What Do You Think About Protecting Own Language From ...

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What do you think about protecting own language from foreign influence?

Do you think that the law on protect national languages from the influence of other languages, eg. English, Russian, German etc ?

I am a Polish, and a student of library science

Recently I read that the current ruling party Law and Justice is working on a new law "On protects the Polish Language", apparently in France have similar language law to protect language French, the French even use French as the main language of air traffic control over France, although most other countries use English as the main aviation language xD

Our-right wing politician not like for exemple that journalist or other politician use English word briefing instead of our Polish word "Konferencja Prasowa - Press Conference"
These politicians are proposing to prohibit the use of foreign words in the media, which have their counterparts in Polish.
They wanted to remove all anglicisms, germanisms and russianism from Polish language

I talked about it with my Polish with my literacy Professor from my university what he think about this about this
He said he did not know exactly, he is pissed off sometimes these accretions from other languages, but this type of law stink a little "language fascism"
But what is fascist in the defense of mother language?

On an official level? I don't know.

I do absolutely understand it. It infuriates me so much that so many English people can't write properly in English. I'm not talking about complex understanding of grammar and sentence structure, but about basic spelling and punctuation. I don't take people seriously if they can't write properly. I see them as uneducated and I don't take their opinions on board. Particularly annoying is when the response to this being pointed out (by others; I've never pointed it out myself) is "I'm not in an English exam", as though the English language was designed just for an academic setting.

Of course, some argue here that "Language is evolving. This is evolution." And that annoys me a lot. Evolution is minor, slow adaptation, and the introduction of new words to describe new concepts. I don't think evolution is 'not bothering to learn to spell, and then using the excuse that you don't need to because you're not in an exam'.

So, I can totally appreciate how it's important to protect languages from influences, either home-grown or foreign. But, arguably, those of us that want to protect languages (from whatever) do have to adapt, because they're going to change without us. Protecting Polish is a great and noble quest, but are people from all over the world going to make the effort to learn Polish to continue interacting with the people of Poland, or are they going to decide it's not worth it? Likely, the latter.

First of all, I understand that some people don't like it when the language is altered by foreign influence. A lot of the time it makes you think "why don't you just use the non-English word?", but what exactly is, in your opinion, the problem with this?

Here is what I think: language changes all the time and such change isn't necessarily good or bad. Much of this change originates from other languages, meaning that many words that 'belong' to own's own language are loanwords that got incorporated into the main language in previous centuries, like how (correct me if I'm wrong) 'Konferencja Prasowa' is ultimately Romance in origin. So why are foreign influences that enter the language now bad and those earlier ones ok?

Secondly, to protect a language means to take away some of the freedoms people have regarding language use. Besides that, how could you enforce language laws effectively? That would require a ton of 'censorship' and alteration of the way speak and write in their daily lives.

Ultimately, I think language protectionism is a lost fight.

I like the idea to an extent. At least, I certainly sympathise, for example, with efforts to protect dialects. But now that media are completely global, most natural obstacles to flooding-out with prestige dialects are basically gone forever. I suppose that applies between languages, too.
I just prefer a more compartmentalised world. I find a sense of locality important, but already really weak. It's probably a sort of hopeless nostalgia. I'd be interested to know whether any purism project - as opposed to modernising or simplifying reforms - has ever actually 'worked.' I doubt it.

Supposedly, Icelandic is quite purist, with a tendency for neologisms instead of obvious loanwords. I've seen a few super conservative experiment type texts. A few in English and I think one in Russian, where foreign influence past certain arbitrary periods is excluded. They're quite interesting, but ultimately just novelties. I'm sure I've seen a few texts written in a hypothetical modern English where there had been little-to-no Norman influence.

But then, I wonder whether language purism is easier or harder to get popular support for in places where a large proportion of the population are bilingual. Perhaps loanwords feel less invasive if many people have quite fluent access to the source language. Or, on the other hand, perhaps multilingualism makes the separate languages easier to mentally divide and so would give purism more meaning.

I think this is a subject where native anglophones' opinions naturally carry less weight - since their local English isn't as likely to have as many loanwords leaking into it, as non-anglophones are to have English cropping up all over the place. The speed that neologisms and phrases spread through younger people makes me a little bit sad for us humans, being so receptive. Then again that's always been the way dialect worked, only now instead of one village ingraining phrases its whole countries or large sections of an entire language-sphere in a few months.

