| English-speaking people don't make war on each other
Posted: 6/8/2006 11:32:15 AM | Did you ever notice that English-speaking countries don't make war on each other? I'm not going back as far as the American Revolution, or even the IRA of recent decades, but...Australia, England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, USA, India, South Africa, New Zealand, now all of the the EU, speaking English and getting along rather nicely with each other. And these countries make up quite a goodly amount of the land mass on our planet, with some of the most fertile land and huge natural resources. It could be a good thing!
Now, I'm being kinda tongue-in-cheek here, but what if...now that English is becoming the official language of so many countries, it happened that pretty soon, nobody wanted to go to war?
I guess this has a lot to do with the British Empire, which was a heck of a lot better at speading its language around the globe than the Roman or Ottoman Empires.
English has been the international language of business for some time, so I'm hoping that people would rather do business and make widgets than make war.
What do you think? | |
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| English-speaking people don't make war on each other
Posted: 6/8/2006 1:21:41 PM | | While there is always different religions and many more not known there will always be wars, as all wars are religious based\diffrences like the first world war and second and war on terror etc... | |
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NateC
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Joined: 4/10/2006
Msg: 4 | |
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| English-speaking people don't make war on each other
Posted: 6/8/2006 3:44:19 PM | Wasn't WWII about Hitler murdering Jewish people? And the U.S.A. and other countries helped in stopping this genocide?
I can't think of any countries that entered WW2 to prevent the genocide. I'm going from very old memories here but if I recall most countries entered the war to lend aid to their allies. And the US entered due to Pearl Harbour, again nothing to do with the jews.
OT: I don't think language will ever play a role in war. I think the only benefit of the world speaking one language would be nothing gets lost in the translation. | |
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| English-speaking people don't make war on each other
Posted: 6/8/2006 4:58:14 PM | Since when does the EU speak English?
I suggest you go there and find out for yourself just how widespread the use of English really is.....
The Roman and Ottoman empire were pretty good at spreading their language and culture around the parts of the world that were accessible or of interest to them.
Britain's Empire was more far-flung, because it was largely based on maritime trade rather than actual conquest.
Russia/Eastern Europe and China are another couple of 'Empires' that occupy rather impressive chunks of land, and English will get you precisely nowhere there....
Umh, if you don't want to go 'as far back' as the IRA days (which aren't over...) just exactly how far back do you want to go? | |
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| English-speaking people don't make war on each other
Posted: 6/8/2006 5:53:20 PM | "English people" probably have been too busy colonizing, exploiting, selling weapons and stealing the resources of "non-english" people for so long - that they probably have been too busy to consider fighting one another. 
Why fight, when you can sit back and get rich ?
A lot of the problems we face today are deeply rooted in that aspect of our nature. | |
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| English-speaking people don't make war on each other
Posted: 6/9/2006 11:09:36 AM | wolfie...please, put your shirt on! You're scaring me!
The EU just voted to make English its official language, which amused many Americans as it is not OUR OFFICIAL LANGUAGE!
This is so the EU not only has a single economy, a single currency, but also a single language in which to conduct business.
I have many friends from Europe, and they all speak English beautifully, as a matter of fact, English is taught as a required second language in many countries...including the former USSR, where Russian was a requirement, too.
As far as Pakistan is concerned, I think your experience at the 7-11 may not count, and the Indians and Pakistanis are fighting a religious war...which is not an out and out war, anyway.
Anyway, Pakistan is one of our Allies, no?
AND...how many people in the Middle East, northern Africa, and Europe today are speaking Turkish or Latin? Just asking. The Romance languages may have been influenced by Latin, but they are not Latin!
FINALLY...this was tongue-in-cheek, remember? Is it necessary to put LOL after something meant to be funny so people will get it? Sad, if that's true. | |
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| English-speaking people don't make war on each other
Posted: 6/9/2006 5:21:29 PM | I couldn't find any evidence that proved your statement.
All sources of information I found showed the same:
In 2007 Erse will be the 21st official language in the European Union. Primarily working languages have been English and French. After last EU expansion weight of german language, considered as third working language, rose. | |
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| English-speaking people don't make war on each other
Posted: 6/9/2006 7:02:44 PM | y'all might be interested in knowing that post revolutionary USA......GERMAN lost out to English as the dominant language BY 1 VOTE in congress (i think).......the proponents of German cited that english was disorganized and was "expressively" limited....and that it was the language of its former oppressor thus it needed to be dumped!
as montreal-guy posted......the english speaking pple were mostly occuppied with the exploitation of their colonies, and thus were astute enuff to avoid conflict amongst themselves fearing loss of revenues! | |
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ousu
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Joined: 6/2/2005
Msg: 11 | |
| English-speaking people don't make war on each other
Posted: 6/10/2006 2:53:05 PM | Even though English is used a lot when dealing in international affairs it is not enough in Europe. E.g. I hardly would get a normal job in an European country without knowing also its own language as well. The US is a huge market area so in international business it is understandable English has got a good position.
