EN to replace FR in Algeria?

[Cavesa]

I've seen quite a lot of collaboration between people who are likely not L1 English speakers and people who are at universities in the US and other inner circle anglophone countries (and who are L1 English speakers). By "I've seen", I mean that I personally have been/am currently involved in collaborations with academics internationally (my current research assistantship is nicknamed "the Sogang project"), I know people who collaborate extensively with people whose L1 isn't English and who are based at various universities, I've read tens if not hundreds of articles written in English that were co-published by people of various L1s (or at least I'm making the assumption that their L1 isn't English), and I've attended national academic conferences where a very large portion of the attendees were working at universities that aren't in anglophone countries and/or didn't speak English as an L1.

For what it's worth, I'm also almost positive that I've been in research group meetings where the data that we analyzed was later used for publications in French (and maybe Finnish but that may have been published in English).

If we're looking just at say, the internationalization of universities from the perspective of admitting students at the bachelors and masters level, universities in the US (among other places) are actually very much in favor of having international students, institutionally at least. It's an issue of money (international students bring in buckets of money) and prestige. There are some major exceptions in terms of the country of origin of the student (though I only really know about the view of colleges and universities in the US with regards to that), but at the non-PhD level universities are pretty welcoming to international students.

The issues come when those international students are expected to do a lot of research or teach. Then there can be issues with regards linguistic discrimination on the basis of accent (perceived or otherwise) and the false assumption that L2 speakers of English won't be able to teach L1 speakers of English.

I haven't said anything opposite to this. I have no doubts about the millions of people that got there, there are just even more millions who didn't. It is a fact that the competition for those places in the anglophone world is very fierce. You can surely see it from the inside and notice tons of foreigners with non native English. But what you may have not noticed are the crowds, who were applying to the same spots and didn't get them. The crowds applying for the same work/studies/research/anything in France/Germany/... are simply not that huge. What you cannot see are the people, who would have very good chance to get the same dream job in a non anglophone huge country, if only they didn't make the mistake of focusing solely on English and no other language. And the level of English is usually one of the things taken in account, and that's where immigrants from the non anglophone countries are at a disadvantage compared to people from anglophone or partially anglophone countries.

The universities are pretty welcoming, but the demand is still much bigger than the offer. Just compare these three opportunities for people, who cannot or don't want to study medicine in their home country:
-a good real anglophone university in an anglophone country. Getting accepted there is really hard and few people succeed
-a trash fake English education in a country like the Czech Republic. You will definitely get a place somewhere, but it is mostly a money machine for the university, nobody cares about the quality of the education (which is usually much worse than at the same faculty in the local language for obvious reasons), the people are much worse educated than those from the previous or following category
-a very good university teaching in a non-English language. The French ones are the among the best and much easier to get to than the American ones, for example. Yet, people will pay for a trash "English" MD from Prague instead, because "learning French is so hard". The Algerians right now tend to study in France thanks to knowing the language, they go there for exchanges, or for residency. If they switch to English, this door will be closed and they'll probably join the crowd getting trash "English" degrees instead.

[Cavesa]

I can’t fault Algeria if they decide to dump a colonial language for one they think better suits their needs. They didn’t get to pick French, remember?

That said, I think the issues of comparative advantage are very interesting. Is it more advantageous for a country to have perfect French or average English?

Well, having one's own language is not always the best thing in the world. The Czech got exhumed exactly to counter the "oppressive" and "imported" German (a lot of the arguments were actually very similar to those typical of colonies, back in the 19th century). It was one of the worst mistakes in this country's history. We are paying for it every day in many ways, we should have stuck to the "foreign" German. We could have been a full value part of an international community, compete and share on a much bigger field, and be full value players there. Instead, we have the stupid Czech and average or bellow average English, and aren't taken for equals anywhere. Especially not in the anglophone countries.

Yes, perfect French is in my opinion much more of an advantage than average English. Or bellow average, if we remember some info from these links, such as low amount of teachers and worries concerning their quality.

So, the ideal would be tri or quadrilingual Algerians, sure. I agree with one of the two articles. But if that is not realistic (which is probable), then perhaps striving to be more valued in the francophonie might be a better long term strategy than being another inferior country begging for the attention in the anglophone world.

[Speakeasy]

… I am still led to believe that the introduction of language protection laws in Québec lead to an increase in the prevalence and/or use of the French language in Québec.

