
Why Write in English? - lermontov
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/04/18/why-not-write-in-foreign-language/
======
etatoby
The article is about writing, in the higher sense of book authoring, in a
second language and the emotional issues related to that. I can't fully
identify with it, as the most I've written in my second language are posts and
comments like this one.

But there's something to be said about the connection between a language and
the culture that shapes and is shaped by it. I believe they form an ensemble,
so much so that our emotional response to one is inevitably tied to the other.

For example, I spend more time reading and writing in English than in my
native language, which happens to be Italian, even though I live and work in
Italy. This has certainly a lot to do with the subject of my education, job
and interests (guess what...) but I cannot exclude that it's also based on a
certain feeling of "otherness," or alienation, from my country's mainstream
culture.

That being said, I do consider contemporary English to be technically superior
to Italian in almost all respects. It's easier, more flexible, more
expressive, more concise, and more complete. The only exception would be its
utter, inexcusable, almost criminal, irregular spelling.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonemic_orthography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonemic_orthography)

~~~
wolfgke
> That being said, I do consider contemporary English to be technically
> superior to Italian in almost all respects. It's easier, more flexible, more
> expressive, more concise, and more complete. The only exception would be its
> utter, inexcusable, almost criminal, irregular spelling.

For German I consider it exactly the other way round. German is much more
exact: Long compound substantives are very easy to express in German but
difficult in English (in this sense I consider German as more expressive and
concise). The grammar in German might be ugly and unforgiving (it really could
be simplified - just my opinion) but makes it much more complicated to express
sentences that can be misunderstood. English might be easy to learn at the
beginning, but becoming really good in English takes a horrible amount of
time. For example it is in my opinion much easier to become good in French
than in English. Additionally there is no really "standard English" as there
is in French or in German (Hochdeutsch). What is actually the authoritative
ressource for English to clear up what spelling, punctuation etc. really is
the correct one?

~~~
kwhitefoot
The correct one is whichever works best at the time. In English it is, or use
to be, common to use different registers for different occasions.

~~~
wolfgke
How can one even say then that a spelling a punctuation is wrong in English if
there is no authoritative ressource with which one can answer the question?

~~~
unlikelymordant
as long as you are consistent, it really doesn't matter. Even in academic or
technical writing (i am in Australia), you can use american spellings or
british spellings and noone really cares. Perhaps you have to let go of the
"one true way" of spelling/grammar, if things seem to work fine without it.

~~~
wolfgke
I rather think about school: How can teachers even mark wrong spelling if
there is no standardized spelling? The same holds for punctuation of course,
for which up to now I really could not find any ressource with authoritative
character where to put commas in the English language.

~~~
GunboatDiplomat
There are specific guides within certain contexts. An educational setting may
use the Meriam-Webster dictionary as the definitive for spelling, and the
English textbook as the definitive for punctuation. Outside of specific
contexts, there is no absolutely correct way of doing things.

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d33
My impression (and I believe that it's a good thing) is that English is
swallowing languages word for word. Polish for example - Poland is a country
pretty much positively obsessed with US, especially the older people. There's
a lot of concepts that we literally take over from English, for example "pro
choice". We're living in an increasingly Western global culture. It's
surprising that we're seeing so much Chinese influence in our languages.

~~~
mchaver
>> It's surprising that we're seeing so much Chinese influence in our
languages.

What languages, outside of neighboring ones, are being heavily influenced by
Chinese?

~~~
d33
I'm saying that it's surprising to me given their population and economic
force. This is the moment I realized that they have gone a completely
different direction.

~~~
ghubbard
Is the initial comment

"It's surprising that we're seeing so much Chinese influence in our
languages."

missing a 'not'?

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tmptmp
Straightforward reason: English is now the true globally significant language.

Another point, English is the most prestigious language in most parts of the
world. In Asia, where I am from, English has already become or is fast
becoming the most prestigious language. So, you gain lots of more respect,
larger audience and more consequent benefits if you write in English rather
than in any other language.

It may be bad for many other languages but that's one of the facts.

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wimagguc
Writing in your non-native language:

* Czech-born Milan Kundera started to write in French after having moved to France.

* Jack Kerouac was born to French-Canadian parents and brought up speaking French; yet, he wrote in English.

 _" French novelist Proust said that a novelist that wants to have a defined
style should write in a foreign language,"_ said Algerian-Italian writer Tahar
Lamri. _" That's because a foreign language forces the author to hunt for the
proper imagery because they don't have an extensive vocabulary at their
disposition."_ (From DW's article "Non-native authors bring fresh perspective
to language", [http://www.dw.com/en/non-native-authors-bring-fresh-
perspect...](http://www.dw.com/en/non-native-authors-bring-fresh-perspective-
to-language/a-14910840))

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guard-of-terra
More interesting question - why sing in English?

There is a huge number of bands around the world who end up singing in
English, as if they never considered using their native tongue. And it's not
that they have anything unique to say in English! You could make something
that stands out but you end up sounding like a clone of clones.

This puzzles me to no end.

~~~
mafribe

       This puzzles me to no end.
    

The answer is economics. When you want to sell a product, it makes sense to
fine-tune it as much as possible to the largest, most profitable market, and
then re-use the product infrastructure (e.g. production, design, marketing,
delivery) to other markets.

For a very long time, starting with the British empire, the largest, most
affluent market has been English speaking, and since the end of WWII it was
the US.

This lead to the emergence of a US-focussed music industry that resells its
goods in the rest of the world . A similar phenomenon is at play in other
domains like films. As US customers can always easily access products tailored
to their preferences, which includes a strong preference for English-language
lyrics, it has become economically essentially impossible to be globally
successful with (non-instrumental) pop music that is not sung in English. This
is a self-reinforcing phenomenon.

Interestingly, the dominance of English as voice of pop-music, evaporates as
soon as instrumental music is considered: Techno, House, DnB, Dubstep etc
shows no dominance of native speakers of English.

For a variety of reasons, I expect that English will not be as dominant in the
future:

\- Rise China as biggest, most affluent unified market for pop-music. This
will lead to a preference of the Chinese customer for music. This market will
be so large and lucrative as to compensate for the lack of Chinese as second-
language, which is powerful for English.

\- The massive lowering of the cost of music production, marketing and (in
particular) distribution. The more cheaply we can produce music, the more it
makes economic sense to target niche markets.

~~~
douche
China is already a huge factor in film - remember that awful Red Dawn remake
where the North Koreans were inexplicably invading the West Coast? The
original script had the antagonists being the ChiComs, which makes more sense
(at least as much as the original did...). The studio decided that wouldn't
play in Peking[1], and those sweet, sweet international box office dollars won
out.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_it_play_in_Peoria%3F](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_it_play_in_Peoria%3F)

~~~
mafribe
Agreed.

The rise of China can be seen in other markets too, e.g. luxury car makers
increasingly factor-in Chinese taste.

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rabboRubble
English is a hub language. I travel outside of the US, I meet the locals, I
meet other foreigners also visiting, and chances are we all speak English.

Learning a foreign language is a time consuming and expensive endeavor. If you
are not blessed to have English as your native language, and you are
struggling financially but interested in upping your skill level or
marketability, which language do you study? Which language makes the most
sense?

In many cases, the answer to those questions is English. I also pity students
of English. It's a horrible, horrible language as a student. I say this being
a native English speaker with moderate literacy in Japanese and Chinese.

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dave2000
Very similar reason the answer to "why are manhole covers round" is that
manholes are round; because you want to make money by selling your English
test to the large number of people who read English.

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larrysalibra
Network effect.

