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738 Comments
- HOWDOYOUKNOW, on 01/18/2009, -46/+347
France is in self destruct mode. - Lst01, on 01/19/2009, -31/+246Maybe you should start with teaching the French Arabs how to be tolerant of other religious and ethnic groups first.
- Aeaus, on 01/19/2009, -15/+218Sarkozy is delusional. Yes, it's a beautiful language, but glorifying it as the "language of modernity" when the majority of Arabic speaking states have been stuck in the middle ages for the past millennia?
- gbudavid, on 01/18/2009, -12/+157After all these years of saying French is the language of the Civilized World???
- michaelpinto, on 01/19/2009, -9/+141This is about trade — and there is a large population with money that speaks arabic (by the way we're all using the arabic numeral system). But there's one false assumption here which is the idea that these nations will keep making money off of oil over the next fifty years. If it were me I'd be looking at languages like Chinese and Hindi.
- Janinco, on 01/18/2009, -108/+220What a shame. How long before France becomes an islamic State?
- michelang, on 01/19/2009, -5/+112That's not going to happen for one simple reason. Arabic is a notoriously difficult language to learn.
In Arabic, A verb has 14 conjugations in each tense, compared to 6 in French and 2 in English. Unlike French where many conjugations have the same pronunciation, they all have different pronunciations and many verbs are irregular. Half of the vowels are not usually written which can be very confusing, and word endings change depending on the role of words in the sentence. And many of the consonant are very hard or impossible to pronounce for most people.
So why not English? - contractcentral, on 01/19/2009, -11/+116How long before California becomes a Mexican state... oh wait!
- factattack, on 01/19/2009, -7/+73He's just upset because the Arab people are all learning English (not French)!
- inactive, on 01/18/2009, -17/+78It's not just France; it's the entire Western world.
- ChestRawkwell, on 01/19/2009, -5/+64English Rocks
- inactive, on 01/19/2009, -13/+72Yes, france is lucky to have a large and super-fast multiplying hypersensitive riot prone immigrant population that burns one or two hundred cars on a “night of relative calm”. Very lucky.
- zephc, on 01/19/2009, -15/+68Its a fascninating language, but I don't necessarily agree. But, I can tell you what is NOT the language of the future: French
ZING - sdcarter, on 01/19/2009, -1/+54@Phalanxia
Google "War of 1812." - lilamae, on 01/19/2009, -46/+99I suggest that N. Sarkozy move to Saudi Arabia if he loves Arabic culture so very much.
- phosphor112, on 01/19/2009, -40/+91"What a shame." It is a shame, that such digg space is being used for ignorance.
- kashk5, on 01/19/2009, -8/+59Well, California used to be a Mexican state not that long ago...
- Vash3001, on 01/19/2009, -0/+48I'm pretty sure its either gonna be English or Chinese.
- djodorg, on 01/18/2009, -18/+66interesting
- Coolmasta89, on 01/19/2009, -3/+50FIRE ZE MISSILES
- inactive, on 01/19/2009, -28/+74How many French soldiers does it take to defend Paris?
Unknown....It's never been tried. - Zaggynl, on 01/19/2009, -4/+49Arabic Stones.
- KnightofOrder, on 01/19/2009, -4/+49Not only that but after their oil runs out there is almost no reason to talk to them. Unless they modernize their only option is oil.
- mickstephenson, on 01/19/2009, -25/+69The French made the right decision during the war blitzkrieg was too overwhelming, and had the balls to oppose Germany unlike many other countries, and continued to fight through the resistance and Free French forces, throughout a long military history France has time and time again proved themselves to have brave soldiers and a powerful military, and they have nothing to be ashamed of, despite your Francophobic Freedom Fries American *****.
- michelang, on 01/19/2009, -7/+51That's actually the Indian numeral system. It was brought to Europe by Arabs.
They forced people in conquered territories to speak and write in Arabic. In most cases, scientific terms with Arabic origin, such as Algebra and Algorithm, are so because Arabic was the medium not because Arabs discovered or invented them. Much like Latin in Europe. - lacrimosa2008, on 01/19/2009, -20/+63Come on! The only suggestion he made is learning a language. This is digg, not a islamophobic political blog.
- altgeeky1, on 01/19/2009, -2/+43That used to be so very true, but France started a decline in the late 19th century and never reversed itself.. it's a pity, because was the only province of Rome to have survived territorially intact and made it through the dark ages with all of its senses. Outside of France, all of Europe fell to infighting, all their libraries burned, etc.
Under Napoleon, France overthrew every monarchy in Europe and introduced their populations to the concept of democracy (republic..). In the mid 20th century, France was the first to declare war AGAINST the right-wing murderers of Nazi Germany (cue to today, where right-wingers in the US mock France for this act).
You can draw parallels between early 20th century France and the United States. Both were superpowers, who became arrogant and went into -massive- debt, overextended their military, foreign campaigns, etc.
Moral of the rant? Don't let your head swell. Every civilisation is temporary. The bigger the civilisation, the bigger the dark times when it finally falls. As much as the world is angry at the United States these days, their world would be a lot worse off if they actually got their wish. - spartan777, on 01/19/2009, -12/+49Judeo-Christian is a nonsensical term invented by evangelicals. that aside, America is what the people make of it, and it can always change. there is no god-chosen vanguard to 'protect' the mythical american heritage. In fact, I'd prefer if it didn't stay static, wouldn't you?
- ssulistyo, on 01/19/2009, -3/+40Ah, always so easy to forget Napoleon and how he conquered almost all of Europe up to Moscow: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_French_Empire
- laibixi, on 01/19/2009, -32/+69some comments are really disturbing! is this the facist section of digg?
