are both economic/practical and emotional/cultural.

Because the United States has so many immigrants there are many people whose primary language is other than English.  According to the 2000 census, there were 215 million primary-language English speakers (about 80% of the population).  After that, we have Spanish (10%), and then between 200,000 and 2,000,000 people speaking each of the following languages:  Chinese languages, French, German, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Italian, Korean, Russian, Polish, Arabic, Portuguese, Japanese, French Creole, Greek, Hindi, Persian, Urdu, Gujarati, Armenian, and American Sign Language (for deaf people).  This is just the list of the top 22 from the 2000 census.  There are also Native American (Indian) languages used in areas with high Native American populations.

In states and cities with high percentages of these language-speakers, it is often necessary for  the police, driver's license agencies, social welfare organizations, the court system, the schools, and healthcare providers, and even election offices to translate documents and provide interpreters for people who don't speak English.  Although you want non-English speakers to know what is going on, at the same time it can be a big expense, especially for small towns with big immigrant populations.

The second issue is emotional/cultural.  There are some areas of the United States where the immigrant population is so large that non-English speakers are either a majority or a large minority.   There, if you're an English-speaker most of the people around you are speaking another language, and the signs in the stores are in another language.  That makes many people uncomfortable.   I have been in government offices in Florida where all the clerks are talking to each other in Spanish until you ask them a question.  Then they go away and speak Spanish to each other again.  I speak Spanish, so I can live with that, but not everyone does.    People feel they should have the "right" in the United States to buy a radio battery or go to a grocery store and receive service in English.

As I said, I kind of enjoy the variety myself, but some communities are overwhelmed.  Here are two articles about Somalis in Maine http://www.sptimes.com/2005/03/13/Worldandnation/A_collision_of_cultur.shtml
and Mexicans in Nebraska http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/trib/regional/s_396081.html.

Still, we don't have the anti-immigrant hostility that there is in some parts of Europe (at least according to what we read about).  Most of us remember than 98.5% of Americans have immigrant ancestors.



> What do American citizens of other origin, Germans, blacks, Spaniards that were born and raised in the USA, feel about English language? Do they feel that they are using a foreign language? Or they feel that they are using their national language, which just happens to be also the language of another 52 countries?


 
The vast majority of us are of "other origin," and many of our families have been here for generations.  For example my ancestors came here between 1690 and 1895 from Germany, France, England, Ireland, and Bohemia (now the Czech Republic).  English is our language.  As a matter of fact, if they hadn't used English most of my ancestors wouldn't have been able to talk to each other!


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## se16teddy

portumania said:


> the English of England


I think this question is based on the false assumption that there is a single dialect that can be called the "English of England". People in Devon, for example, tend to speak a variety of English that sounds much closer to the English of Boston, Massachusetts than to the English of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. And people in London, for example, tend to speak a variety of English that sounds much closer to the English of Sydney in Australia than to the English of Liverpool.


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## Alxmrphi

> And people in London, for example, tend to speak a variety of English  that sounds much closer to the English of Sydney in Australia than to  the English of Liverpool


Being from Liverpool, and having lived in Sydney, I can confirm this.
There's the diphthong-shift characteristic which is really obvious when listening to Londoners / Syndeysiders. (_Wells_ has written a bit about this as well)

After taking a minor interest in dialectology while looking at the history of English, something like "The English of England" really just makes me cringe, it's *so* diverse I had no idea at all, and I wish I had the time / resources to fully explain how things actually are to the people who think there's one glorious unified standard English. I used to think there was just one (I hadn't been told there wasn't, so how was I to know? How is anyone to know without being told? It's a perfectly innocent mistake to make).


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## Jamaisleño

> ... something like "The English of England" really just makes me cringe, it's *so* diverse I had no idea at all...



