Language and identity
Language and identity are closely intertwined and are constantly under discussion.Click on the titles below to read people's comments and join the debate.
Global English
- Tom - English and French in Canada
- Joop Eggen - Esperanto - easy and the least risks
- S. Stankiewicz - Is there such a thing as a 'clean' language?
- Henriette - International auxiliary language
- Ellie - English native speakers unfairly branded
- Aric - English adopts words from all kind of languages
- Nicky - Why do we have to always justify learning a language?
- Bob - Victims of our own success
- Henriette - To each his own plus a common one
- Bettina - English native speakers don't get a chance to learn languages
- Gabriel - English by no means the 'universal' language
- AGX - English as a world language endangers other languages
- Dan - 'Global English' is already becoming a pidgin language
- Nawal - English is a link language
- Hugh - English is de facto global language
- James - What language should English native speakers learn?
Endangered languages
- Adam - Manx
- Seamus - Ethnic diversity is linguistic diversity
- Jim - Romani
- Laraine Bridges - Cajun French
- Michael - Reviving ancient languages
- Maureen - Maori
- Sue - Tibetan
- Esther - Provision for Scottish Gaelic speakers
- Daniel - Irish revival
- Hillary - Languages more threatened than mammals
- Irene - Frysk (Frisian)
- Deaglán - Revive the Irish language
- Racheal - Australian Aboriginal languages
- Colin - The Scots language
- Jonathan - Lets be realistic about native UK languages
- Tiago - Guarani
- Joss - Are we losing our humanity?
- Nicky - Punjabi
- Toots - Chabakano - Philippine Spanish Creole
- Michael-Forest - Jèrriais (Jersey Norman)
- Ceasar - Gaelic
- Melanie - Welsh
- Sarah H. - Why aren't we taught native British languages at school?
- Robert - Introduce Gaelic to children at school
- Andrew - Scots - not a language anymore
- Cosima - Only use will keep them alive
Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian
- Marijana - 'Serbo-Croatian' is a communistic fantasy language
- Olga - What about Dalmatian?
- K.R. - Diasystem not a single language
- Vlatka - Bosnian has nothing to do with nationality
- Nathan - Linguistically one language
- T Payne - A purely national and political affair
- MJ - Bosnian Muslims have been denied their identity
- Bernard - One language, three egos
- Alex - Situation comparable to Hindi/Urdu
- Lennart - Same as Swedish, Danish and Norwegian
- Semir - More than just a slight difference
Dutch/Flemish
- Chris - Dutch, Flemish, Tussentaal
- Sven - Flemish far more than a dialect of Dutch
- Bart - Flemish is a dialect
- Jamie - Flemish/Dutch in Brussels
- Augusta - I am Flemish and proud of it!
- Els - Distinction between Dutch and Flemish at an official level
- Dirk - Belgian government considers the language spoken in Belgium as Dutch
- Bert-Jan - One language in different variations
- Sam - Belgian/Dutch at the border
- Paul - When in Brussels ...
- Simon - Dutch is the official language in Belgium
- David - Real Dutch is spoken in Belgium