From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Drew Adams" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: (OT) natural language speakers (was: Emacs learning curve) Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:20:06 -0700 Message-ID: <020E81255C3E4319BF455FCE100D9908@us.oracle.com> References: <4C3B6A8A.80105@gmx.de> <87wrt0e81n.fsf@telefonica.net> <62E9699C07054418AB66F9C5FCB54E5C@us.oracle.com> <87sk3oe3la.fsf@telefonica.net> <1154D96E7D2F401D849266F359E44BB9@us.oracle.com> <87ocecdzou.fsf@telefonica.net> <2256C17F740A425884AD551DE7758056@us.oracle.com> <87fwzodqqm.fsf@telefonica.net> <5138CDF30B2D4B778F948015614DA7BC@us.oracle.com> <87iq4ijtdy.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <270AD461F0F14E549F82D88785A23A0A@us.oracle.com> <675D80AD8CAA4D2ABF38193770343D9F@us.oracle.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1279916427 22577 80.91.229.12 (23 Jul 2010 20:20:27 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2010 20:20:27 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: "'Juanma Barranquero'" Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Jul 23 22:20:26 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OcOjI-0002JB-Ql for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 23 Jul 2010 22:20:25 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:47464 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OcOjI-0007Lr-5f for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 23 Jul 2010 16:20:24 -0400 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=50486 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1OcOj9-0007K2-CO for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 23 Jul 2010 16:20:16 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OcOj8-0006NK-At for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 23 Jul 2010 16:20:15 -0400 Original-Received: from rcsinet10.oracle.com ([148.87.113.121]:28368) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OcOj8-0006Mk-3H for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 23 Jul 2010 16:20:14 -0400 Original-Received: from acsinet15.oracle.com (acsinet15.oracle.com [141.146.126.227]) by rcsinet10.oracle.com (Switch-3.4.2/Switch-3.4.2) with ESMTP id o6NKKA8g014289 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=OK); Fri, 23 Jul 2010 20:20:11 GMT Original-Received: from acsmt354.oracle.com (acsmt354.oracle.com [141.146.40.154]) by acsinet15.oracle.com (Switch-3.4.2/Switch-3.4.1) with ESMTP id o6NJMHHb006023; Fri, 23 Jul 2010 20:20:09 GMT Original-Received: from abhmt007.oracle.com by acsmt353.oracle.com with ESMTP id 453644551279916407; Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:20:07 -0700 Original-Received: from dradamslap1 (/10.159.216.179) by default (Oracle Beehive Gateway v4.0) with ESMTP ; Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:20:07 -0700 X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook 11 In-Reply-To: Thread-Index: AcsqnS1k+XxqtWSxRe+7jawmG8r8jwAA6iYA X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.5931 X-Source-IP: acsmt354.oracle.com [141.146.40.154] X-Auth-Type: Internal IP X-CT-RefId: str=0001.0A090204.4C49F979.02AE:SCFMA4539814,ss=1,pt=113350,fgs=0 X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:127724 Archived-At: > > Interestingly (surprising to me, at least), there are more > > secondary speakers of French than of English (and Spanish > > is #5 in secondary speakers). > > Not surprising to me. French has long been considered a "language of > culture". Even in Spanish-speaking countries, French as a second > language was for a long time much more common than English (I should > know, I was never taught English). That part doesn't surprise me. That intellectuals and rulers in Russia, Romania, Rwanda, Rome, or Rochester learn French is neither surprising nor new. A while ago most of (the ruling classes of) Europe spoke French on a fairly regular basis. What I'm guessing is that the current numbers have more to do with ex-colonies than they have to do with "culture"-seeking upper classes and intelligentsia. In particular, African colonies that have large populations. Just an uninformed guess, however. Lemme see (...googles...). This helps a bit, but not as much as I'd like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language. It does say: "A majority of the world's French-speaking population lives in Africa. According to the 2007 report by the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, an estimated 115 million African people spread across 31 Francophone African countries can speak French as either a first or a second language." and "Sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid demographic growth." > I heartily recommend the Language Log posts about the "million word". Thank you. Interesting. This too was helpful in that regard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Language_Monitor > Calvin said it succinctly: "verbing weirds things". ;-) > (And, as everybody knows, if there's two things the anglo-saxon > culture should be remembered for, surely they are Shakespeare and > Calvin & Hobbes :-) Some thing-counters would count that as 3 things.