- morel42, on 01/19/2009, -5/+41 English is the Language of the World.. Now and in the future..
More people (other then Chinese) speak it, it's taught as a standard 2nd language in many many countries, Hell, go to any country and you'll find people who can at least understand a few words.. - inactive, on 01/19/2009, -46/+81As a general rule, a nation living in its homeland will not abandon its language and adopt another unless it has been conquered. In his book Understanding Human History, Michael Hart noted that there are no instances of a conquered people regaining independence in a timely manner after abandoning their language.
Hart has organized a conference, Preserving Western Civilization, to discuss the Islamic threat and another assaults on our glorious Western civilization. If you agree with Hart that America’s Judeo-Christian heritage and European identity must be defended, check it out.
http://preservingwesternciv.com/index.html - stonecircle, on 06/11/2009, -3/+36The schools here are encouraging kids to study Chinese and/or Japanese languages.
- Blinker1315, on 01/19/2009, -9/+42It's mostly France. As usual.
- 4DFX, on 01/19/2009, -37/+69You guys have no idea what you're talking about. How about you make a little trip to Europe and count the number of mosques here. In the UK the arabs are already pushing for the primitive sharia law, and It's gonna happen everywhere. Europe is almost dead. Welcome to Eurabia.
- fugazied, on 01/19/2009, -5/+36Languages rarely get 'abandoned' in such dramatic fashion, even after a society has been conquered (English has traces of nordic, arabic, norman, latin and other languages through it). In fact cultures which embrace more languages find it easier to trade with other countries and have cultural exchanges. No one mentioned France abandoning the French language but you write some nationalist anglo-centric jibberish. You sound pretty scared of other cultures, xenophobic much?
- Chompy, on 01/19/2009, -2/+33But I am le tired.
- Mujokan, on 01/19/2009, -5/+36He didn't even say it would be *the* language of the future.
FTA: "French President Nicolas Sarkozy called Arabic the "language of the future, of science and of modernity"
Actual message: "La langue arabe est une langue d'avenir et de progrès, de science et de modernité. Elle l'a été tout au long du passé. Il n'y a aucune raison que cela ne continue pas à être le cas dans l'avenir."
"Arabic is *a* language of the future and of progress, of science and of modernity. It has always been so in the past, and there is no reason for that not to continue to be the case in the future".
http://discours.vie-publique.fr/notices/087003136. ...
Oh, so shocking! - joand315, on 01/19/2009, -2/+32In Boston, they teach Mandarin in grade school, and have an excellent student exchange program with China. Seems like a good idea. to me. I think learning about another culture in addition to your own is worthwhile.
- sittingduck89, on 01/19/2009, -4/+33I, as a Belgian, weeped upon reading this. The moment of no-return is close at hand.
- doctordbx, on 01/19/2009, -0/+28He should tell that to the people that live in the UAE. The government is fretting that young Arabs no longer wish to learn Arabic but would rather talk, converse and do business in English. It has caused them such a quandry they're developing a lot of programs to try and coerce them to change, but none have been very effective so far.
And onto Arabic. Classical Arabic is indeed a beautiful language. Shame nobody speaks it. Instead it gets hacked to bits into about 40 different dialects, some which are barely recognisable, and they all literally translate as if you're speaking to a Japanese tourist. illiteracy is rife in the Arab world. - blackjack75, on 01/19/2009, -8/+35Basically the arabophobic guys just jump on every story of this kind, this is why all the first comments are from racists and the ones below are from, let's say normal people.
- BooLag, on 04/23/2009, -4/+31Well, take a nap, ZEN FIRE ZE MISSILES!!!
- inactive, on 01/19/2009, -0/+26I don't have any stats or anything like that but I've spent several years living and working in India and I've never had a problem not knowing Hindi. So if you want to do business with India you will be ok sticking with English.
- NorrisOBE, on 01/19/2009, -22/+48This is actually good. I mean, alot of French people are interesting in taking different languages, and Arab is one hell of an interesting language.
I study Arabic and it's one of the most interesting languages of all time. Infact, it's also one of the main languages of the UN and it's also a preferred business language for those investing in Arab nations. So why not? - Berkana, on 01/19/2009, -3/+28When plagiarizing from Wikipedia in your comments, at least have the decency to remove footnote links. Or use quotes.
- phosphor112, on 01/19/2009, -15/+39Why? Is it because someone actually appreciates Arab contributions?
Anyway, Arabic won't be the language of the future. There is too much hate towards Arabs to even accept them into ones society. - computershack, on 01/19/2009, -0/+24Indeed. This summer I went to France and popped into McDonalds. "Parlez-vous Angliase?" I asked the girl behind the counter. "Yes, a little" came the response in that lovely french accent. Certainly enough to be more fluent than a lot of my fellow countrymen. And that's in McDonalds. Hell, even the girl in the snack bar at a zoo I went to in central France spoke good english. In fact, the only place I found they didn't was in Nettos but I'm not sure how much of that was that they refused to rather than couldn't.
- Doc123, on 01/19/2009, -13/+37French citizens are getting sick and tired of illegal immigrants.
- doctordbx, on 01/19/2009, -2/+26LOL! Where he can gorge on KFC, McDonalds and Pizz Hut and wash it down with Coke whilst driving an SUV?
Man, Saudi culture is more USA than USA sometimes. Ok, there's no drinking and mosques, and morning prayer, but you get that everywhere.
Here in the UAE, they're having a tough time getting the local population even interested in learning Arabic, with most of the younger generation preferring to read and write in English. -
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