part 353 whalers on the moon

[aphanon_meme]

We've been here over a year now! I can hardly believe it! Dreamwidth's been pretty good, I'd say, with almost no downtime to speak of and all that! Anyway... how is your spring going? Or I guess it's almost summer, isn't it? Hopefully it's been well! I've been catching up on work and new movies, all very exciting stuff, I'm sure.

Enjoy part 353!

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Comments

Re: Percentage of population able to hold a conversation in English in the EU by country.

[desuraven]

If I had to guess I'd say Germany's average is brought down by the East-West divide still, I bet if you could get statistics for the two regions (or individual federal states) West Germany would be closer to Austria, the Netherlands, and Denmark, while East Germany would be closer to Poland, Czech, and Hungary.

You have to remember this is the first generation where East Germans are being taught English as a second language in school, before that it was Russian (or French in unified Germany but that's going too far back to matter, I think). There's also the debate about encouraging language use outside of the classroom, and Germany often gets caught up in the dub versus sub debate when it comes to American and British imports.

Meanwhile in Austria, Russians left the Russian occupation zone relatively early since their main goal in Austria was to keep it from joining NATO (which they did), so there was relatively little cultural effect- though there were some, and in region specific data you can sometimes see differences between the former Russian zone and the former American and British zone- and therefore little interference in things like language policy.

Also important, if you speak Standard German (Hochdeutsch) you can speak to 82 million other people. If you speak Standard Austrian German, you can speak to 8 million other people. Of course the two standard languages are closely related so that's an oversimplification but generally speaking it's more important for Austrians to learn either a new dialect or a new language to communicate outside their borders than it is for Germans, so why not keep up English outside of school?

Re: Percentage of population able to hold a conversation in English in the EU by country.

[(Anonymous)]

Also important, if you speak Standard German (Hochdeutsch) you can speak to 82 million other people. If you speak Standard Austrian German, you can speak to 8 million other people. Of course the two standard languages are closely related so that's an oversimplification but generally speaking it's more important for Austrians to learn either a new dialect or a new language to communicate outside their borders than it is for Germans, so why not keep up English outside of school?

This makes a lot of sense. It does seem that if your national (or regional) language is less widely spoken, you're more likely to practice English.

Re: Percentage of population able to hold a conversation in English in the EU by country.

[desuraven]

Yep, of course like I said it's an oversimplification because dialect continuums are tricky to measure, but if a Berliner and a Viennese tried speaking to each other in their local dialects they likely wouldn't be able to understand each other and would have to switch to Hochdeutch (best case scenario) or English (worst case scenario). There are also amusing stories from northern Germans I've heard getting so lost in Bavaria they started speaking English instead lol.

So yeah I agree, even when the East-West divide starts to be reduced I'd bet Austrians will still stay better at English than Germans.

Re: Percentage of population able to hold a conversation in English in the EU by country.

[(Anonymous)]

So if we look at the characters, Austria would speak better English than Prussia? Nowadays, which form of English does Prussia use as her main guide?

Re: Percentage of population able to hold a conversation in English in the EU by country.

[desuraven]

Ehehehe, my favorite topic!

Yes absolutely Austria speaks English better than Prussia. I mean, it depends on how realistic you wanna be about when nations pick up languages and which ones they pick up, but English only really became a Lingua Franca after WWII. Of course with the British Empire right there there's always been some interest in English in continental Europe but it took the double hegemony of America and the UK to really get it going. So while Austria and Prussia both had dealings with England in their history, and I can see Prussia starting to pick up some phrases for when she was training little America, I don't think either of them really started going with it until the end of the War (Austria) or the fall of the Wall (Prussia). They both speak the former Lingua Franca (French, Prussia better than Austria) and when you're in the business of Empire building, even if it fails, you want to push your own national language.

That being said, because the first modern language education method used to be named after Prussia, I tend to think she's pretty good at picking up languages. So Austria may have ~50 years on her, but they're not terribly far apart in ability. She just has a thick accent, not so thick she'd incomprehensible, but noticeable. As to which English she uses, definitely American. She and America are bros and hang out quite a lot, and until recently her people were very Pro-American so it's just altogether easier for her to practice American English. Austria probably speaks British English though, that's what is taught on the continent and it's perceived as Proper English and we all know how Austria feels about being perceived as Proper.

Re: Percentage of population able to hold a conversation in English in the EU by country.

[(Anonymous)]

Speaking of strong language ability, does she know any sign languages? How good would she be at learning those?

Re: Percentage of population able to hold a conversation in English in the EU by country.

[desuraven]

Hmm I'm not as familiar with Sign languages, especially the one(s?) used in Germany, but I'm gonna say she doesn't. I bet she's tried out of curiosity, but I also think she'd be the kind of person that falls into the trap of thinking signs are just gestures to replace words. Spacial and facial grammar would be totally lost on her.

And while I don't think she personally holds this prejudice, it's important to note that that teaching method named after her I mentioned was based on the belief that the purpose of learning a new language is to be able to read its literature. Given that she's a canon bookworm I imagine even if she doesn't believe that literally, the ability to have access to entirely new bodies of literature probably motivates her like crazy. Though written versions of Sign languages have been created there's not much of a body of literature yet, and without motivation even someone with the best ability is gonna have a hard time.