MontrealGuy mentioned occupying other countries: true. Just compare how much Russian is spoken in ex-communist countries. People needed to learn it in order to make a career but it is another thing whether they loved it.
A language is a way to think, one's world view. Therefore hopefully this world won't become too dominated by any language. Heh, Sum1reel mentioned English to be expressively limited. With my poor knowledge in English I could not judge that but in fact there was a study about this, and for example German is more expressive than English. And my language :D
Otherwise it is good there is one language people can use for simple communication - makes things easier. Before it was French for the upper class. | |
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| English-speaking people don't make war on each other
Posted: 6/10/2006 4:47:07 PM | Kate - Too hot here for shirts, sorry....
Turkish is spoken only in Turkey (which has something like 100+ million population if memory serves), but various forms of Arabic stretch from the Atlantic coast to the borders of India.
French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, and Romansch (Switzerland) are not Latin per se, but are closely based upon it.
Sort of like Australian, Liverpudlian, Ebonics, and Jamaican are closely based on English.....
I don't doubt that you have many European friends who speak English very well, but they are still a minority.
Look, I grew up there and spent the first 23 years of my life on that continent. The vast majority of people (especially outside the big cities with lots of international visitors) know about as much English as you might know French, German or Russian (or whatever language you had to learn in school and never paid any attention to).
True, English is a kind of 'lingua franca' in many parts of the world, including Europe, but it won't get you too awful far in France, Italy, Spain, or most of eastern Europe, German might actually be of more everyday use there.
some1reel - I believe what you're referring to was a referendum held in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania deciding by a very close vote that English rather than German should be the official language, based on the fact that it is much easier to learn for people who know neither. | |
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| English-speaking people don't make war on each other
Posted: 6/11/2006 11:29:50 AM | People in Britain have to learn French and German because of the EU .Ok some of the Germans and Scandinavians know English anyway but thats because they are trying to broaden their knowledge rather than a requirement.The Latin countries tend to stick to their own languages .A lot of people like the Dutch tend to know German as a second language rather than English.The Nordics tend to be German speakers naturally as well.
I think the sentiments right but the different languages and cultures make the world more interesting.Only speaking one language seems boring . | |
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| English-speaking people don't make war on each other
Posted: 6/12/2006 1:40:10 PM | French and German is being phased out in English schools (which is a shame) but as English is the official language of the EU, and that so many Europeans can speak it, it's probably not necessary for us to learn other languages.
OT yes, English-speaking countries tend to be on good terms, although I don't agree with the comment that English is spoken that much in Pakistan. Sure, those who live in England can speak it (or a close variant), but it isn't widespread over in Pakistan. | |
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kaje
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Joined: 12/19/2005
Msg: 15 | |
| English-speaking people don't make war on each other
Posted: 6/12/2006 3:01:47 PM | India's not an english-speaking country either.
Developed, modern democratic countries don't make war on each other. Most english-speaking countries are such.
That has more to do with today's global economy than any real friendship. It's not economically feasible for these countries to go to war when they have relatively free trade anyways. The cost of fighting, both economically and in terms of loss of life, another developed country would be huge. | |
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| English-speaking people don't make war on each other
Posted: 6/12/2006 3:35:09 PM | ^Bingo.
There might be something to the idea of a lingua franca helping to keep things clear but at the end of the day I don't think it would make much difference. Look at the ancient Greeks ... they all spoke Greek and spent their time fighting each other. The language didn't do much to unite them in times of need. One could look at China or India and say "Hey, they don't seem to have any problems getting along" but that ignores a few basic truths. For one thing, there are hundreds of millions of people in both countries that don't speak the language designated as that spoken by the majority. Punjabi in India and Cantonese in China for example.
The links between Britain and say, America weren't enough to keep war from breaking out. Now that it is America that rules the roost, if the US tried to occupy the UK I doubt anybody would care too much about what language everybody had in common. And to be honest, like Wolfie said, well if Northern Ireland can't serve as an example to discredit this theory then what can ? | |
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| English-speaking people don't make war on each other
Posted: 6/12/2006 4:38:09 PM |
Wasn't WWII about Hitler murdering Jewish people? And the U.S.A. and other countries helped in stopping this genocide?