True, but the way I interpret/use the term "The English of England" or "British English" is in reference to Standard British English: _The variety of the English language that is generally used in professional writing in Britain (or in England or in southeast England) and taught in British schools.
_


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## Alxmrphi

Jamaisleño said:


> True, but the way I interpret/use the term "The English of England" or "British English" is in reference to Standard British English: _The variety of the English language that is generally used in professional writing in Britain (or in England or in southeast England) and taught in British schools.
> _



Yeah that makes sense as well! Maybe we were being a bit too picky with the terminology.


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## se16teddy

Jamaisleño said:


> True, but the way I interpret/use the term "The English of England" or "British English" is in reference to Standard British English: _The variety of the English language that is generally used in professional writing in Britain (or in England or in southeast England) and taught in British schools._


Portumania did not say anything about "standard British English", nor did he say that his question was only about professional writing. 

Concerns have been expressed that "standard British English", and its spoken forms familiar from radio, television etc, are undermining the diversity of British spech forms. In this way, some people in the regions of England have sometimes felt that their regions are reduced to the status of linguistic "colonies". See for example here: "Trudgill (1990: 126) claims that it is 'still considered acceptable to discriminate against people, especially young people, on the grounds of their dialect'". http://www.yorkshiredialect.com/Decline.htm


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## Frank06

Jamaisleño said:


> True, but the way I interpret/use the term "The English of England" or "British English" is in reference to Standard British English: _The variety of the English language that is generally used in professional writing in Britain (or in England or in southeast England) and taught in British schools.
> _


Okay, but this could paralyse every single discussion in EHL and would lead us to stating that modern English of today is solely based upon modern English of yesterday, August 17 2010 + specifics about location, address, and if necessary, floor and room.

It's quite normal (and slightly obvious) to use in this kind of a _general_ discussions a *blanket term* as "English", "Old English" etc, without having to include each time two or three full books to specify what exactly we mean. 
Besides, I think the context makes it clear what "English" is supposed to mean.

The same, obviously go for Portuguese, Spanish, French and the other languages involved.


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## portumania

WyomingSue said:


> First, I will say that I, personally, am not in favor of the English-only movement.  However, in my experience the reasons for that movement are both economic/practical and emotional/cultural.
> 
> Because the United States has so many immigrants there are many people whose primary language is other than English.  According to the 2000 census, there were 215 million primary-language English speakers (about 80% of the population).  After that, we have Spanish (10%), and then between 200,000 and 2,000,000 people speaking each of the following languages:  Chinese languages, French, German, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Italian, Korean, Russian, Polish, Arabic, Portuguese, Japanese, French Creole, Greek, Hindi, Persian, Urdu, Gujarati, Armenian, and American Sign Language (for deaf people).  This is just the list of the top 22 from the 2000 census.  There are also Native American (Indian) languages used in areas with high Native American populations.
> 
> In states and cities with high percentages of these language-speakers, it is often necessary for  the police, driver's license agencies, social welfare organizations, the court system, the schools, and healthcare providers, and even election offices to translate documents and provide interpreters for people who don't speak English.  Although you want non-English speakers to know what is going on, at the same time it can be a big expense, especially for small towns with big immigrant populations.
> 
> The second issue is emotional/cultural.  There are some areas of the United States where the immigrant population is so large that non-English speakers are either a majority or a large minority.   There, if you're an English-speaker most of the people around you are speaking another language, and the signs in the stores are in another language.  That makes many people uncomfortable.   I have been in government offices in Florida where all the clerks are talking to each other in Spanish until you ask them a question.  Then they go away and speak Spanish to each other again.  I speak Spanish, so I can live with that, but not everyone does.    People feel they should have the "right" in the United States to buy a radio battery or go to a grocery store and receive service in English.
> 
> As I said, I kind of enjoy the variety myself, but some communities are overwhelmed.  Here are two articles about Somalis in Maine http://www.sptimes.com/2005/03/13/Worldandnation/A_collision_of_cultur.shtml
> and Mexicans in Nebraska http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/trib/regional/s_396081.html.
> 
> Still, we don't have the anti-immigrant hostility that there is in some parts of Europe (at least according to what we read about).  Most of us remember than 98.5% of Americans have immigrant ancestors.
> 
> 
> 
> The vast majority of us are of "other origin," and many of our families have been here for generations.  For example my ancestors came here between 1690 and 1895 from Germany, France, England, Ireland, and Bohemia (now the Czech Republic).  English is our language.  As a matter of fact, if they hadn't used English most of my ancestors wouldn't have been able to talk to each other!



