Brojos bashing French

Yes, I'm also a little surprised at all of the French bashing that is produced on this page. Why would anyone think to make a comparison between the amount of money going into drug testing with making French signs at the Olympic Games? Granted, I do not work with the budget committee for the Games, but I would guess that making French signs for the Games is not the reason why so many cheaters make their way into competition. A little immature, don't you think?

Please, do not be unfair to the speakers of a country that are able to see through all of Bush's bull$h*t.

I wasn't bashing France the country I was bashing the language. It's the 14th most popular language in the world. At the start of the 20th century it perhaps deserved universal status, not anymore.

It's an outdated concept for it to be an official language of the games.

It's rather simple, why spend money catering for one minority while ignoring all the rest. And also when the money could be better spent in other areas that are struggling for money, such as drug research. Who made the point that spending money on the signs is letting cheaters in the olympics?

wejo wrote:

I wasn't bashing France the country I was bashing the language. It's the 14th most popular language in the world.

Fair enough, Wejo -- I agree there's a difference between bashing the country and the language (a point which seems to have gotten lost on the other thread discussing this).

I guess we can throw statistics at one another backing up our own points. My stat would be that French is the second most popular *second* language in the world, behind English. There are an awful lot of countries in Africa, Asia, and Europe where they have their own native language, but most people also know French (and not English) as a second language.

I'm sort of repeating myself, because I said the same thing on the other thread. But one of the reasons I thought it was worth responding was based on my experience at World Cross and other international meets. Knowing French (as a second language) allowed me to speak to people from a lot of different teams, where English wouldn't have allowed it. Certainly the Moroccans and Algerians (I spent half an hour talking to Saidi-Sief -- BEFORE the drug bust -- which I couldn't have done in English), but also countries as diverse as Poland, Romania, Madagascar, and various others from Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and so on.

I guess my point is that, no matter how many of the 50 states you've been to, and no matter how much you've travelled in (fairly anglo-friendly) Western Europe, you may not appreciate that there still is some linguistic diversity in the rest of the world. With English signs, you may have 70% of the countries able to get around; but with English *and* French, you probably have 95% covered. (Assuming the Chinese and Japanese teams have some English speakers, and the Russians some French or English speakers).

>>My stat would be that French is the second most popular >>*second* language in the world, behind English

I doubt this stat, can you site a reference? Hindi for one easily outdistances English and French combined as a 2nd language.

You do realize the reason for the French signs at the olympics is a matter of tradition? The founder of the modern games was from France and as a result the language gains special status. As a matter of respect for the games and the founding fathers it should remain.

wejo wrote:

I wasn't bashing France the country I was bashing the language. It's the 14th most popular language in the world. At the start of the 20th century it perhaps deserved universal status, not anymore.

It's an outdated concept for it to be an official language of the games.

Damn straight Wejo brother!

Why do people get so bent out of shape when someone points out a superiority in one things vs. another? The American way of life and everything involved with it is superior to any other place on earth (Canada a close second). The language we speak is just one of the many things that other countries should just embrace. We won the war, and so to the victors go the spoils.

Speak freakin' English already! Learn another language to broaden the group of people you can convert to the American way of life, but English is the way to go baby!

Fuck france, ok?

Well said lafayette.

English and French are the two most widely spoken languages in the world.

Tradition aside, having all signs in both french and english captures the understanding of a far greater percentage of countries than english alone.

Not every country speaks french or english as a first language but MOST understand one or the other. That is why the signs should remain in french and english.

Vive la langue francaise!

Jean wrote:

Please, do not be unfair to the speakers of a country that are able to see through all of Bush's bull$h*t.

That's a great point. A few brave french souls are willing to stand-up the US and point out the lack of evidence that a plane crashed into the Pentagon and the planes steered into the twin towers were in fact the product of a US military plot. Millions of French people are not willing to buy the US line on 9/11.

