Postby Cavesa » Tue May 17, 2016 3:52 pm
Thanks, but I meant after the beginner stage. My question was more about the "why" than "how" aspect of learning. I would say that is one of the important reasons why many languages go almost ignored.
My favourite local example: the scandinavian languages around here. Yes, we have got at least one good quality Czech based course available for Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Danish beginners, and perhaps others too. The philosophical faculty in Prague teaches all of these and I think even the smaller ones (just like it teaches the Asian and Oriental languages). There are language schools teaching the languages. So, a beginner doesn't have much of a problem, even though getting Rivstart (that the langauge schools use) is already a bit harder but still achievable (delivery from Germany, pirated copies). But what to do afterwards? Yes, there is one Scandinavian library. But if you prefer to buy a book (or live too far from Prague to comfortably visit it), there is no choice. This is not just my experience, everyone learning a Scandinavian language whom I talked to tell the same story. "I always need to ask a friend/teacher/relative who goes there". Movies? Tv series? Impossible. I have seen one Swedish DVD in a Czech store. Yes, there are some cultural events organized by the Scandinavian House but they do not get to the mainstream media, their movie festival doesn't get large posters in the metro.All their online content paid or free is region locked (so much for the united EU market). Yes, you can spend a lot of money to go to the countries but you are out of luck in the meantime. And the natives you meet here (or elsewhere in the world) speak English. The scandinavian languages simply do not cross the mind of an average Honza choosing a foreign language to learn after English.
Now that I'm thinking of it, isn't the story behind most underestimated langauges very similar? Yes, there are beginner courses. After all, Assimil teaches quite anything I can imagine. There are language schools, often using beginner and intermedite stuff they import from the country or make themselves. But after you grow out of the beginner textbook, you either buy a plane ticket at least once a year or you have no contact with your language.
So, why bother. I wouldn't therefore blame only the economic perspective for the fact some languages are so underestimated. When I read this thread for the first time (and made a post somewhere), I thought the pragmatism was the main issue. Now, I would say bad PR of many countries and low focus on cultural export in the language is to blame just as well.
A good example how the PR and various supportive activities change the whole situation: Spanish in the Czech Republic. After the Velvet Revolution, it was only logical English would replace Russian. People had expected German to get more popularity than it got but it is still the number two (and illogically losing more and more due to more and more support of English in the educational mainstream). But the rest? Out of the languages people choose to learn without being forced, Spanish is probably the most popular one these days, or closely competing with French (ok, some numbers say Russian but I am not sure whether the researches differenciate between usual learners and heritage learners). It wasn't so ten years ago, Spanish was a rarity back then. You can repeat all the arguments about the amount of Spanish on the internet, the size and importance of Latin America and all that jazz. But to a usual Czech native, Spanish is just as useful/useless as Italian, Portuguese, less useful than French (France and other francophone countries are closer, and there are more French companies around here, we have longer and richer tradition of the diplomatic and cultural relations with France than with Spain). So, what made Spanish suddenly so popular, especially among the younger people?
It is the PR. More learning resources are now in the bookshops for all the levels (and sometimes the Spanish shelf appears to consist of better quality books than the French one), it is common in the langauge schools (it is not rare to see a language school with more Spanish classes than the French ones), it even became one of the less often taught languages in the mainstream schools (while French is falling and German is not on the rise either, the only one on the rise from the bottom is Russian). The Cervantes in Prague has a library and a cinema, organises various cultural events, there is a Spanish (and LA) film festival everyone knows about thanks to the marketing, posters in the public transport, even announcements in some of the mainstream newspapers. Despite being mostly a holiday langauge (like the much less popular Italian), people see it as a potentially useful and surely a pleasant skill to acquire. Don't tell me it is because of the pragmatism. Yes, there are some jobs requiring Spanish here (or Finnish or Dutch for the matter) but the demand is tiny compared to German, Russian, French. It is the PR, it is the massive investment in popularization of Spanish. And it will pay off, as the learners will look for opportunities to strenghten ties with Spain and to put the language to use at work as well.
So, that is why I am quite convinced many of the less popular or even totally overlooked langauges have the potential to rise, without the need for their countries to become economic powerhouses first. They will profit economically from the change later. Especially now that English kicked other strong langauges like German to the weaker positions, there might be more opportunity for others to become popular third langauge alternatives. Polish, Turkish, Hungarian, Hebrew, Swahili. Those are just a few examples of languages that could rise significantly, if only they got the PR support from their nations. If only they did export their books, tv series, if only their PR insitutions paid to be seen.
I'd say an interesting questin question is to what extent can free projects like Duolingo, the Language Transfer, Memrise, the Lyricstraining, and so on supplement or substitute the money. They surely have the potential to improve the situation, especially for the beginners. The pirates sharing movies and books actually do similar kind of service to the languages (and artists by the way) too, especially in the "after the beginner stage" sector, but that is a totally different matter and a more complicated subject. But I don't think any language and culture can gain popularity among the normal population anywhere without paying for it these days.
It looks sad. Another field where marketing is extremely powerful. But the silver lining is the possibility of improvement for languages of the countries that simply cannot complete with the biggest economics.
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