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Comment by Asbostos | Hacker News Reader

He mentions the multiple languages. I don't understand why Europeans stick to their local languages when they all know English anyway. Are they trying to keep foreigners out? Surely they realize there's a huge social cost of having your own minority language. This problem exists in China too but most people recognize the need to learn the standard Mandarin so they're largely bilingual. Dialect at home and Mandarin talking to everyone else even if it comes with a funny accent.

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I speak English very well. I have spoken it in professional environments for so long that, in a regular conversation, even accent barely reveals that I'm a non-native speaker anymore. However, my own native language is part of my cultural heritage, a heritage that I deeply appreciate, which is very dear to me and which cannot be adequately rendered in English any more than The Canterbury Tales can be adequately rendered in my own language.

We stick to our local languages because they're part of who we are. Europe would probably have a little more money if we stopped doing that, but it would be a lot poorer.

> huge social cost of having your own minority language.

Scandinavians are some of the most successful societies, despite of small languages. Languages have cultural baggage to them; every time I hear English, I see high inequality, poor worker rights, obsession with money, yet excellence in science and higher education. No one wants to abandon their own and assume English identity.

Once again, state in the US != country in the EU, and Europe != China. Those are not "local" languages (or "minority" languages), they are "national" languages, no matter how ridiculously small you may think those nations are. There are "regional" (or "local") languages too, but they are rarely used in a professional environment, and thus more akin to dialects in China. This has strong cultural implications.

"a shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot"

(A language is a dialect with an army and a navy)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_a...

English (or rather, some sort of English-like pidgin dialect) is the lingua franca in most or even all IT companies at least in Germany and I would guess also Scandinavia. It is true though that a lot of subtleties are lost if you don't communicate in your native language. Also the downvotes for you are completely justified. Languages and dialects are a cultural treasure, not a disadvantage.

"I don't understand why Europeans stick to their local languages when they all know English anyway. Are they trying to keep foreigners out?" So many things wrong with this sentence.

I agree with you, but your comment doesn't add information. It would be better to reply with one or more of the things that are wrong with that sentence. Then we all learn something.

For a splendid example, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10220679.

A big difference in China is that the writing system is the same regardless of spoken language, so that works pretty well for the Internet. I think you also overestimate how many and how well people speak Mandarin in China. According to the Internet only about half of people in China can speak Mandarin: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-03/07/content_5812838...

The languages are also a problem for Europeans, because it's a big threshold for finding a job outside your own country. For example The Netherlands is very small, but German or French are to hard to speak. It's Dutch or you'll have to move to an English speaking country. Most Dutch people speak English, so there is that.

No, not everybody in Europe speaks English. Not in France, not in Germany, not in Spain, not in Italy.

And even if we did, we wouldn't just let an essential part of our culture die like that.

Anecdotal of course but for what's it's worth on the basis of around twenty cross-Europe trips by car I would say very few speak English. We live in bubbles and tend to believe they're shared by all.

Lets start that since that since the Cromwell times Britain has not been a part of Europe by its own choosing. The whole balance of power. Even today UK is a different beast than all the rest of Europe.

Also one of the huge benefits of post WWII order was the creation of homogeneous national countries. Which explains the abnormally long peace period. So nationalism and national identity are extremely strong in europe.

If Scotland were to secede, I have no doubts Scotland would join the EU and the UK would leave.

England does not see itself as part of Europe. If anything, England sees Europe as an extension of France. And England hates France with a vengeance. Geography and history aside, the UK is not a European country at heart.

Almost all European countries have high level proficiency in English: http://www.ef.pl/epi/

The challenge is that still a lot of things are distributed (you are vastly more likely to read your national news, shop at national ecommerce shop, shipping rates are much higher if you do that oversees, etc.).

Not everyone in the USA speaks English either.

^ This is the most american thing I've seen all day, and earlier I saw a Chevy with an eagle and the US Flag painted all over it with a rifle on the inside. (not uncommon in North Carolina)

> I don't understand why Europeans stick to their local languages when they all know English anyway.

Because the local language is a majority language where it is the local language, and, globally, every language is a minority language (and English isn't even the biggest minority -- its #2, far behind Mandarin, for total speakers, and #3, behind Spanish which is far behind Mandarin, for native speakers.)

> they all know English anyway

Not all of us speak English.

I haven't seen any serious tech companies in Germany that don't require at least basic English skills.

And thus, the percentage of talent that european companies are able to see and reach is only a part of the whole talent available. Bad for both parts. Yes, is another big problem also.

English is not useful for everybody outside of UK/Ireland so most people do not speak it or are really bad at it.

That's not true of the Netherlands, for example. Maybe Europe as a whole, but as time goes on English is becoming much more widely understood.

I'm with you. I speak Romanian but it's totally worthless compared to English. It's a shame that European countries (especially poor ones) don't switch to English immersion schooling to give their students a chance in life.

I also speak Romanian and I am NOT with you. You're free to emigrate if you don't appreciate your country or cultural heritage, this way you'll do yourself and to the rest of us a great service!

Călătorie sprâncenată, frățâne!

> I don't understand why Europeans stick to their local languages when they all know English anyway.

Because they don't all know English and even if they did, why the fuck should they?

It's worth mentioning that Italians also exhibit diglossia as well not only the Chinese. They speak in dialect at home or with friends and family within the community but in the official Italian in public.

We Arabic speakers also enjoy or suffer , it depends on your perspective, from this phenomenon as we mostly speak in dialect all the time but in formal contexts esp. in writing, we use the Modern Standard Arabic instead. However, writing in dialect or MSA derived languages is becoming more acceptable in literature and the press at least where I come from, that's Egypt.

and I thought that Europeans were bit more insular than their US peers but wait till you see an ethnocentric/lingocentric American voices their opinions on the English language and its perceived supreme status over other languages of the globe.

No wonder Jeb Bush is taking a lot of flack for speaking Spanish in public when you got crowd like this.

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