Yes, this is both correct and a natural outcome of the change in policy. Following more than an century of the self-defeating and isolationist policy of denying immigrants access to French language schools and, in its place, of imposing a legal requirement on immigrants to attend such schools, coupled with a programme of selecting immigrants partially based on their facility in French (as a second language), it could be expected that French, which has always been the dominant language in Québec, should become even more prevalent. However, the underlying threat to the French language in Quebec is that the birth rate amongst “Québécois de souche” has been 1,3 per couple for the past 50 years. This means that, in the absence of a reversal of this trend, the Québécois will become a minority in their own province. The retrograde action of encouraging immigration from (second language) French speaking countries, whose members have a birth rate of 4-plus per couple, means that the French language may survive in Québec in the long run, but that this will depend on the intentions of the immigrants who might have entirely different objectives. The irony here is that Québécois polemists soundly reject the notion of multiculturalism as promoted in the ROC (Rest of Canada); their continued “repli sur soi” is in a death spiral.

… didn't the French speaking Acadians get expelled in large numbers from Canada at one point? …

Canada did not exist at the time of these deportations. Fearful of an eventual reversal of fortunes in British North America, King George, who was now the acknowledged sovereign of these newly-acquired territories (by formal treaty with the previous colonial occupier of the lands in question), demanded that all of his new subjects swear allegiance to the British Crown. In doing so, he issued orders that the linguistic and religious rights, customs and practices of his new subjects should be fully respected; he ordered that such rights be guaranteed in law by the British Parliament, which was done (successive governments of British North America, of Upper and Lower Canada, and of the country of Canada, have never impinged on these rights). However, King George, in his proclamation, made it very clear that anyone who refused to swear allegiance to the British Crown would be expelled from what had become a British Colony. The vast majority of the French colonists accepted their new sovereign’s guarantees and swore allegiance, those who refused to do so, were expelled. Through the filtered lens of today’s value system, this seems rather harsh treatment. However, it was not at all unusual for the times, the practice was applied with reckless abandon throughout the twentieth century by numerous regimes, and it continues to be applied in various areas of the world. This is not a defense of King George’s actions, it is merely an observation that our species continues to fail to live up to its oft-touted, but very seldom self-applied, notions of morality. Cherry-picking incidents from history is a fruitless line of argument. Throughout all of recorded history, all peoples’ hands are covered with blood and all peoples’ heads are covered with shame. My principal objection is that any one offender should be singled out and that a pre-existing idyllic world, which has never existed, should be postulated as being the morally superior model.

As a final comment, I appreciate that members of the forum have a great passion for learning languages, I share this passion, myself. Nevertheless, I deplore the extension of this love for languages into the political arena, the assigning of ill-defined kumbaya moral values of dubious value to a given language, to a set of languages, to an idealized mass of languages, or to the diversity of languages and, by extension, the implied support for the “liberation” of specific linguistic groups through the disintegration, the dismantlement, or the Balkanization of multi-ethnic nations, the consequences of which rarely deliver anything more than strife and hardship for the resulting minority populations. While this comment is not meant to be political, I can understand how some readers might see it as such. Nevertheless, I would request that it be allowed to stand as a testimony to my own values concerning languages.

[aokoye]

I've seen quite a lot of collaboration between people who are likely not L1 English speakers and people who are at universities in the US and other inner circle anglophone countries (and who are L1 English speakers). By "I've seen", I mean that I personally have been/am currently involved in collaborations with academics internationally (my current research assistantship is nicknamed "the Sogang project"), I know people who collaborate extensively with people whose L1 isn't English and who are based at various universities, I've read tens if not hundreds of articles written in English that were co-published by people of various L1s (or at least I'm making the assumption that their L1 isn't English), and I've attended national academic conferences where a very large portion of the attendees were working at universities that aren't in anglophone countries and/or didn't speak English as an L1.

For what it's worth, I'm also almost positive that I've been in research group meetings where the data that we analyzed was later used for publications in French (and maybe Finnish but that may have been published in English).

If we're looking just at say, the internationalization of universities from the perspective of admitting students at the bachelors and masters level, universities in the US (among other places) are actually very much in favor of having international students, institutionally at least. It's an issue of money (international students bring in buckets of money) and prestige. There are some major exceptions in terms of the country of origin of the student (though I only really know about the view of colleges and universities in the US with regards to that), but at the non-PhD level universities are pretty welcoming to international students.

The issues come when those international students are expected to do a lot of research or teach. Then there can be issues with regards linguistic discrimination on the basis of accent (perceived or otherwise) and the false assumption that L2 speakers of English won't be able to teach L1 speakers of English.

I haven't said anything opposite to this. I have no doubts about the millions of people that got there, there are just even more millions who didn't. It is a fact that the competition for those places in the anglophone world is very fierce. You can surely see it from the inside and notice tons of foreigners with non native English. But what you may have not noticed are the crowds, who were applying to the same spots and didn't get them. The crowds applying for the same work/studies/research/anything in France/Germany/... are simply not that huge. What you cannot see are the people, who would have very good chance to get the same dream job in a non anglophone huge country, if only they didn't make the mistake of focusing solely on English and no other language. And the level of English is usually one of the things taken in account, and that's where immigrants from the non anglophone countries are at a disadvantage compared to people from anglophone or partially anglophone countries.

