Wednesday, December 10, 2008
"English is not your own language, it’s our communication tool."
From a lengthy piece about foreign language education in Chosun Magazine. I'll be so bold as to say English is a global language, and that its non-native speakers and learners should strive for some ownership of it. But a line like that in a Korean magazine looks strange, especially when we remember that Koreans call Korean "우리말," or "our language," and do so in that article no less. And though it's true that many English learners will wind up using English not with native speakers but as a lingua franca, that doesn't mean the accumulated culture of its speakers ought to be ignored or trumped by people who don't know the language in the first place. Taken further, lines like "It's not your own language" seem like justification for using garbage like "I feel happyness when I eat a him."
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2 comments:
Personally, I think over the next fifty or a hundred years, especially if/as the US fades from prominence as the world's top power, English (as a lingua franca) will slowly develop a kind of simplified version, possibly even with a simplified spelling, with grammar and structures that are more consistent and easier to use (for example, the word "whom" will drop from use officially, rather than just practically). Sure, there will be people who still treasure "Real" english, kind of like people who refuse to use the simplified Chinese characters, for the sake of purity, but the style of English as it is used for international communication will develop into a leaner, simpler form. It may even be considered a unique dialect, considered separate from the official language...the purist in me kind of hopes so, though I doubt it will.
Retarded. I love it when Koreans or foreigners tell me how to speak English. Koreans can speak Konglish till kimchi goes rotten, but when they come to Canada, I wish them luck getting a job or making friends with Canadians.
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