Language

This week in English we did various readings on langauge and watched a video on the origin of English. One of the readings in particular were pretty interesting because they talked about the location shift and endangerment of various languages in the world today. Interestingly enough approximately 800 dying languages are represented within the city of New York, many of which are spoken by a higher population there, than it the languages country of origin. Another reading that I found to be particularly interesting was about how the French seem to be losing there language to various other cultures. They react to this in a very odd manner, by which I mean the react somewhat indifferently to the fact that their language is spoken by less French than other cultures, but at the same time, with contempt at other peoples attempting to adopt the language. This way of thinking is not one I am accustomed to for several reasons, the first being that in America, we are essentially a melting-pot of cultures and langauges (as NYC so aptly demonstrates). The second reason is represented abroad in Africa. I have traveled several times to the dark continent, and have gotten a few insights into various cultures there, and after seeing them, I realized that languages there seem to generously and happily shared between peoples. So with these two things defining the way I view the distribution of language between cultures, I was surprised at the French's reaction. I summation, I suppose language can be a thing of personal pride to a nation (or culture), as well as something that is designed to bring serval diverse cultures together, such as Swahili.