I do not see any "right". English is not the official language of the United States. Plus most immigrants did not come from England nor most parts of the USA used to be Engish speaking colonies. The fact today English is the de facto language is just a coincidence. 

...


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## Angelo di fuoco

portumania said:


> I do not see any "right". English is not the official language of the United States. Plus most immigrants did not come from England nor most parts of the USA used to be Engish speaking colonies. The fact today English is the de facto language is just a coincidence.


It isn't. The 13 states that founded the USA had been British colonies, which gradually expanded  to what are today 50 states. I won't discuss the ways the expansion took (wars, breaking treaties and contracts with the Native Americans and so on) nor the discrimination to which the population of the "acquired" territories was subjected because of their language, religion, skin colour and so on - this is not to the point - but I do mention this because this discrimination led to the establishment of English as _de facto_ official language in the USA.
That today there are so many inhabitants in the US which don't speak English as their mother tongue is just the consequence of the enormous economic and personal opportunities this continent offered to the immigrants.

...


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## TriglavNationalPark

Portumania, as others have explained, English is the primary (albeit not "official") language of the United States. That has been the case since the first European settlements. People who came to the United States spoke many different languages, but they all had to learn English if they wanted to communicate with Americans outside of their ethnic groups.

That is still the case today. Despite the importance of Spanish and the scale of immigration from Latin America in recent decades, a Spanish speaker without English skills is just not be able to function effectively outside the Hispanic community. Also, the intelligibility of Spanish with Italian and Portuguese is more or less irrelevant in a part of the world where these languages play virtually no role.

Some Europeans still associate the English language specifically with England (or the UK). Most Americans do not. Regardless of their background, they tend to view English as _their_ language -- as much as Britons do. In fact, this American "co-ownership" of English is entirely justified, since surprisingly many English words (including those common in today's BrE) are American in origin. In other words, modern English would be very different without the U.S. Also, English is the world's _lingua franca, _or at least its closest equivalent, primarily because of the economic, political, and cultural influence of the United States.

Having said that, American identity is not based on language -- unlike Slovenian identity, for instance, which is based almost exclusively on language. Rather, it is based on a set of ideals defined (but not always parcticed) by the Founding Fathers. Different Americans may have very different interpretations of these ideals, but most look towards them -- rather than at a person's abilility to speak English -- when they need to define what being American is all about.


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## sokol

Moderator note:

It seems it is necessary to remind you of the topic proper.

This thread is _*not*_ about whether Spanish is more fit for use of official language in the USA (and things like that) but about *whether American English is "usurping" British English,* or likewise Iberian Spanish the varieties of castellano spoken in America, or other related cases.

Please stay on topic.

Thank you!
Cheers
sokol


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## kentucky-2010

As an American of English, Irish and German ancestry, I don't feel that America is "usurping" the English language.  I'm my view, it's neither superior nor inferior, just slightly different.


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## Frank06

Portumania said:
			
		

> In a nationalist way, do e.g. English people feel that the USA is "usurping" their language?


One question I forgot to ask...
Could anyone please explain to me how to usurp a language?

Two questions, actually: is there anybody else who feels slightly unsettled by the phrase "to usurp a language"?

Frank

PS
*usurp*: 
1a: to seize and hold [...] in possession _by force or without right_ 
1b : to take or make use of without right


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## kentucky-2010

I, too, felt uncomfortable with the expression "to usurp a language", but preferred not to challenge its appropriateness, in order not to derail the thread.

