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English takes over the world... ?

P

patscc

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Don't know if there'll be any takers for this, but here goes:
DISCLAIMER I'm not wedded to english;not my native tongue,nonsensical struture,etc.

But here goes.
For better or worse,english seems to be the defaco world tongue. I don't want drag pre-pc history into this.

I would have expected the importance of english to decline with the adoption of the pc. Obviously it didn't.
My supects:

ASCII

Original versions of most software for non mainframe/micro computers were written in english. Before localization was a part of OS's & their development environment, you had to modify lengthy string tables, and that was if your development team was forward-thinking enough to use stringtables. And that was if your platform could even display non-US ascii.

PC adoption was supported by pirated software( this includes BIOS & extesion ROM's) who didn't have any incentive to hack software to work with other languages.

For a long time, Intel, Motorola, and AMD drove chip develpment; their "advance" documenton was always in english.

Most programming languages are english based. (assebler,b,,c,c++,forth,java,j &vb script,python,perl(well, I guess that's debatable),FORTRAN,BASIC,pascal,modua-2,LISP,APL,JCL,,...)

So,to recap, I think these factors contributed to keeping english important as a language long after it faded.

Please, any thoughts ?

patscc
 
patscc said:
I would have expected the importance of english to decline with the adoption of the pc.
Click to expand...

Hi patscc. I'd be interested to know why you thought English would decline with the advent of the PC? Lots of early development work went on in English speaking countries plus English was already cemented as an International "common tounge" by the time the late seventies came around. I can't see any reasons why PCs would dilute its influence.

English has become a "common tongue" largely as a result of the British empire (in it's heyday) reaching all parts of the globe. and the U.S. speaking English. After WW2, the latter's influence was global, and it's entertainment products (movies, films) were (and are) marketed aggressivly around the world. I'm sure this also helped.

Tez
 
I've found that in the part of the world I'm in, English isn't so much spoken, but English Writing is everywhere. A good chunk of this is on packaging, but there are signs and lot's of other stuff in English here. Albeit, only a small number of people speak English as a second language.

That being said though, tourism has exposed a lot of people to English. Not everyone can speak it, but some people know a couple words.
 
I don't know what it's like in other countries but I'd guess if the language was written by someone who spoke english, it would likely end up using those commands still in other languages and give an intro to some other folks who would otherwise not hear many english words. Of course then having lots of english words originate from other languages also is it's own debate.

What I do know is depending on the part of the US we're in we have a different common second language which is what we'd consider the next up and coming language. Here in Texas and along the border we have lots of Spanish writing and alternatives on signs, intructions, etc. In the North part of the US (Canadian border) it's French. Interestingly I heard that many elementary schools in Kansas however are all teaching the kids Chinese now. When I was in Kansas it was Spanish.
 
I think to clarify the whole Canadian/French thing though, you're going to find that in the east around Quebec and Ontario, but not so much out west here. Personally, I know more Ukrainian and a few words of Scottish Gaelic than I ever knew of French, though I wouldn't have minded learning more :)
 
Hehe, I have to agree with Docred on that (we come from the same part of Canada). In Saskatchewan there are a LOT of Ukrainian communities and people. There's even an annual Ukrainian Festival, where they have Ukrainian Dancing, food, art, and the like. You have to be Ukrainian to get in though (or know someone who is; that's what I did). A good number of my friends in Saskatchewan are from Ukrainian families. In the rural areas there even places where they only speak Ukrainian. If you didn't know you were in Canada, and wandered into these places, you'd think you were in East Europe.

In the northern parts there are a few German communities too, though they don't speak German. This diversity is caused by Saskatchewan's nature as a Prairie province. When people immigrated to Canada, they went to the Prairie provinces, where they were promised land. Thus there's an interesting mix of people.

Like Docred said, in Western Canada, there isn't as much French. It was optional at my High-school, but I didn't take it much. It's just not useful, unless you go into a Government job, in which Case it's required. There are a couple of French towns in the south of Saskatchewan, but that's virtually it.
 
Growing up mostly on the west coast of Canada (Vancouver) I can say that French was pretty rare. There were many families from other Northern European countries but there wasn't one French speaking person in the public schools that I went to. Still, French became compulsory in public school around 1960 and some schools (like two of mine) started earlier. I had 8 years of French classes! Nowadays there seems to be more French speaking people comming out this way, but they seem to prefer English. Still, learning any language is a good thing. In contemporary Vancouver society though, the largest ethnic groups are East Indian and Chineese who speak very different languages from Europeans.

Regarding the world scene. I think tesse pretty much nailed it:
After WW2, the latter's influence was global, and it's entertainment products (movies, films) were (and are) marketed aggressivly around the world. I'm sure this also helped.
Click to expand...
Yep. "American" TV has got the world by the balls. :)

An interesting aside. The first American newspaper was in German. I also believe there was an early vote to choose between the two languages as a national choice.
 
FWIW, I sometimes document my own source code in English, but never discuss any programming related matters with my colleagues in English.
 
Well, if you don't like English as a lingua franca (do you speak Sabir?), there's always the language of the previous empire, Latin. It (and Greek) held sway for a few hundred years as the common language of technology.

I'm afraid the number of introduced foreign words in computer-speak would be frightful, however.
 
Words

Words

Chuck(G) said...I'm afraid the number of introduced foreign words in computer-speak would be frightful, however. /
Click to expand...

I don't know, memoria adibilis (latin for accessible memory --I think--) has a nice ring to it.

German and (I think again) French are notorious for not using English words for computer stuff. Festplatte -> hard drive, schreib/lese speicher or arbeits speicher -> RAM , Zentraleinheit -> CPU . Although English terminoloogy is becoming more embedded, I think. In German, ,Website is perfectly acceptable, as WAP and Server.

How do other languages treat the issue ? Mostly direct translations (i.e. fest -> hard , platte -> disk ) , or direct embedding ( Server -> server , Website -> website ) ?

patscc
 
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