I had not heard anout that book, but I am now literally sick to my stomach. That is maybe the most dispicable thing I have ever read.

seig heil,

I salute letsrun.com headlines regarding the French language. Running should not be universal, and frog people should not be allowed to enjoy the games and the runners in Athens. We must not let the French get their 5 dollar bucket of paint on English signs at the Olympiad. Sprechen sie Deutcsh Brojos?

There are some valid points about the inclusion of French language signs. First, if it's part of the IOC bylaws that all signage will be in English and French, then it doesn't matter how "popular" French is, that's the rule. If you don't like the rule, then work to change it. Second, while it is obvious that French is not even in the top three when it comes to native speakers, that doesn't matter. If we simply followed the majority, then all signage would be in Chinese. I think a very valid point is: If you have an international event, what two languages would you choose so that signs would be understood by the largest number of people at the event (it doesn't matter if the languages chosen are their first, second, or fourteenth, just that they understand it)? It seems to me that English and French would be a good choice. I don't have any strict data on this, but I have a funny feeling that of the people who can actually afford to go to an Olympics, a very large portion can understand either English or French. Also, as a Romance-family language, it's closely related to a bunch of other languages (Spanish, Italian, and Romanian) which brings in another set of people (minimal headache for them).

I assume that Flagpole's commentary was tongue-in-cheek. Certainly, English has its pluses, but also its minuses. I love the fact that English DOESN'T assign gender to inanimate objects (ugh, I still remember learning that a sofa is "feminine" in German while a table is "masculine", and similar craziness in Spanish). Of course, English is littered with articles and the spelling/pronunciation rules have more exceptions than Swiss cheese has holes. Of course, English also has a very large vocabulary which makes for the possibility of subtle shadings (unfortunately, it seems that most folks rely on a single adjective for everything, namely a four-letter word rhyming with duck).

If the frogs love for Jerry Lewis doesn't explain them then the fact that this book has topped the Fremch booksellers list for six weeks should!

Conspiracy Theory

France's No. 1 best seller claims the U.S. orchestrated the Sept. 11 attacks. Why do people read this stuff?

By BRUCE CRUMLEY/PARIS

DANIEL JANIN/AFP

Thierry Meyssan - "The biggest victor of Sept. 11 was the U.S. military-industrial lobby. Its wildest dreams [are] fulfilled"

Move over Fox Mulder, here comes Thierry Meyssan. Like the unrelenting FBI hero of the popular X Files TV series, Meyssan is a player in the conspiracy business. But in contrast to the fictional Mulder's sympathetic crusades ? one geek's quest to combat a farcical cabal of sociopathic humans and the world-conquering extraterrestrials they serve ? Meyssan's campaign has attracted audiences with a singularly despicable suggestion: that the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 were carried out by U.S. government officials as part of a murderous economic and military plot.

Meyssan makes that astonishing proposition in the book l'Effroyable Imposture (The Horrifying Fraud), a controversial tome that topped France's best-seller list in six of the seven weeks since its release. Meyssan defiantly dismisses the universally accepted version of the 9/11 tragedy as "a loony fable" patched together by the White House and the Defense Department "as one lie called forth another." He maintains that neither American Airlines Flight 77 nor any other aircraft crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11 ? the explosion supposedly detonated on the ground. He similarly rejects notions that the planes that struck the World Trade Center towers were flown by al-Qaeda terrorists and argues they were in fact directed from the ground by remote control.

So what does Meyssan think really happened? Although he stops just short of the categorical, the militant libertarian champions the theory (previously limited to Internet forums and sites, including his own) that the attacks ? and the 3,000 victims they claimed ? were the work of officials in the U.S. government and military, looking for an excuse to launch war on Afghanistan and Iraq. "If the energy lobby was the main beneficiary of the war in Afghanistan, the biggest victor of Sept. 11 was the military-industrial lobby," Meyssan writes. "Its wildest dreams have now been fulfilled."

