I think you misunderstand what I am referring to. I am not talking about a wish to learn a language, but to consider languages as useful or useless in regards to their entire existence.
This is unfortunately not very uncommon in people of European countries who look down upon regional languages, stating that their existence or that learning them is useless (not for them only, but for anyone) just because you can already do the task of communicating with others through the national language (per example, considering the existance of the Occitan language useless because the people of everywhere where it is spoken can already understand French). This is done by people who not understand (or even worse, who don’t care about) the value that exists in language from a cultural perspective.
I know this all sounds like Mandarin to most of the userbase of this place (which I suppose to be mainly from the US and alien to the politics of places where big regional languages exist in the same space than even larger national languages), but it’s not only the attitude of some regular people but also of some major political forces. Just a few months ago, a far-right party in Spain vowed to shut down the Academy of Valencian Language if they ever reached power (something I suppose a linguist like you would never approve), under the excuse of its existence being “a threat to national unity”.
Please, here in the states we squashed so many native languages it’s impossible to count. And I’m no scholar— I just like translating poetry and ordering drinks in other languages
I think you misunderstand what I am referring to. I am not talking about a wish to learn a language, but to consider languages as useful or useless in regards to their entire existence.
This is unfortunately not very uncommon in people of European countries who look down upon regional languages, stating that their existence or that learning them is useless (not for them only, but for anyone) just because you can already do the task of communicating with others through the national language (per example, considering the existance of the Occitan language useless because the people of everywhere where it is spoken can already understand French). This is done by people who not understand (or even worse, who don’t care about) the value that exists in language from a cultural perspective.
So interesting. Thank you for the perspective.
Thank you.
I know this all sounds like Mandarin to most of the userbase of this place (which I suppose to be mainly from the US and alien to the politics of places where big regional languages exist in the same space than even larger national languages), but it’s not only the attitude of some regular people but also of some major political forces. Just a few months ago, a far-right party in Spain vowed to shut down the Academy of Valencian Language if they ever reached power (something I suppose a linguist like you would never approve), under the excuse of its existence being “a threat to national unity”.
Nationalism: not even once.
Please, here in the states we squashed so many native languages it’s impossible to count. And I’m no scholar— I just like translating poetry and ordering drinks in other languages