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2003-09-05 12:27
A global language is a dialect with an army of PR
workers:
French and English remain the only two world languages with solid
roots on five continents. According to the British government, a
quarter of the world's population speak English with some level of
competence, whereas French, with its 80m native practitioners, is
ranked the 11th most spoken language in the world and the ninth most
popular as a second language with 180 million speakers.
That position is now threatened as more and more countries make just
one foreign language obligatory in schools, prompting the French
government to launch a big diplomatic initiative aimed at encouraging
two foreign languages on the curriculum. It has notched up some
successes: in Spain, where only 250,000 pupils were learning French in
2000, 1.3 million are now taught it.
Allons, enfants!
The situation is serious enough for President Jacques Chirac - who
speaks excellent English but avoids using it as a matter of principle
- to intervene. Earlier this year, he asked France's media companies
to come up with plans for a French-language global news channel, a
kind of "CNN � la fran�aise", to ensure France's voice continues to be
heard in the world.
Jean-Marie Cavada, the head of the state-owned broadcaster
Radio-France, said the stakes were high, but France was determined. "A
language is more than just a way of speaking," he said. "It is a
weapon of battle - an indispensable tool for any great country."
In French-French discourse, the rhetorical move from "important global
language" to "great world power" is so well-practiced as to have
become invisible, and Jean-Marie Cavada probably has not the least
idea how ridiculous and parochial this sounds to everyone else.
[Permalink]
2003-09-05 11:13 (UTC+1)
Get
em while they're hot, they're lovely!
At Folkuniversitetet courses are offered to both groups and individuals in Swedish as a foreign language at all levels from beginner to advanced.
The placement tests come as .pdf:s and without answers, though,
presumably because they really are used as placement tests.
Update: There is a clicky fun toy.
[via Anna Louise, tack!]
[Permalink]
2003-09-05 10:53 (UTC+1)
While regaling the Ch�teau with the stripped down and syncopated
stylings of ace rock combo "The White Stripes" I had an occurance -
that post-hip-hop sassy sparsity that they and Beck are widely and
justly celebrated for? That, my Varied Reader, is the unacknowledged
legacy of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis's remake of hoary goth tosspots
"The Cult".
And then I wanted to listen to "Love Removal Machine", but I only have
that on vinyl, which I can't play. Bah!
[Permalink]
2003-09-04 14:05 (UTC+1)
1) An as-much-as-possible-inclusive package deal to North African sun
for two weeks studying the drinking
habits of the Briteesh in Abroadia.
or 2) Continuing the Grand Tour of Baltiwegia (n�e Baltislavia) in
Riga, Vilnius or both.
Sun, vomit and thuggishness vs. Sn�, Old Stuff and complicated travel
arrangements.
What would you do?
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2003-09-04 10:09 (UTC+1)
Britain is introducting a shiny new
Citizenship
Test:
The aim is to make sure new citizens understand English or Welsh
[What? no Cornish?! - des] to at least a level where they could take
an unskilled job.
New citizens should also learn about Britain's institutions and its
history, says the advisory group.
In the entirely likely event (ho ho) that adequate provision for
education is made available, then the proposed scheme looks like a way
of marketing what's really a starter pack in Life In The UK - How She
Work to the frothtastic set by making it look Suitably Tough On
Freeloading Immigrants.
Sigh...
[Permalink]
2003-09-03 14:07
Consider:
Survival International ('Survival') is a worldwide organisation
supporting tribal peoples. It stands for their right to decide their
own future and helps them protect their lives, lands and human rights.
And yet, the unique European tribe of "Royalty" does not enjoy their
patronage! Today more than ever, the distinctive way of life of this
tribe, divided into traditionally exogamous
clans scattered against Europe, is under threat from advocates of
"modernity" and the homogenising forces of Western Capitalism. At
best, they are tolerated as a living museum and expected to perform as
a tourist attraction; at worst they face exile or even execution at
the hands of so-called "Republicans", and the annexing of their traditional
territories and extensive footwear collections by the state.
(Incidentally, if anyone knows of a real-life scholarly treatment of
European Royal Hices from the perspective of a delinquent Marxist
anthropology, could you pretty please let me know?
Overwhelmingly
detailed ethnography I can get - yea, unto the geneologies of the
nth generation - but where's the analysis?)