Despite sympathising, I wouldn't support new laws to that end. As Tesla1856 said, how could it practically be enforced? Style-guides can already keep the language fairly conservative in some large sections of the media.

As Voynich has said, the opinions of native anglophones perhaps carry less weight... however I must say that hasn't stopped me (a native speaker of English) from developing a personal opinion on the matter. As someone who finds languages endlessly fascinating, I find it depressing and frustrating that English has invaded other languages to such an extent; reasonable loan words are one thing, but when English words bleed in for no reason at all when a perfectly good equivalent (or 2, or 3) already exists it's ridiculous. I find it distressing that little by little all the world's languages are being homogenised towards American English.

Japanese is my second language, so right now that's the only language I feel qualified to discuss, but I've heard that the situation in many European languages is fairly bleak, as well, in terms of English language invasion. I disagree with the opinion that if, for example, French words adopted into English go back into French, that French is simply being invaded by itself. The words have been altered enough to become English, in my opinion. Please don't take offence if you disagree. I don't mean to sound impolite. I'm just stating my personal opinion, which probably not many people share.

So, regarding the protection of other languages, any measures which don't unreasonably impede personal freedom have my empathy and support. For example, I think that official media (news, magazines, official websites etc) should be required to use native words or other well-established words only. Signs should be in the native language and if there is English present, it should be in smaller print. And I think translations from foreign languages (especially English) should be required to follow a guideline which ensures the work is properly translated and not simply rewritten with native grammar whilst keeping large portions of English vocabulary.

I think dubbing most foreign television shows on the air would also help. The original audio version could be included on DVD/Blu Ray. Businesses and schools could also have guidelines to follow. People should be free to talk however they want at home or with friends, regardless of how some of us may feel about their choice of words, but I believe in professional settings proper language (no gratuitous English etc) should be enforced.

Anyway, that's my general opinion on the subject. I don't mean to sound authoritative. This is just my personal opinion. Languages are a special interest of mine and I think most of us become very passionate about things we're interested in.

The rest of this post is a far more detailed, lengthy, and Japanese-centric* rant which you may not want to read. I apologise in advance and read onwards at your own peril.

*(I can't speak about other languages in this regard, as I haven't got enough experience with them.)

In case you don't want to be bored by reading to the bottom: if you play video games in a language other than English, I'd be very interested to hear how much English remains intact in the translations.
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Japanese is riddled with hundreds, probably thousands, of unnecessary, gratuitous English words. One generally finds an English word written in katakana for every few words in a news article online. In video games, the situation is equally depressing. (Note: When one comes across the word 'speedy' in a Japanese text, that's a perfect example of gratuitous English because there are multiple ways to express this concept already existing in Japanese.)

If the game is Japanese-made, it tends to have part of the interface featured in actual English, and (if said game is an RPG) the clothing, armour, and weapons are almost universally labelled in katakana English rather than Japanese, or older loan words from other languages.
Example : Many games use 'pantsu' (pants) for trousers rather than 'zubon'. Yes, even though there's no good reason why the new Americanised English word is apparently 'better' than the older loan word. By the way, the older word makes more sense anyway, as under normal circumstances, 'pantsu' (pants) means underwear, as it does in British English. And having two different meanings for 'pantsu' is just adding ambiguity for no other reason than to emulate American English.
This is in fact another issue which really annoys me to no end; the replacement of older loan words by newer loan words from an apparently more 'prestigious' language. (In most cases, American English)

Rather ironically, if the game is western-made, there is usually a lot less blatant English, however I've seen a few incomplete translations which must be a mixture of laziness and arrogance -> (everyone understands English anyway, why translate everything?? If you can't understand it, that's your problem!)

Fall Out 4, in particular, would deserve the worst English to Japanese translation award, if such an award existed. The quest names and skill names were all left in English, all the gear is in katakana and there's so much katakana English everywhere else that it made my eyes bleed. The actual translation, itself, left much to be desired, but that's off-topic.

