RE: Birdie Birds And Great Tits

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Good then! It all matters from what perspective you are looking at things. If you are going for a beer at the pub no one really wants to hear about power politics in Foucault.

And true right, but one thing, if I can get a little political myself, in South Africa and Afrikaans, we tend to look north towards Europe and the Netherlands. But we forget the wonderful languages in South Africa. I am so sad that my parents never exposed us to say Xhosa or Zulu. I am trying to learn these languages now, but I am really bad at learning new things, especially languages. (And the sad thing is we were not exposed to these languages due to in part apartheid and all that nonsense.) Let me not get too political on this topic!

That must be very lonesome for no one to understand you, but also very humbling to speak such an old language?



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If you are going for a beer at the pub no one really wants to hear about power politics in Foucault.

Or you just haven't found the right pub for that.

Let me not get too political on this topic!

I have only a vague comprehension about apartheid so get political if you want, I'd like to know more. And when it's about language, it's not even off topic, which is also okay. :)

That must be very lonesome for no one to understand you, but also very humbling to speak such an old language?

I haven't really thought about it that way and I'm not sure if the majority of Finns know how old Finnish language is compared to other languages. And the Finnish mentality, at least the stereotype of it, is that we're fine on our own and let us just be in our dark caves isn't the kind that would suffer loneliness that much. Besides, I tend to mention the weirdness of Finnish language pretty often in my comments or posts so I guess I'm proud of it. Yeah, that's it, I'm proud. Good thing that you made me think about what I think about my mother tongue.

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And when it's about language, it's not even off topic, which is also okay.

True! So I did some courses on linguistics and second language acquisition. I am no expert, it is more from a psychology perspective as well where my interest is. But from the courses I did, the current data points to parents from previously disadvantaged wants their children to go to school in English. The reason for this, in apartheid South Africa, home language schooling for those doing Xhosa, Zulu, etc., was inferior quality. Today, I think that across languages, the education is better. But loads of parents from that era, plus the children who went through what was then called "Bantu education" want to send their children to English schools. A lot of these children are not proficient in English, as they do not hear it at home that much, so they fall behind. The one stat was something like, children who get home language schooling (Afrikaans, English, Xhosa, Zulu, etc.) are two grades ahead of children who get education in their second language as their main schooling language.

Plus, very few Afrikaans and English speakers go through the trouble to acquire a language like Xhosa or Zulu. And the one reason, I would guess, is that my generation (1990's baby) did not get exposure to those languages when we were young. You might have heard about it, but the critical acquisition period or critical period hypothesis for gaining home or first language proficiency. I think that you need to be exposed to a language before puberty. Long story short, in South Africa language is very political, but things are changing, I think, or hope.

Good thing that you made me think about what I think about my mother tongue.

Oh, I am glad I could do this! And yes, one rarely thinks about these things if one is not reminded of them. I think that few people really care about the history of things if it doesn't help them gain something. If you cannot "use" the fact that Finnish is one of the oldest languages to your advantage (think, like in politics and national identity) then people will easily forget about it. For example, people in South Africa easily boast about our 11 official languages, but if you look at the practical implementation, mostly we use English and sometimes, depending on region, we use English, Afrikaans, and Xhosa (Western and Eastern Cape) or Zulu (KwaZulu Natal).

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The reason for this ... as their main schooling language.

I think the same thing has been a problem in Finland too with the Saami language (in northern Finland) that has been spoken as long as Finnish as both languages descend from the same proto-language but unfortunately there were more Finnish speakers than Saami speakers so I think there never was a proper education in Saami as there were just Finnish or Swedish speaking schools. So if one didn't speak Finnish well, learning must have been really difficult.

Long story short, in South Africa language is very political, but things are changing, I think, or hope.

I hope so too. Too many people don't see how different languages and different people are the richness of life, not something that just needs to changed so that everyone are or speak the same.

For example, people in South Africa easily boast about our 11 official languages, but if you look at the practical implementation

Uh, I so recognize this here too. People who seem to be so proud of certain things do not necessarily support that in real life. But lets hope things get better, if not in any other way than old conservative decision makers dying to old age and younger and wiser people take their places. So I'm virtually rising my glass here now and stating: "Here's to dying!"

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I think there never was a proper education in Saami

This is actually so sad. Afrikaans is a relatively young language (how we speak it today, something like 100 years old). And it is slowly dying according to one idea about the survival of languages: education. As you mentioned, without education in a language, it will be difficult for that language to survive. Afrikaans is in some sense banished from tertiary education (except for small portions in universities). This is affecting secondary education as more and more Afrikaans speaking secondary students are opting for English due to University (i.e., tertiary education) being almost exclusively English. (We find it more and more that if we meet up "academically" pure Afrikaans speakers will talk to each other in English even though both speakers are second language English speakers.) There are obviously other factors as well, but education and language goes hand in hand I would argue.

different languages and different people are the richness of life

Oh yes! I cannot agree more. Even though we humans are very similar in most regards, culture and language give life so much more color. It is wonderful to experiences different cultures in terms of how they conceptualize the world but also in terms of food, etc. Losing even only one language is an irrevocable and utterly sad tragedy.

"Here's to dying!"

What a wonderful metaphor! Indeed, but let us hope the dying is of such character that it provides nutrients and not anti-nutrients so that we can flourish in our rich diversity and multiplicity.

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