Also, the current Scientific American is a Spicy Brain Special
Sandwich, and on cursory inspection I'm going to have to reshelve
them with Time and Newsweek under "Leave it, Dezza, they're
not wurfit", but it does mention in passing that it's currently the Decade of Behaviour.
So behave. They'll be watching.
[Permalink]
2003-09-03 09:50 (UTC+1)
1.
Via the s lot, comes Using
Deconstruction to Astonish Friends & Confound Enemies (In Two Easy
Steps!) I followed the link assuming that it was a joke, but it
it's actually funnier that it isn't. The closest I get to an opinion
on Derrida is that he is in greater need of rescuing from his friends
than his enemies, in Anglophonia at least, but the American
Engleeshist tendency to appoint him the Glorious Architect of Year
Zero of a world finally cured of all that pesky metaphysical nonsense
routinely has me in fits of giggles. (Merkins! This is what we in
Yoorp call "irony" - you are not expected to understand.)
2.
How many shoes
must a prinsess buy, before she walks down the street?
Yes, 'n' how many bars must a journaliste try, before finding a
prinsess to greet?
Yes, 'n' how many smiles
must a kronprinsess smile, to cheer up the applicants she beat?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the
wind.
3.
Blue touch paper? Check! Matches? Check! Running shoes? Check!
OK, we're
good to
go:
The average Norwegian worker is almost 20% more productive than his US
counterpart, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has
calculated, exploding the image of American efficiency.
On the other hand, Norwegians (being practically communists) are
allowed to go on holiday sometimes so it all balances out in the end.
[Prinsess linkage swiped from the guestbladet whose flow these days
is like unto a mighty river, tack alla.]
[Permalink]
2003-09-02 14:14 (UTC+1)
Just
how
like her mother is the lovely prinsess Whichever von T. und T.?
In puncto curiosity and life desire however nut/mother and daughter
have the same temper: "recently I was in, scale" , begin the princess
of its favourite music temples at the present residence to
tell. Electrical, 80's-year-he-mix and progressive ones - "if it
slowly begins and ever more Beats is added", that likes it at "trashy
the citizens of Berlin Underground Clubszene". And that they do not
have guest lists as in many other cities, "Punk, I find this
Zerfetzte, the whole Movement somewhat stand remained, but it fits
Berlin", says it and knipst photos.
Punk, I also find this Zerfetzte. (Wistful sigh...)
It shows style. It, "thanks" each third word is polite. "natural",
still says it to the conclusion. "aristocracy means first task. And in
the zaum hold themselves. Model its."
This is actually a more coherent defence of aristocracy that Prince
Michael of Greece managed.
[Permalink]
2003-09-02 11:39 (UTC+1)
The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik does
Paris in the summer:
The real threat to France is not anti-Americanism, which might at
least have the dignity of an argument, an idea, and could at least
provoke a grownup response, but what the writer Philippe Sollers has
called the creeping "moldiness" of French life - the will to defiantly
turn the country back into an enclosed provincial culture. "For the
first time, French people care about their houses," a leading French
journalist complains in shock. "That was always a little England thing
- and now you find intelligent Parisians talking all the time about
home improvements." This narrowing of expectations and horizons is
evident already in the French enthusiasm for cartoon versions of
French life, as in "Am�lie," of a kind the French would once have
thought fit only for tourists. It has a name, "the Venetian
alternative" - meaning a readiness to turn one's back on history and
retreat into a perfect simulacrum of the past, not to reject modernity
but to pretend it isn't happening.
I would have called it Venetian Blindness, but I am weak. In any
case, this is also the impression I get from my priviledged position
on the borders of Francophonia - France is, and perceives itself to
be, fighting a rear-guard action against a future it didn't choose.
The imminent movement of Europe's centre of gravity to the east is
going to pose some interesting questions, too.
[Permalink]
2003-09-02 09:44 (UTC+1)
Beware Bavaria
It is, of course, widely accepted that a gentleman is entirely within
his rights to break off an understanding with his young lady should he
discover the latter to have ambitions on the operatic stage. Such, I
regret to inform you, appears to be the case with the winsome prinsess
Whichever von Thurn und Taxis.