To support his theory, Meyssan plays up factual oddities or gray areas surrounding the attacks ? a skeptical focus facilitated by secrecy rules imposed in the ongoing investigations. He notes that no film footage of the Pentagon explosion exists and regards eyewitness testimony of the crash as suspicious, contradictory or flatly incredible. He similarly argues that the photos offer no evidence of the debris typical of an airplane crash (discounting expert explanations that the extreme violence of the impact and heat of the explosion caused virtual atomization of the jet), and says the area of destruction to the Pentagon is impossibly small given the size and span of the craft.

Meyssan's theories on the New York City attacks are even more counterintuitive. He cites unnamed "professional pilots" who claim the World Trade Center strikes could not have been carried out by neophyte fliers. Meyssan then recounts testimony from similarly unidentified New York amateur radio operators, who say they picked up the signals of navigational beacons within the towers guiding the planes to their targets. Using tones of stony authority fused with acidic mockery, Meyssan casts the events of Sept. 11 and those that followed as the work of a virtual shadow junta within the U.S. government that has masterfully manipulated American media and public opinion.

The terminally serious Meyssan, 44, launched the book on one of France's flashiest, trashiest talk shows, and he followed up with a string of controversy-churning TV appearances that further piqued public curiosity. The print press denounced the volume in turn ? Libération retitled it The Horrible Swindle ? but that too helped fuel purchases. The book now has the distinction of breaking the French publishing record for first-month sales previously held by Madonna's Sex.

Given the dogged manner in which his quirky association Réseau Voltaire defends free thought and speech from a host of nefarious threats, Meyssan's unconventional speculation on 9/11 isn't entirely novel. More surprising was the rush of French readers, who had so earnestly commiserated with a wounded America, to get a copy of the tract. French observers say the book's fascination has more to do with the sheer entertainment value of spooky, over-the-top conspiracy scenarios than it does with any blossoming of anti-American paranoia in France. The publisher, Carnot, plans to release an English-language translation this month and an additional 18 foreign versions by September. What's next ? a movie version? A TV series? If only Meyssan had worked in a few aliens, he might have had a real shot at the X Files market.

Now you're just France-bashing. It is entirely possible for a book to be #1 on the charts and yet only a small minority agree with it. It's called controversy. It sells newspapers, magazines, and books. Similarly, I could buy a copy of Mein Kampf in order to get a better sense of the history leading up to WWII, but that in no way makes me a Nazi.

I will say this, if we have nothing better to argue about than whether or not Olympic signage should be in French, then we live in a wonderful world!

Helcul wrote:

I doubt this stat, can you site a reference? Hindi for one easily outdistances English and French combined as a 2nd language.

From

:

"Le francais est surtout, apres l'anglais, la langue etrangere la plus ensiegnee dans le monde..."

And for those bringing up the conspiracy theory book: is it really so very difficult to understand the difference between FRANCE (a country) and FRENCH (a language)? This thread was talking about the language, and its use on signs. What you think of the French, and what they think of you (equally misguided), is not relevant.

What are the world's most widely spoken languages?

This question is a very interesting one that has a rather complicated answer. Estimates of how many people speak a language are quite general and can vary considerably. For example, English estimates vary from 275 to 450 million, Spanish from 150 to over 300 million, Hindi from 150 to 350 million, and Russian from 150 to 180 million.

To further complicate matters, the definition of ?speaker? can be vague. Some surveys of languages give information on native speakers only. Others count both native speakers and secondary speakers (those who use the language regularly or primarily even though it is not their native language).

Lastly, it is important to consider not only the population (number) of language speakers, but also the geographic distribution of these languages. Some languages have relatively large populations of native speakers but are used almost exclusively in a few countries. On the other hand, other languages have relatively small populations of native speakers but are used in many different countries as an official or national language.