Now that you have mentioned it, I agree that it sounds unusual -to say the least- in US English.


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## portumania

Frank06 said:


> One question I forgot to ask...
> Could anyone please explain to me how to usurp a language?
> 
> Two questions, actually: is there anybody else who feels slightly unsettled by the phrase "to usurp a language"?
> 
> Frank
> 
> PS
> *usurp*:
> 1a: to seize and hold [...] in possession _by force or without right_
> 1b : to take or make use of without right




Quotation marks or inverted commas (informally referred to as quotes and speech marks) are punctuation marks used in pairs to set off speech, a quotation, a phrase, or a word. They come as a pair of opening and closing marks in either of two styles: single (‘…’) or double (“…”).

Among the usages, the one I used for "usurping":

Signaling unusual usage
Quotation marks are also used to indicate that the writer realizes that a word is not being used in its current commonly accepted sense.


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## Frank06

portumania said:


> Quotation marks or inverted commas (informally referred to as quotes and speech marks) are punctuation marks used in pairs to set off speech, a quotation, a phrase, or a word. They come as a pair of opening and closing marks in either of two styles: single (‘…’) or double (“…”).
> Among the usages, the one I used for "usurping":
> Signaling unusual usage
> Quotation marks are also used to indicate that the writer realizes that a word is not being used in its current commonly accepted sense.


I read your original post, hence I am aware that it is not you thinking this.

Nevertheless, I still wonder what possibly can be meant by it, inverted commas, "unusual usage" or not.

F


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## DenisBiH

According to some strict nationalist viewpoints, let's say those of SE Europe (to which we could probably add Cyprus) Americans could indeed be viewed as a bunch of confused English suffering from amnesia and in an identity crisis who forgot their 'true' ethnic/national identity and succumbed to hordes of Germans, Irish (ancestry-wise, two other most numerous groups of European Americans) and others. Thus, the English language in the US could indeed, within this nationalist framework, be viewed as being 'usurped' by those who deny their 'true' English identity (English-Americans) and those who have nothing to do with 'Englishness' in the first place  (German-Americans, Irish-Americans etc.)

If you intellectually live within this framework, let's call it 19th century nationalist framework, the above paragraph makes a lot of sense. If you don't it probably doesn't make much sense at all. I guess two people, one subscribing to this nationalist-centric framework, and another not, could probably argue about this notion of usurped languages till judgment day and still not reach an agreement.


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## Frank06

DenisBiH said:


> According to some strict nationalist viewpoints, let's say those of SE Europe (to which we could probably add Cyprus) Americans could indeed be viewed as a bunch of confused English suffering from amnesia and in an identity crisis who forgot their 'true' ethnic/national identity and succumbed to hordes of Germans, Irish (heritage-wise, two other most numerous groups of Americans) and others. Thus, the English language in the US could indeed, within this nationalist framework, be viewed as being 'usurped' by those who deny their 'true' English identity (English-Americans) and those who have nothing to do with 'Englishness' in the first place  (German-Americans, Irish-Americans etc.)


Thanks for the explanation .
So far, I only saw the phrase "to usurp language x" in the confused writings of the infamous, linguistically other-abled and reputed internet pseudo-linguist Polat Kaya, who uses this very phrase as an argument in his, indeed ultra-nationalistic and off the wall writings. An example can be found here. But he never cared to explain to me either what the phrase could possibly mean. Now at least I have an idea (also where it comes from and that it is more widespread than I ever dared to guess).



> I guess two people, one subscribing to this nationalist-centric framework, and another not, could probably argue about this notion of usurped languages till judgment day and still not reach an agreement.


Luckily, in this thread we don't have two people like that. As far as I understand from the original query and subsequent posts, _nobody_ in this thread adheres to the idea that languages are/can be usurped.
I just wanted to know what should be understood by this phrase in the context of this thread (see post 1). 
Thanks again for the explanation.