The universities are pretty welcoming, but the demand is still much bigger than the offer. Just compare these three opportunities for people, who cannot or don't want to study medicine in their home country:
-a good real anglophone university in an anglophone country. Getting accepted there is really hard and few people succeed
-a trash fake English education in a country like the Czech Republic. You will definitely get a place somewhere, but it is mostly a money machine for the university, nobody cares about the quality of the education (which is usually much worse than at the same faculty in the local language for obvious reasons), the people are much worse educated than those from the previous or following category
-a very good university teaching in a non-English language. The French ones are the among the best and much easier to get to than the American ones, for example. Yet, people will pay for a trash "English" MD from Prague instead, because "learning French is so hard". The Algerians right now tend to study in France thanks to knowing the language, they go there for exchanges, or for residency. If they switch to English, this door will be closed and they'll probably join the crowd getting trash "English" degrees instead.

There are a lot of issues at play here and not all of them are about not being an L1 English speaker.

I think part of the problem is that it seems like you're primarily talking about med school related things and I'm not. For better or worse most people don't actually want to go to med school and it's not as if it is at all easy for domestic students to make their way through med school and residency (which is to say get through med school, get residency placement, and successfully get through said residency). There are quite a lot of people who get turned away at all points of this process. While not all med schools in the US accept international students, that not accepting international students also includes not accepting students from other anglophone countries. That isn't a language issue, that's an issue of citizenship. Heck there are some med schools that don't accept applicants from out of state. The same is true of some Canadian universities with regards to not admitting international students and/or students from out-of-provence. Again, this is not a language issue.

Of course, if we step out of the med school realm, I managed to find at least one program that I won't be applying to because they don't admit international students. I suspect there are a number of law programs, globally, that don't admit international students as well but that's a semi educated guess.

As a minoritized student (well, alumni at this point) I'm keenly aware of issues surrounding education inequality in the US slightly less aware about what's going in in Canada and Australia, and slightly less again in England, and I don't know enough about the situation in New Zealand. I'm also keenly aware of the issues surrounding nationalism in the US, much more aware than I can safely assume that you are by the basis of where we live. So yes, I'm well aware that things aren't smooth sailing for people who want to study or work in the US, among other anglophone countries. Likely significantly more aware than you think or suspect that I am.

Having applied for and been denied funding to complete a degree program in Germany, I am keenly aware of the competition for funding. I also have good friends who aren't from anglophone countries who have had their funding cut and thus, while they had been admitted to a degree program in the US, they were essentially forced to withdraw. This is not an issue of anglophone countries were is non-anglophone countries, it's an issue of money or lack thereof.

I haven't even touched on working as opposed to studying. It's way too easy to go into political territory with this one other than to say that needing to have a work visa makes things difficult. Not an anglophone country issue so much as a global issue. And before going to the "well English speakers can teach English" a. I don't think most people want to teach English, b. it's not that easy depending on where you're wanting to teach English at, and c. it's even less easy if you're a person of color wanting to teach English in quite a number of countries (even if you are very qualified).

[Speakeasy]

...

Hello, Saim! I have not yet replied to all of your comments which, in passing, I find both interesting and well thought out expressions of your own thoughts on a number of issues which are open to debate. Please rest assured that I am not ignoring you. Rather, I have a limited capacity for this type of jousting; I feel like a goalie for the NHL who must fend off five powerful forwards each of whom has their own puck. I'll try to catch up later.

[PeterMollenburg]

...

What follows is some clarification directed towards you, but 'aired' for the benefit of those reading and taking part in the discussions in this thread:

Your position and passionate defense is clearer now. Any wonder we arrived at such heated discussion. Thank you for clarifying the situation that is of the history and the language policies of Québec. I honestly had no idea that that French being included as an official language was not something that came from the French speaking Canadian population.

I often imagine a linguistically more balanced planet (with or without colonisation having taken place) and make many a statement (usually not on the forum, but in passing to my wife- yes she puts up with it!) based on linguistic notions about the state and affairs of other countries while only considering the political and historical implications of re-carving of state/national borders for a split second. Such inconsiderate, ill-considered language idealism on my part is a habit of mine and something I'm likely to continue to imagine, as it's usually just a 'what if' on language basis centred around my favouritism for certain European languages (because I enjoy learning them, not because I think they are better than other languages - I don't). I sometimes forget when getting involved in discussions on the forum, that these imaginary and very much non-practical and inconsiderate idealistic 'linguistic states' do not fit well in the real world at all, and in fact a hint of such notions entering my posted comments will reveal how little I know of the state of affairs of other nations and their detailed histories (Québec and Canada in this instance), and I can end up sparking some frustration or offense on the part of other forum members. My apologies for not well thought out examples.