The Summer Institute for Linguistics (SIL) Ethnologue Survey (1999) lists the following as the top languages by population:

(number of native speakers in parentheses)

Chinese* (937,132,000)

Spanish (332,000,000)

English (322,000,000)

Bengali (189,000,000)

Hindi/Urdu (182,000,000)

Arabic* (174,950,000)

Portuguese (170,000,000)

Russian (170,000,000)

Japanese (125,000,000)

German (98,000,000)

French* (79,572,000)

* The totals given for Chinese, Arabic, and French include more than one SIL variety. See chart for full details.

The following list is from Dr. Bernard Comrie?s article for the Encarta Encyclopedia (1998):

(number of native speakers in parentheses)

Mandarin Chinese (836 million)

Hindi (333 million)

Spanish (332 million)

English (322 million)

Bengali (189 million)

Arabic (186 million)

Russian (170 million)

Portuguese (170 million)

Japanese (125 million)

German (98 million)

French (72 million)

The following list is from George Weber?s article ?The World?s 10 Most Influential Languages? in Language Today (Vol. 2, Dec 1997):

(number of native speakers in parentheses)

Mandarin Chinese (1.2 billion)

English (330 million)

Spanish (300 million)

Hindi/Urdu (250 million)

Arabic (200 million)

Bengali (185 million)

Portuguese (160 million)

Russian (160 million)

Japanese (125 million)

German (100 million)

Punjabi (90 million)

Javanese (80 million)

French (75 million)

However, in terms of secondary speakers, Weber submits the following list:

(number of speakers in parentheses)

French (190 million)

English (150 million)

Russian (125 million)

Portuguese (28 million)

Arabic (21 million)

Spanish (20 million)

Chinese (20 million)

German (9 million)

Japanese (8 million)

Thus, if you add the secondary speaker populations to the primary speaker populations, you get the following (and I believe more accurate) list:

(number of speakers in parentheses)

Mandarin Chinese (1.12 billion)

English (480 million)

Spanish (320 million)

Russian (285 million)

French (265 million)

Hindi/Urdu (250 million)

Arabic (221 million)

Portuguese (188 million)

Bengali (185 million)

Japanese (133 million)

German (109 million)

The following is a list of these languages in terms of the number of countries where each is spoken. The number that follows is the total number of countries that use that language (from Weber, 1997):

English (115)

French (35)

Arabic (24)

Spanish (20)

Russian (16)

German (9)

Mandarin (5)

Portuguese (5)

Hindi/Urdu (2)

Bengali (1)

Japanese (1)

The number of countries includes core countries (where the language has full legal or official status), outer core countries (where the language has some legal or official status and is an influential minority language, such as English in India or French in Algeria), and fringe countries (where the language has no legal status, but is an influential minority language in trade, tourism, and the preferred foreign language of the young, such as English in Japan or French in Romania). For a complete breakdown of each and an accompanying chart, click here.

After weighing six factors (number of primary speakers, number of secondary speakers, number and population of countries where used, number of major fields using the language internationally, economic power of countries using the languages, and socio-literary prestige), Weber compiled the following list of the world's ten most influential languages:

(number of points given in parentheses)

English (37)

French (23)

Spanish (20)

Russian (16)

Arabic (14)

Chinese (13)

German (12)

Japanese (10)

Portuguese (10)

Hindi/Urdu (9)

Nick J,

Nice post. Solid reasoning along with some sources to back them up.

JimFiore wrote:

Now you're just France-bashing. It is entirely possible for a book to be #1 on the charts and yet only a small minority agree with it. It's called controversy. It sells newspapers, magazines, and books. Similarly, I could buy a copy of Mein Kampf in order to get a better sense of the history leading up to WWII, but that in no way makes me a Nazi.

I will say this, if we have nothing better to argue about than whether or not Olympic signage should be in French, then we live in a wonderful world!

perhaps. but these kinds of chauvinistic conspiracy theories are very much symptomatic of cultures in rapid decline.

Imagine the furor if the ioc language rules were amended to reflect reality? The hollering from paris would be endless. This situation is very much like that of the UN Security Council: an outdated structure maintained by the hubris and arrogance of its undeserving beneficiaries.