The real issue is when translators can't be bothered to translate. Possibly because they don't want to. Perhaps they believe that in leaving an enormous amount of English intact, they'll somehow help the population to become more proficient in English? Either way, I think it's a serious disservice to native speakers and learners alike and it's butchering two languages at the same time. And by the way, if people want to improve their English, it makes more sense to me for them to toggle the language to actual English in the first place.

I'd like to make it clear that I'm not against loan words, themselves. I'm simply opposed to a gratuitous usage of loan words which has the potential to ruin a language's structure and sound for no reason apart from an attempt to be 'modern' and 'cool'.

By the way, I'm well aware that a large portion of Japanese vocabulary is actually imported from Chinese. So I'm not saying imported words are all bad. However, Chinese is to Japanese as Latin is to English. My meaning here is that words of Chinese origin (kango) are well established in Japanese and form the foundation of much of the vocabulary. In the same way that Latin prefixes and suffixes have apparent meaning in English, kanji form similar morphemes which can be combined in logical ways.
On the other hand, new loan words are simply loan words with a surface meaning, yet no meaningful roots in the language.

For example, 母語話者 (bogowasha) which means native speaker, makes logical sense to anyone who knows the kanji. Mother + words/language + talk/speak + suffix that means a person who does something.
Likewise, 'native speaker' makes sense in English, because 'native' and 'speak', and the suffix 'er' are morphemes in English. However, in Japanese, the term 'native speaker' has no immediate, apparent meaning. It's simply a katakana phrase 'neitibusupiikaa' and if someone has no prior knowledge of what these words mean in English, then this phrase cannot be dismantled into its morphemes.

Anyway, my point is that there is a fundamental difference between old 'loan words' which make up the foundation of a language's morphemes versus an influx of unnecessary loan words which have no basis in the language. And there's also the subjective argument that a new loan word probably sticks out a lot worse than the old imported words. The Chinese based words in Japanese, in my opinion, sound much more like they belong in Japanese than the newer English words do.

Others might disagree with me, particularly fellow native English speakers, who may be thrilled to find so many English words in Japanese, which no doubt makes the vocabulary more readily accessible. However, I feel that every time I see an English word, I'm being deprived of the chance to learn a Japanese word, or another interesting and logical kanji compound. And personally, I feel that the blatant overuse of English words is doing little but cheapening Japanese and turning it into something of a strange English creole language.

In closing, loan words here and there are fine, but when a logical neologism could be constructed instead, I think loan words should be avoided.

In English, loan words from Japanese are related to Japanese things... martial arts, Buddhism related topics, meditation, karaoke, and otaku culture. 'Tsunami' is one of a handful of exceptions. This is how I think loan words should be. Loan words related to a specific foreign culture are understandable. The katakana equivalents for 'spoon','door', and 'bed', for example, are fine in Japanese because 'spoon' is a western eating utensil, 'door' refers to western style doors only, and 'bed' refers to western style beds. But in other areas, not specifically related to foreign objects or culture, I feel that neologisms created from existing morphemes serve a language much better.

I think a good rule of thumb is that if the new loan word isn't naming something culturally specific and the word isn't going to receive a narrowed meaning in the new language, then it's probably redundant and odds are there's already a perfectly good existing word. If not, a proper neologism, composed of existing morphemes is needed.

In the end, I know we can't control the 'evolution' or devolution, as it may be, of languages, but people could certainly avoid overuse of unneeded English words if they really wanted to. And I think we should be free to rant about languages just to vent, even if it will never change anything.

If you've survived this post and haven't got a migraine and don't want to kill me, I appreciate it. This is just a topic that's been bothering me for a long time now and I haven't had a chance to discuss it. Also, if you play video games in a language other than English, I'd be very interested to hear how much English remains intact in the translations. Thanks.