To get back to the original question, about political/nationalistic attitudes towards languages of ex-colonies, I have been searching a bit for information about Dutch in Suriname, an ex-colony of the Netherlands and Afrikaans in South Africa (a bit more complicated than just 'ex-colony', but I hope it still qualifies for this topic).

I don't see any contemporary nationalistically inspired negative attitudes: Dutch is still an official language in Suriname and the country is a member of the Taalunie (Dutch Language union). On the other hand, I think that by now a lot of people accept the realities of Dutch Dutch, Belgian (or Flemish) Dutch and Surinam Dutch, the same way we have Brazilian and European Portuguese, American and British English (disregarding the underlying complexity not expressed by simple labels). 

As far as I am aware, nobody considers Afrikaans as an "usurped" version of Dutch these days (though I can imagine that there was some turmoil when both Afrikaans and Dutch were struggling to get an official status in SA in the 19th century). 

After Afrikaans was established as an official language (at the expense of Dutch, see Wiki... I mean Botha, _Inleiding to die Afrikaans taalkunde_, tweede hersiene uitgawe. Pretoria 1984, there you are), I think it got widely appreciated in the low countries, though I think one cannot exclude the factor "English domination" in this whole history.



Now, I don't know if it can be discussed in this thread, but thinking about Suriname, Dutch and the so-called (Dutch) Language Union, I started to wonder what the relation is between e.g. International Portuguese Language Institute and the Portuguese (ex-coloniser) Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Classe de Letras and Brazilian (ex-colonised) Academia Brasileira de Letras. Idem dito for Organisation internationale de la Francophonie and Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española, and its respective members and, if any, respective national language academies.


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## Angelo di fuoco

kentucky-2010 said:


> As an American of English, Irish and German ancestry, I don't feel that America is "usurping" the English language. I'm my view, it's neither superior nor inferior, just slightly different.


As a non-American of Russian, Bielorussian and Ukrainian descent, I do feel that using the name "America" for a country (_United States of_) instead of the continent could hurt (and does hurt) the feelings of at least a part of the inhabitants of the continent.


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## DenisBiH

> So far, I only saw the phrase "to usurp language x" in the confused writings of the linguistically other-abled Polat Kaya, who uses this very phrase as an argument in his, indeed ultra-nationalistic and off the wall writings. But he never cared to explain to me either what the phrase could possibly mean. Now at least I have an idea (also where it comes from and that it is more widespread than I ever dared to guess).


This 'pure/original identity' mongering is one of the reasons for the 'spectacular' breakup of former Yugoslavia and indeed is very much present today in the Balkans, not only ex-Yu countries. Therefore from having personally experienced the consequences come both my 'slight' distaste for and interest in the idea. It is fascinating how in times of economic, political and other crises the 'other-abled' manage to find a large number of followers willing to 'argue' their points with guns.  But let's not digress too much, it was a simple warning on what can happen when these theories are 'applied' in practice.

It's nice that you mention Afrikaans, I thought of mentioning it before but decided to wait a bit. I must say I'm not really well read in the field, but I wonder what could be learned from comparing the South African with the Brazilian situation. If some of the articles on language education in Brazil that I've read are correct, Brazilians in school are taught a language quite far removed from the language they actually speak, presumably due to trying to maintain some degree of unity with European Portuguese (someone correct me if I'm wrong). The article also said that this leads to further strengthening class distinctions in Brazil, with the rich being able to afford a better education. On the other hand, the Afrikaners simply scrapped the whole idea of maintaining unity with the Dutch language and went their own way. I wonder which approach has which pros and cons, if that can even be ascertained (and indeed if it's not entirely outside the scope of this thread)

It's not only the language. it's also the literature. Do Afrikaners consider older Dutch literature (from before the time their ancestors sailed for South Africa or alternatively, before Afrikaans officially separated) as their own? From what I can see Americans learn about English literature of England along with English literature of the United States.


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## TriglavNationalPark

Most ex-colonies never experienced the rise of European romantic nationalism, so their conception of language tends to be very different from the European conception.



