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The Forum > Article Comments > The mother tongue > Comments

The mother tongue : Comments

By Rebecca Simpson, published 4/7/2012

English has made its native speakers linguistically lazy as well as colonising the rest of the world.

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individual,

My point being that organisations like the IMF and the World Bank are more than happy to jump into bed with corrupt regimes to further line the pockets of the world's corporate elite - at the expense of ordinary people in less developed countries.

I was responding to your assertion that the good ol' West had got over it's penchant for exploiting developing countries. Perhaps if the World Bank had actually worked to improve the lot of the general population in Egypt, things would not have become so dire - same goes for other developing economies.
Posted by Poirot, Thursday, 5 July 2012 11:28:44 PM
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I understand a reasonable amount of an indigenous language & now wish I hadn't been put off learning more when indigenous people told me what do want to f.....g know for after asking what certain words meant.
I understand enough though to realise the names people are being called even though they only want to help. it would certainly change a lot if more people knew what's thought of them by those they want to help. They'd certainly refrain from putting in the effort they do.
Posted by individual, Friday, 6 July 2012 7:49:37 AM
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What ? No flak ? Wasn't I racist enough or did I hit a nerve ?
Posted by individual, Sunday, 8 July 2012 1:48:31 PM
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I have no doubt that having a second language is a good thing.
If I may relate an experience I had years ago it does show the big problem.
I was in an hotel in London and planning a trip to Italy via France
Germany, and Switzerland.
A Frenchman at the hotel asked what language I spoke. I replied only
English. He seemed startled, "only English !".

So I pointed out to him, that from our point of view which language
would you choose ? He replied French of course and perhaps German.
What would I use in Italy ? umm umm was the reply.
It takes so long to learn a language that when you invest all that
time and spend just three days in that country, and then find that
the locals speak English and find it easier to switch to English.
I had one year of French at school and even that helped a lot as I
found that at least greeting the person in their language helps.

As a one time student of Esperanto I found it did help with grammar a bit.
Posted by Bazz, Monday, 9 July 2012 12:03:24 PM
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We are all fluent with our mother tongues and it doesn’t hurt to get another or more tongues.
Posted by Liz Henderson, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 9:29:45 PM
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To add if someone decides to migrate to another country it is important that people learn that new country's language. For example, new migrants should be asked to pass basic English literacy tests before settling in Australia. And same if English speaking people migrate to Japan for instance then they should be able to speak Japanese at least the basics. Otherwise languages and possibly cultures will be lost.
Posted by Liz Henderson, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 9:35:48 PM
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