i think that that kind of law is just not a good idea, for basically the same reason why unnecessary loanwords from influential languages are annoying (although i don't find loanwords annoying per se, even if they're unnecessary. it's the blatantly foreign words with no adaptation that are annoying). both make the resulting language sound artificial, as if the language itself (or the way how everybody prefers to use it) isn't good enough

the problem is that some terms that have to be used by many people in practice (at work, or because it's the only word left that won't sound pedantic) are introduced by only a few people. translators (and other people involved in mass media who end up translating things or repeating newly-translated things) can be lazy, or lack creativity, or be impressionable, or be limited by stupid corporate guidelines. and marketeers and propagandists want to do marketing and propaganda, naturally

if you really want to "protect the ecosystem of a language", then i think you need to work with the media and the education system to come up with guidelines and to turn those guidelines into standard practice. and, on the other side of the coin, you need to define how to enforce similar guidelines on packaging, advertising and documentation. but if you just pass a law saying what's supposed to be okay and what's not supposed to be okay with the language and define some kind of punishment or something, then that's just nationalist demagoguery

So censorship to protect language is bad?
French did mild form of it for many years

My Spanish teacher says that no language has rules. It's just that people force rules upon a language to make it easier for foreigners to learn. When people speak in the real world, most of the time they're not going to think about rules, or if they should use a word from their own language or a different language. They just get their point across.

As much as I would like to see languages being kept pure, I think it would be a lost cause.

Germany had laws to protect German from foreign language (many English) intrusion.

France had laws to protect French from English (which is especially ridiculous because English has been borrowing heavily from French for a thousand years). Being a soldier, and a martinet in the cause of garrisoning the French vocabulary from invasion and assault by English has no raison d'etre in my opinion.

And even within English there were defensive battles fought between various kinds of English.

In the Fifties BBC announcers were forbidden to use American English. But then came the Payola Scandal. It became impossible for BBC announcers to report on the story without using words like "deejay", "payola", or rocknoll. So that rule finnally collapsed

There is movement of folks who want to purify modern English of all Romance language influence (especially French and Latin), and want an English that only uses words of Germanic origin (Anglo Saxon, and Norse).

The word "vocabulary" would be replaced by the word "wordstock" (kinda cool actually) for example. But all of these efforts to keep languages pure are rather pointless, and hopeless.

Om je moedertaal te beschermen lijkt het me erg onverstandig om in dit draadje het amerikaans imperialistische engels te gaan gebruiken. Niet dat ik anti-engels ben, maar door het te gebruiken druk je je moedertaal op de achtergrond. Veelheid in verscheidenheid vind ik belangrijk. Ik heb geen talenknobbel zoals de savant Daniel Tammet, de IJslandse taal een paar luttele weken zit er niet in bij mij. Zelfs het Nederlands geraakte in op de LTS niet verder dan B-nivo. Ik zal Donald Trump nooit spreken, maar ik vraag me wel af hoe hij in zijn wiek geschoten zou zijn als ik in het ABB (algemeen-beschaaft-brabants) tegen hem begon te ratelen.

Het valt me overigens toch al op dat er in de sectie van dit forum wat bestemd is voor talen anders dan het engels er zoveel engelse reacties te lezen zijn. Een minderheid conformeert als zo vaak om de meerderheid ter wille te zijn.
Mr Bean heeft vrijwel geen woorden nodig, heerlijk vind ik dat. Ook Laurel & Hardy verstonden de kunst om te kunnen praten zonder woorden. Overigens, zover ik weet is de homo sapien de enigste diersoort die taal gebruikt die niet universeel is. Een hondje uit Nicaragua praat met het grootste gemak van de wereld tegen een soortgenoot uit Siberië. In dit kader heeft de evolutie van hondjes een globaliserend effect.
Nu pleit ik er ook niet voor dat volgens jaar alle 7 miljard aardbewoners Nederlands gaan praten, integendeel zelfs.
Een vakantie word er door verschillende talen best wel aantrekkelijker op.