In terms of langauge preservation, perhaps it may have been better to draw the examples from numerous countries using English either throughout their education from early stages in primary school (think many EU nations) or perhaps some west African nations and their use of French as a means of instruction in education as examples of how language 'policies' can lead to inceased language acquisition and second/third/fourth language acquisition via the education system, as opposed to language protectionist laws.

I stand by the statement that Algeria's ponderings on a language shift as a medium of education from French to English is in theory, likely based on the effects of globalisation within Algeria, which I see as a shame - again this is all my opinion.

I see it as a shame as I am concerned about language extinction and language marginalisation, even of bigger languages. While the discussion and articles are predominantly about English potentiallly displacing French, I sincerely would prefer (again linguistic idealism here) a more balanced and diverse linguistic map of the world. Whether this means, a world in which English does not dominate to the extent it does, and in such circumstances other colonial languages share the balance (French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese for example) - and there I am NOT advocating violence and destruction of peoples and their languages through further colonisation, I'm just imagining more linguistic balance for those areas of the world already colonised, OR even more preferably, a world in which no colonisation had taken place and Algeria's methods of communication and education are carried out either solely in Arabic and Berber or carried out in Arabic and Berber AND various foreign languages (ANY languages) being taught.

The point I am trying to make is that first and foremost I am in favour of local langauges being the primary methods of communication and education alongside diverse foreign language education (I never mentioned this much in this discussion as local languages were not the topic of the articles) and that if that is not the case, then that not just one colonial language is of value on a global scale, but that several languages share that podium througout the world instead of just English everywhere- which I fear is very gradually becoming the reality tiny step by tiny step (Algeria shifting to EN even in 50 years, is a good example).

Thus my defense of French in Algeria is not to the detriment of local languages, as I feel the local languages are in fact more important than French, but it is in defense of language diversity on a global scale - one more country using English in place of another former colonial language (whichever one that may be), tips the balance further to a homogenous state of linguistic affairs, globally speaking. Okay, that may seem far-fetched, but as Saim has pointed out, given the rapid unpecedented rate of language extinction, I feel we ought to be taking note of such language diversity issues and doing our best to preserve diversity and balance, as I do feel there are forces at work that are also unprecedented in their potential for destruction on the linguistic map.

I realise languages are constantly evolving, changing, merging, separating and so on. Strict sets of rules for where each and every language can and should be used/permitted may not be the solution either. I also understand that it is unfair of me to judge what Algerians should or should not be educated in, in terms of languages and were they to change to English as a medium of instruction, I agree, how can I blame them, I agree, they didn't choose French.

In my defense of French, it may appear as though, through my dislike of English (really a dislike of global same-ness and value of diversity) that I am possibly wishing for a world in which French is more dominant and many more people speak my preferred language. This is not the case. Any defence of French has been against globalisation and the spread of one language to the detriment of linguistic diversity. If French the global language instead of English, and it was in exactly the same position today as English is, and English in a position equivalent to that of French today, I'd be equally concerned and speaking out against a globalised world in which the spread of French was concerning. Thus it is not the language itself that concerns me, but the rate of globalisation that is occuring via the medium of the global language, it's effects on other languages and the potential displacement and disappearance of other languages because of a globalising world in which one language is given heightened importance (real or not) over all others.

I'm absolutely aware of the atrocities carried out by all former colonising nations/empires. I agree that all colonising nations/empires carried out horrific incidents throughout the history of colonisation. I do not believe the French were an exception to this, despite my love of their language.

I do believe colonisation, linguistically speaking is still going on today. French is still displacing languages in Africa, and perhaps elsewhere such as the Pacific. I am sure many many languages are displacing others, and I agree this is an entirely natural phenomenon. However, today the world is interconnected/globalised like never before and English in many corners of the world is still doing the same to a much larger extent than any other language.

I hope this has helped to clarify some things on my considerations of the language situation in Algeria.

[David1917]

- Arabic was a colonial language in Algeria

- Englishization =/= Globalization. Increased Chinese investment and strong overtures to the need to learn Mandarin in various business-oriented spheres of the US & Europe is no different, and in 50 years what if Chinese supplants English in Algeria...?

- Until the government of Algeria says they're going to chop out tongues of people who don't speak English, we're really fretting about nothing here.

Really, the negative I see is that it is short-sighted and a little late to push for English, and if they wanted to move away from French, might as well bet on a future global language than a declining one.