Angelo di fuoco said:


> As a non-American of Russian, Bielorussian and Ukrainian descent, I do feel that using the name "America" for a country (_United States of_) instead of the continent could hurt (and does hurt) the feelings of at least a part of the inhabitants of the continent.


 
In the English language, *America* is a widely accepted shorthand form of the country's full name. Furthermore, *American* is the _only_ accepted ethnonym and adjectival form of the country's name.

In most cases, the country can be distinguished from the continent by the specific context or through the use of related terms such as the *Americas*, or *Latin America*.

Keep in mind that citizens of the United States are the only ones to use the term *American* as an demonym. A person from Chile, for instance, may refer to himself as an American when referring to his residence on the South American continent, but his demonym is *Chilean*. On the other hand, Americans (of the U.S. variety) have no other demonym, at least not in their own language.

Perhaps some don't think it's fair, but this is how the term is used in English -- and in lingustics, how things _are_ is surely more important than how things _should be_.

On a somewhat related note, my own ethnonym -- Slovenian (specifically the root *sloven--*) -- once referred to all Slavs, but I see no reason why other Slavs should find this use problematic.


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## Frank06

Hi,

Thanks for your reply!





DenisBiH said:


> If some of the articles on language education in Brazil that I've read are correct, Brazilians in school are taught a language quite far removed from the language they actually speak, presumably due to trying to maintain some degree of unity with European Portuguese (someone correct me if I'm wrong). The article also said that this leads to further strengthening class distinctions in Brazil, with the rich being able to afford a better education.


That's, in a nutshell, also the view of Marcos Bagno, (#2). I am quite interested in Portuguese on both sides of the Atlantic, so I am curious about the article you mentioned. Do you have references, is the article available online?

Anyway, I find it a very strange situation: one could hide the complete population of Portugal in one neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro with only a small chance of ever finding it back (I know, I am exaggerating a bit), and yet the influence of European Portuguese still seems to be that high. 

I have no idea whether it can be justified to impose a standard which is close to European Portuguese, in an attempt to keep a connection with Portuguese from Portugal, while at the same time there seems to be such a disconnection between that standard and the actual language(s)/varieties spoken in Brazil.

However, I wonder if imposing a Brazilian standard language in Brazil would solve a lot of problems in a country with quite some language diversity (I am thinking about the differences between BP from Fortaleza, Rio and São Paulo and about  Bagno's "mito n°. 1: a língua portuguesa falada no Brasil apresenta uma unidade supreendente").

I am also wondering about, may I call it "African" Portuguese (Angola, Mozambic, ...) and the views on Portuguese and the creole of Cabo Verde. 



> It's not only the language. It's also the literature. Do Afrikaners consider older Dutch literature (from before the time their ancestors sailed for South Africa or alternatively, before Afrikaans officially separated) as their own?


I am afraid that we're going too off topic, but in short: hardly or not, so it seems.
If I may believe this article (alas in Dutch and Google translate butchers it as usual), the few courses that can be found in SA about Dutch literature only deal with post 1880 authors. Middle Dutch texts are "terra incognita", there seems to be only very few courses in which Early Modern Dutch texts are treated. 
Maybe the paragraph which starts with the quote below is worth a google translation 


> Slechts een handvol colleges is exclusief gewijd aan de Nederlandse literatuur. Bijna al die colleges beperken zich tot de klassiekers uit de moderne Nederlandse letterkunde (na 1880).


Nevertheless,  I hope South African members can provide more information.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## DenisBiH

Somehow I managed to find the source where I read that, however I need to apologize, it's not really an article but rather what seems a forum post followed by a very interesting discussion (indeed, Marcos Bagno is referenced in one of the posts). Not sure if I can post the link to another forum here, but here it is and you can remove it if it's inappropriate.