@pawelk1986

Aby chronić swój język ojczysty, wydaje się bardzo nierozsądne stosowanie amerykańskiego imperialistycznego angielskiego w tym wątku. Nie dlatego, że jestem antyangielski, ale używając go, umieszczasz swój język ojczysty w tle. Myślę, że różnorodność w różnorodności jest ważna. Nie mam wielu języków, takich jak wytrawny Daniel Tammet, nie znam języka islandzkiego od kilku tygodni. Nawet język holenderski nie osiągnął poziomu wyższego niż poziom B na LTS. Nigdy nie będę rozmawiać z Donaldem Trumpem, ale zastanawiam się, jak strzeliłby w knot, gdybym zaczął grzechotać przeciwko niemu w ABB (ogólnie cywilizowane brabanty). Uderza mnie jednak to, że w sekcji tego forum, która jest przeznaczona dla języków innych niż angielski, jest tak wiele angielskich odpowiedzi do przeczytania. Mniejszość odpowiada równie często większości.
Pan Bean prawie nie potrzebuje słów, myślę, że to wspaniale. Laurel i Hardy również rozumieli sztukę mówienia bez słów. Nawiasem mówiąc, o ile mi wiadomo, homo sapien jest jedynym gatunkiem, który używa języka, który nie jest uniwersalny. Pies z Nikaragui rozmawia z największą łatwością na świecie z innym psem z Syberii. W tym kontekście ewolucja psów ma efekt globalizacji.
Teraz też nie twierdzę, że według roku wszystkie 7 miliardów ludzi na ziemi zacznie mówić po holendersku, wręcz przeciwnie.
Różne języki sprawiają, że wakacje są bardziej atrakcyjne.

W tej odpowiedzi mogą występować błędy językowe, ale mam nadzieję, że rozumiesz, co mam na myśli.

Je eigen taal beschermen door andere ook deze taal te laten spreken, of je taal te beschermen door er juist voor te zorgen dat andere niet jou taal gaan spreken

Op het eerste gezicht zou je misschien denken dat als andere mensen zich aan jou taal conformeren dat dit ten goede komt aan deze taal en zijn sprekers waar andere zich aan conformeren. Het omgekeerde kan echter ook het geval zijn. Als andere zich niet aan jou taal conformeren kan het een bescherming geven doordat je dan minder kwetsbaar bent aan infiltratie. De Chinese taal is in feite ook een Chinese muur. Voor westerlingen is deze taal moeilijk, er zullen maar heel weinig westerlingen zijn die deze taal goed machtig zijn. Op een metaforisch eilandje wonen waarbij jij wel de taal spreekt van andere maar waar andere niet zou taal spreken kan best een krachtige bescherming formule zijn. In een wereld waar vele vele talen worden gesproken/geschreven weet je nooit hoe het balletje gaat rollen, evolutie is een onvoorspelbaar proces.

Invasieve mechanismen kunnen ook een kwetsbaarheid worden voor de invasieve elementen.

SYMPTOMEN EENER RÉCONSTRUCTIE DER DICHTKUNST IN HOLLAND
W(ij) lieten onze nagels manicuren en schaamden ons niet, onze ondeugden te verzorgen uit verzet tegen de eenwigdurende zemelproduktie van onze hollansche literatuurmolen.
De Lodewijken hadden hun narren en Holland zijn litératen en — Kommunisten!
Het eerste werk van een rechtschapen man is, de almanakken van zijn land te veranderen, de uurwerken te démoleeren, de teenen van ’s lands god te pédicuren, van elk stoel minstens eén poot af te zagen, de kadavers uit de kanalen op te vischen (indien er kanalen zijn) en deze te stoven, te braden en te bakken, ten einde ze op te dischen bij nationale feestelijke gelegenheden.
Dat is nu alles gebeurd.
Zelfs in Holland.
Na de bevrijdende blokkade der dadaïsten vangen onze literaire kalenders niet meer meet 1 aan, noch eindigen zij met 31.
Het formaat onzer gedachte is totaal veranderd en elke opsomming van handelingen in een verouderde „tijdelijk en ruimtelijk begrensde“ wereld wordt belachelijk en vervelend.
Men begint te beseffen, dat het vers uit zijn eigen materiaal geconstrueerd moet worden. Het heeft een eigen wezen, doch dit is niet verbintelijk, d. w. z.: het vers is niet langer een, volkomen door het subject bepaalde uitdrukking. Het nieuwe vers betrekt ook den lezer in zich. Deze blijft niet passief, aangezien de gedénaturaliseerde rangschikking der woorden en syllaben, de dichterlijke beelding slechts doet ontstaan, indien de lezer ze scheppend in zich verwerkt tot een geheel. Het nieuwe vers in zonder bepaalden vorm.
De lezer is altijd zelf, min of meer, het onderwerp van het vers.
De dichter is slechts de koele constructeur, die het materiaal, volgens de uiterste economie, rangschikt. In zoo-