Fri, 02 Nov 2007

Valencian children and foreign languages

Recently, GozRita unveiled the names of our two Falleretes majors for 2008's Falles festivities. All the free newspapers did some extensive coverage, with reports on who they are and what they do.

Qué Valencia interviewed the little Fallera major, and then posted this:


Little Victoria learns Valencian

So, Victoria Blázquez speaks English and Valencian "nearly perfectly". Great! I think having newspapers treat Valencian as if it were just another foreign language that students are forced to learn is a great example of the dark future our language will face in just a few generations.

It is worse to force children to learn a language that is only spoken in a region of a country, instead of giving freedom to choose which language they want to learn.

Valencian has not a dark future, because people learn it, and use it. If Valencian disappears in a nearly future, as you have said, will be because of the Valencians.

Therefore, the Valencians have the right to choose, never forget it.

Diego J.

Posted by diegoj at Fri Nov 2 15:05:36 2007

Diego J.,

Have Valencians (or Catalans) the right to choose to learn English, French, German or Chinese instead of Spanish? Can they really choose with Spanish?

Posted by Marc B. at Fri Nov 2 15:23:43 2007

What's the big deal with the possible disappearance of the Valencian language (which is a synonym for the the Catalan language, right?)?

Just looked up the variety of the regional languages in Spain on Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Spain - four official regional languages and even more unofficial? I'd think that would suck.

Standardization is important, not only when it comes to GNOME and KDE standardizing on D-BUS for example, but also in languages. I'm Dutch myself and I had to learn French and German besides English at school, and I think it was a waste of time. If people would simply adhere to the standard international language, English, life would be so much easier because we wouldn't have to learn to essentially communicate the same things through different "protocols"/languages. Schools could let students spend their time on more useful things, people who are used to translating documentation for open source software could spend their time better, you get the idea.

In fact, as a native speaker of the Dutch language, I'd even go as far as saying that we'd be better off if everyone in the world would just switch to English. Unfortunately people are stubborn, and are more concerned about the "dark future" of their language.

Posted by Alexander van Loon at Fri Nov 2 18:28:36 2007

Alexander, languages are very often the main vehicles of cultures. My culture, the way we live and express our views, wouldn't be the same without the unique peculiarities of Valencian.

"Standarising" on languages means reducing a lot more things than just languages to only one way. It's probably a very practical way of thinking, but I definitely don't want to give up part of what makes me different from people from Madrid, Sevilla or Frankfurt just so we have "less protocols". What a boring place the Earth would be...

Posted by jordi at Fri Nov 2 19:02:19 2007

What kind of little girl dreams of being a notary!?!?  Such a nice, socially admired job!

Notaries and property registrars are evil. Take Rajoy (and the law he forced Rato to put out in 1996, making him able to be both a minister and a registrar) as an example. I am pretty sure that nowaday's technology is already up to the level, so that this bunch of conservative bitches aren't needed anymore. Important transactions should be carried out without them taking some big cut of the pie. Damned motherfuckers...

Rest assured that this little princess (just judging by the clothes she wears), this pretty little piece of conservativeness, must surely emerge from the most deep, dark, money-stuffed, PPrian cave in the Avenida Francia you could ever think of.

Posted by Marc Albero at Sat Nov 3 03:52:23 2007

Ha Ha.

Posted by Nelson at Sat Nov 3 07:56:45 2007

Alexander: probably some people the same way you do about French just a couple hundred years ago and maybe even Spanish before, then Latin, then Greek, then....

I'd think learning Chinese would be even more interesting, facing what things could be in the international scenario a few decades on :]

Posted by R at Thu Nov 15 13:23:16 2007

Er... "probably some people thought the same way...", of course

Posted by R at Thu Nov 15 13:24:18 2007

We need the internacional language esperanto!

Posted by joan at Thu Apr 3 22:25:23 2008