Here's a quote from one of the participants relevant to what I mentioned:



> Only 10 % of Brazilian schools (the schools only rich students attend) have a good method of conservative grammar teaching, so this means only these rich people will pass the Portuguese language proficiency test and will enter the university and/or get a nice job.


And another one:



> Many Brazilian professors still insists children should use 20 and more verb forms, and hundreds of obsolete grammar rules that are never used in Brazil...So, when a Brazilian child enters the school, he/she learns a version of Portuguese language that is not theirs...That is why Portuguese language is the most hated subject in Brazilian schools...


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## Angelo di fuoco

TriglavNationalPark said:


> In the English language, *America* is a widely accepted shorthand form of the country's full name. Furthermore, *American* is the _only_ accepted ethnonym and adjectival form of the country's name.
> 
> In most cases, the country can be distinguished from the continent by the specific context or through the use of related terms such as the *Americas*, or *Latin America*.
> 
> Keep in mind that citizens of the United States are the only ones to use the term *American* as an demonym. A person from Chile, for instance, may refer to himself as an American when referring to his residence on the South American continent, but his demonym is *Chilean*. On the other hand, Americans (of the U.S. variety) have no other demonym, at least not in their own language.
> 
> Perhaps some don't think it's fair, but this is how the term is used in English -- and in lingustics, how things _are_ is surely more important than how things _should be_.
> 
> On a somewhat related note, my own ethnonym -- Slovenian (specifically the root *sloven--*) -- once referred to all Slavs, but I see no reason why other Slavs should find this use problematic.



I am well informed about all you've written in your comment.
However, I wasn't talking about the demonym (and there's really no possibility to distinguish between American as citizen of the USA and as inhabitant of the American continent), but about the name of the state. Many Americans (inhabitants of the continent) don't like this short form because it implies, in their opinion, that America=USA.

Besides, the name "United States of America" has various short forms, and, although "America" is the most popular, there are various possibilities to avoid this ambiguities at least in what concerns the name of the country.
Latin America actually isn't a geographical term, but a linguistic or cultural one, and there are still countries like Canada (not very Latin) or Suriname (still less Latin), or Saint Lucia (equally non-Latin).
The plural "Americas" is a good option, but "America" itself is ambiguous, and if there are possibilities to avoid this ambiguity, I think they should be used.


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## berndf

*Moderator note: This thread is about the language of ex-colonies and the relation to the language of the former colonial powers and not about the name America. We would like you to bring this off-topic discussion to an end.*


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## Nanon

portumania said:


> I wonder, the English of England, the French of France, the Spanish of Spain etc are they supposed to be more "correct" dialects than those of Americas and other ex-colonies? I am talking in a linguistic way, not nationalist.


As for "the French of France" vs Canada, certainly not. See the example provided by Jamaisleño. Many native users of the variant spoken in France regard Canadian French as more conservative and, particularly, less permeable to anglicisms.

As regards former African colonies and West Indies, the perception may be different, and biased by racism. Those who are interested may wish to have a look at this thread: parler petit-nègre. However former colonies gave French literature magnificent writers; take Aimé Césaire and Léopold Sédar Senghor, just to mention these two (and to avoid making endless lists).

Yet, historically, the French equivalent of _"Brasileiro não sabe português. Só em Portugal se fala bem português" _did exist. The only correct French was spoken in France, and the only correct French of France was either upper-class Paris French or at least "North of the Loire" French... Even within the country, let alone in the colonial context, the command of the language, spelling and grammar, culture, literature... were used as social markers.


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## Myridon

Jamaisleño said:


> Well, I was born in Jamaica, but raised in the United States. In Jamaica, the standard English used is British English. Due to this, regardless of the fact that I was raised in the U.S. I still write in British English. Ex: I write "_programme_" NOT "_program_" and "_honour_" NOT "_honor_", etc.
> 
> The common belief in Jamaica is that British English is the correct English and American English is what the U.S. twisted that into b/c it wanted to be different...


