How France Tries to Keep English Out of Public Life

citylab.com

5 points·pseudolus··6 comments

I can understand wanting to protect your culture, but the benefits of having a truly global language outweigh personal considerations of cultural pride.

So, other cultures have zero value in the grand scheme of things?

On that note, I'd even say having a personality or individual preferences has zero value too. We run into so many problems as a global society with different ideas of how things should be. If we all were forced to believe in a single political philosophy, that'd make the world a better place.

It's not pride. It's identity and culture.

If you lose your language you lose your culture, you no longer exist as a people.

That's partly true. I've always felt that language is the soil in which culture grows. But different English speaking countries have very different cultures. And culture is more fundamental than language. Language is more of a barrier that leads to isolation, and it's in that isolation that distinct cultures develop.

But my point remains. Your people living today may lament losing their native language, but your children and their children will not, at least not as much. In the long run linguistic unity far outweighs the current generation's unhappiness.

OK, I'm sold. Let's all learn Chinese.

> Your people living today may lament losing their native language, but your children and their children will not, at least not as much.

I haven't read something that arrogant and condescending in a long time.

Actually itd be smarter to force everyone to learn a long dead obscure language. That way everyone starts from scratch rather than a group having a leg up.

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