Exit English?

[Unkotare]

German, English and French are official EU languages. But you need a lot of fantasy to call it German, what is spoken here. It is rather some One-World-Idiot-Language of a regressing species and similar to "BASIC English"

I feel your pain. I have older German friends who cannot stand what Americanization and globalization have done to the German language. I fear that the language of Goethe -- or even of Christian Morgenstern -- is well on its way to extinction.

It may surprise you that I feel the same way about English. I detest smug English speakers who gloat about English becoming a world language -- I regard such an outcome as the death of English -- all its subtlety and quirkiness would be crushed out of existence, it makes me shiver.

I revere the Chinese language -- at least classical Chinese -- but it is not for Europe, and it is too difficult to serve as a world language.

I favour reviving ancient Attic Greek as a world language. It is the most beautiful language that I know, both as a spoken language and for its literary heritage. Its use would elevate culture and science to a greater degree than any modern language.

Most people think that its grammar is too difficult, but that is not so. I have myself reduced 90% of its grammar to seven short pages. One just needs to know how the phonology changes in different spoken environments.

Of course, I am not holding my breath for Europe to adopt ancient Greek, but it would be a wonderful thing if it did.

All languages that are not dead change, same as in nature.

 

[Unkotare]

German, English and French are official EU languages. But you need a lot of fantasy to call it German, what is spoken here. It is rather some One-World-Idiot-Language of a regressing species and similar to "BASIC English"

I feel your pain. I have older German friends who cannot stand what Americanization and globalization have done to the German language. I fear that the language of Goethe -- or even of Christian Morgenstern -- is well on its way to extinction.

It may surprise you that I feel the same way about English. I detest smug English speakers who gloat about English becoming a world language -- I regard such an outcome as the death of English -- all its subtlety and quirkiness would be crushed out of existence, it makes me shiver.

I revere the Chinese language -- at least classical Chinese -- but it is not for Europe, and it is too difficult to serve as a world language.

I favour reviving ancient Attic Greek as a world language. It is the most beautiful language that I know, both as a spoken language and for its literary heritage. Its use would elevate culture and science to a greater degree than any modern language.

Most people think that its grammar is too difficult, but that is not so. I have myself reduced 90% of its grammar to seven short pages. One just needs to know how the phonology changes in different spoken environments.

Of course, I am not holding my breath for Europe to adopt ancient Greek, but it would be a wonderful thing if it did.

German is in no immediate danger of extinction.

 

[ABikerSailor]

You know one of the main reasons that English has spread all over the world?

It's because English is the official language of pilots and flight crews. That happened because America was the first country to attain powered flight.

 

[Maggdy]

You know one of the main reasons that English has spread all over the world?

It's because English is the official language of pilots and flight crews. That happened because America was the first country to attain powered flight.

Furthermore, in computer science also the English alphabet in common. I can not use all Hungarian characters, because the web-site rejects it. (Such as passwords and user names, etc.) But, this is not a problem, just one message.