"Programme" is a newer spelling of "program" that wasn't used in English prior to the early 1800's, i.e. American English retains the original form -it's British English that changed.
Spelling was highly irregular prior to the late 1700's. For many -or/-our and -er/-re pairs, both spellings existed prior to Samuel Johnson's 1755 dictionary published in England that favored -re/-our spellings.  Both forms continued for some time in both England and the Americas (people didn't instantly change their spelling habits). American Noah Webster was busy at the same time (late 1700's) promoting his preference for the -er/-or spellings eventually resulting in his 1806 dictionary.  I suppose "national pride" on both sides eventually brought about "standardization" on the home team's favored dictionary.


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## Pedro y La Torre

Nanon said:


> Yet, historically, the French equivalent of _"Brasileiro não sabe português. Só em Portugal se fala bem português" _did exist. The only correct French was spoken in France, and the only correct French of France was either upper-class Paris French or at least "North of the Loire" French... Even within the country, let alone in the colonial context, the command of the language, spelling and grammar, culture, literature... were used as social markers.



Sadly, I'd say that, to a large extent, this mindset still exists in certain milieux.


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## Mishe

I believe the siuation is different for each of the pluricentric languages; it seems to be the result of historical reasons. English displays the highest degree of pluricentrism, with the Commonwealth using the British spelling and the US with its sphere of influence using the American spelling. But one has to take into account that this is due to the fact that American colonies separated already in the 18th century and established their own variety very early on (other vareties such as Australian and South African English staying under British influence for much, much longer). 
In cases of Spanish and Portuguese a large majority of native speakers can be found outside Europe, so the importance and "ownership" of the language is naturally gravitating towards Latin America, although Spanish is spoken in a number of countries and Portuguese only in one huge Latin American country, namely Brazil. Brazil especially is becoming a n. 1 in the Lusophone world, displaying lately a stronger linguistic and cultural influence than Potugal even in Lusophone African countries (such as Cabo Verde and Angola).
French is, as  I see it, the most centralized of the "colonial", pluricentic languages - France obiously sees itself as a leader/centre and a "tete" of the francophone world. The Quebecois do have their own standard, but are too small and obscure to play a significant role in the French-speaking world, outside of Canada that is. It will be interesting to see how important African French varieties will become in the future, as French is growing with the fastest pace on te African continent.
An interesting case of a highly pluricentric language is also German, which is interesting considering only 60 years ago Germans and Austrians considered themselves as the same people.


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## Sepia

Jamaisleño said:


> True, but the way I interpret/use the term "The English of England" or "British English" is in reference to Standard British English: _The variety of the English language that is generally used in professional writing in Britain (or in England or in southeast England) and taught in British schools._


 

My experience with English teachers is that what they really mean is BBC-English. Some of us were even harrassed and sanctioned for speaking AE (in my case probably more like Canadian E) although they had no legal basis for demanding that we speak BE. 

I always asked, where do you find people who really SPEAK like that, but never got an answer. Writing is one thing, but I never ever met anyone who really spoke the way they wanted us to.




Mishe said:


> ...
> An interesting case of a highly pluricentric language is also German, which is interesting considering only 60 years ago Germans and Austrians considered themselves as the same people.


 

Exactly, escept I think that now was 70 years ago. There was even a referendum about that with a 99% "Yes" poll.


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## Ben Jamin

Alxmrphi said:


> Yeah that makes sense as well! Maybe we were being a bit too picky with the terminology.


 Or maybe too concerned about local languages in one country.


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## Welshie

Sepia said:


> My experience with English teachers is that what they really mean is BBC-English. Some of us were even harrassed and sanctioned for speaking AE (in my case probably more like Canadian E) although they had no legal basis for demanding that we speak BE.
> 
> I always asked, where do you find people who really SPEAK like that, but never got an answer. Writing is one thing, but I never ever met anyone who really spoke the way they wanted us to.



They teach you BBC English for the same reason they teach us Hochdeutsch. It is supposed to be a version of the language that is "standard" and "universally understood", whatever that means.


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