It was in Point de Vue this week, on the occasion of a social
occasion hostessed by her mother, the prinsess Thingy von Thurn und
Taxis, that the sordid truth came out. Part of the wholesome Bavarian
entertainment, you see, comprised itself of an opera by Carl Orff, and
prinsess Whichever was in the cast. You can well imagine my shock.
It was of course her sensitivity and artistic tendencies that had
finally caused her charms to prevail in my esteem over those of her
fetching sister, the prinsess Whatever, and her taste in hats, in
particular, is unimpeachably aristocratic. But opera!
I regret to say that unless I receive certain very specific assurances
in the near future, I shall be obliged to return to considering myself
romantically unattached.
[Permalink]
2003-09-01 17:10 (UTC+1)
As in "I find the relative coolth of the autumn refreshing," which is
currently the case. I was even moved to bring a jumper ("sweater") in today. In fact, I started my walk to work actually wearing it, but the exertions took their toll by half-way. It was a bit nippy in the big lecture theatre ("theater") for the seminar, though.
My Concise OED says the word is mostly jocular, but
heating and refrigeration engineers use it with tongues serenely
unencheeked, and so can you. What's the point of having an extensive productive morphological system if you don't use it?
[Permalink]
2003-09-01 13:25 (UTC+1)
I've been looking for something along these lines for ages, and now I
have one, hoorah!
"Simulation d'hypoth�ses �mis�s par Propp et L�vi-Strauss en utilisant
un syst�me de simulation meta-symbolique." (Informatique et
Sciences Humaines, No. 28, pp. 63-133, Mars 1976) by Klein, S.,
Aeschliman, Applebaum, Balsisger, Curtis, Foster, Kalish, Kamin, Lee &
Price is now available
online.
It's in French, it's a scan of a typewriter-ish original, and I got it
from here. The code
looks, um, interesting.
Meanwhile Transblawg has an outline of
the IKEA product-naming scheme - Beds, wardrobes, hall furniture:
Norwegian placenames, Dining tables and chairs: Finnish placenames,
and much much more. I hear that the IKEA catalogue translation is all
done by computer, but Google won't find me a reliable source.
[Permalink]
2003-09-01 09:36 (UTC+1)
1. Eurofolkomr�stning
UKish readers! Help the campaign Swedish EMU campaign by, um,
opposing it!
Big-name British eurosceptics have also been in evidence. Last week
Bernard Connolly, author of The Rotten Heart of Europe, spoke here and
this week will see the former UK Chancellor Lord Lamont hold
forth. Their intervention has delighted Swedish yes
campaigners. 'British Tory lords telling us what to do doesn't go down
well,' laughs Erik Zsiga of the Yes campaign.
Bildt adds: 'It's been particularly helpful for us. We've had these
[British] loonies over here talking about Hitler and stuff and that
has led lots of Swedes to quit the no side. Send us more of your
loonies!'
I put this to the 'bladet's old chum, Viscount Lionel "Squiffy" St.
John-Hatstand, and he obligingly remarked:
The EU is controlled by a power-mad race of evil space lizards who
will sell your children into slavery and sodomise your many goats!
Whatever you do, don't vote yes!
Good egg, Squiffy. Not entirely sure that isn't his genuine opinion,
actually.
2. CCC
The first rule of
Chef
Club is you do not ask whose turn it is to cook.
Since time immemorial cooks have had privileged access at the court of
worldly power and the collected eavesdroppings of the Club des Chefs
des Chefs would make illuminating reading.
But apart from their prowess at the pan, the main attributes of club
members are diplomacy and discretion.
The only nugget revealed by Walter Scheib to reporters this week is
that President Bush kept French fries on the menu throughout the
Franco-US rift over Iraq.
The second rule of Chef Club is that you save it for your memoirs.
3. Kronprinsessor in lurrrve
Aw.
Victoria vill d�rf�r f�rlova sig.
- Men hon �r en aning gammelmodig och tycker att det �r Daniel som
ska fria, s�ger samma k�lla.
[Vickan therefore wants to get engaged.
"But she is a little
old-fashioned and thinks that it is Daniel who should propose," says
the same source.
Let's just hope that he doesn't come down with the
questionpoppingdeficiencysyndrome that has blighted poor
Kronprinsfred's attempts to wed...
[Linkage via Birgitte, Anna K, and, in a shocking development, me.]
[Permalink]
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