No. The Holocaust as people know it actually didn't start until after the war (as a consequence of the war starting). The groundwork had definately been laid by that point, and the war shifted gears from explusion towards genocide.
WWII began after Hitler invaded Poland. Germany had broken the Versailles Treaty, which was a huge deal (it stated that Germany had to pay other countries for WW1, and could never form an army). | |
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| English-speaking people don't make war on each other
Posted: 6/13/2006 5:27:08 AM | ^Umm....no, the Holocaust occured during the war. It might not have been called the Holocaust until after the war but it definitely happened while nobody could do anything about it. Not to mention that they didn't actually know it was going on either. The Allies heard a little bit here and there but didn't believe much of it. Not until they started to liberate some of the concentration camps and connect the dots did it actually dawn on them what had been going on. Up until then they just figured it was the standard type of concentration camp where everybody worked alot and conditions were brutal. They didn't actually realize that these camps were designed with one goal in mind : extermination of large segments of the European population.
The Versailles Treaty might have been a huge deal but that wasn't the reason for the war starting. Alot of people on the other side of the fence (so to speak) agreed with Hitler on that one because they could see how it was making life miserable for Germans. Hitler walked right in to the Rhineland and retook it for Germany on a bluff. The French could have just fired a shot in the air (literally) and that would have been the end of any road towards WWII. They didn't though and three years later...well we all know what happened. As well, it was an open secret that Germany was re-arming and violating the terms of the Versailles Treaty. Come to think of it...no, it wasn't much of a secret at all. All that old footage of mass rallies we see these days ... anybody watching that around the time it was made would have noticed that there were a few more than 100,000 brownshirts in the audience. Technically, 100,000 was the magic number set by Versailles so unless they were all trooping from one city to the next to watch every performance Hitler gave, Britain and France knew the Nazis weren't exactly doing a head count on a regular basis. Chamberlain decided to let it slide because he figured Germany had a right to play with the big boys. That and the fact that he was blinded by idealism. In fact, Chamberlain deserves a big chunk of the credit for World War II because he helped Hitler annex Austria and part of Czechoslovakia. His reasons (appeasement) might have been different from Hitler's but he was quite literally just as determined to see Hitler get his way as Hitler himself was. It wasn't until he finally came to his senses that he decided to take a stand. Then Hitler invaded Poland and voila... tens of millions dead six years later. | |
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| English-speaking people don't make war on each other
Posted: 6/13/2006 10:35:15 AM | POST 15,
India is not a native English speaking country but they are English speakers,right across the board and that is because there are so many languages and nations that they need English or Hindi to communicate and English is also the language of business and commerce.
So you learn your native language for the first 5 years,then English/ Hindi is added .
Its a rare,rare Indian who will not know some English .
TV,newspapers etc--roadsigns and the like will be in
1-your state language
2-Hindi
3 - English
All my extended family speak English no matter where they live.English is not considered a foriegn language in India.Its spoken widely .Same applies to Pakistan. | |
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| English-speaking people don't make war on each other
Posted: 6/13/2006 12:45:24 PM |
^Umm....no, the Holocaust occured during the war
Damn, forgot to finish that sentence. My mistake.
It just wasn't that other people didn't know about it...they just didn't care. In Canada, for example, there was a zero Jewish immigration policy; the Soviet Union was in the process of killing Jewish people as well. However, there is a lot of debate about how much foreign leaders new what was going on, and yes, sadly using denial.
As I mentioned, Hitler invading Poland was the major reason. | |
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| English-speaking people don't make war on each other
Posted: 6/13/2006 1:05:36 PM | If you want to get technical, the Holocaust actually started as far back as 1933 when Hitler first got into power and began opening up death camps.
As far as English speaking countries not "making war" on each other.... likely because we were all in the same empire at one point!
There is a reason, Canada, USA, New Zealand and yes even India have English as a dominant language.... because the UK was the ruling state in these areas for many years.
Although I do remember some incident in 1812 with some Canadians blowing up the White house..... | |
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| English-speaking people don't make war on each other
Posted: 6/14/2006 3:08:17 PM |
English-speaking people don't make war on each other
Uh...........
Ever been to an international soccer game?
And the ice-sports, completely ruined. Everytime I go to watch the fights, a hockey game breaks out. | |
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| English-speaking people don't make war on each other
Posted: 6/14/2006 9:48:00 PM | It has less to do with countries that speak english and more to do with countries that are democracy's.
Never in history has there been a war between 2 democracy's
Think about this carefully before you say I'm wrong. | |
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