26th September marks the European Day of Languages. Europe is such as small part of the globe and yet it has such a heritage of languages. Denmark, Holland, Iceland, Croatia may not be large in size, but their people speak their own tongue.
All languages are interrelated, of course. Apart from having international words in their vocabulary, such as “website”, “film”, “fantastic”, which have spread to most languages, languages are also divided into groups or families, depending on their origin and structure. English, German, Danish belong to one language family, whereas French and Romanian to another. These are just examples of languages using the same alphabet. Chinese, Korean or Japanese definitely stand out with their own ideographs. And so is Russian.
It frightens people to see something written in a language they can’t even guess. Anyway, most complete Internet resources are written about it and I don’t intend to repeat it all here. One question I am often asked as a Russian translator is why a Russian text always takes up more space and yet its wordcount is less than the original English. The answer is English is analytical and Russian is synthetic. Without going into too much detail, where English uses articles and prepositions, Russian expresses the same linguistic links through word endings. It has no articles all together. So there are less words, but they are longer.
And as lazy as the English may be for a language-learning nation, they also respect the European Day of Languages and so they should. The ability to speak another language is commendable, it opens doors to some while they remain closed to others.
Yelena McCafferty, Member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists
Talk Russian
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I hope that the “European Day of Languages” will encourage many people to learn a new language. Especially in the United Kingdom where the interest in learning language seems to be declining.
The Council of Europe already uses Esperanto to promote EDL at http://edl.ecml.at/Abouttheday/PDFs/tabid/1860/language/en-GB/language/en-GB/Default.aspx
However your readers may not know that this planned language also has great propaedeutic values.
A glimpse of the language can be seen at http://www.lernu.net
(From a purely practical point of view) Why would English go to bother of learning the foreign language if the whole world speaks English ? (From a purely practical point of view again) If English need foreign language capability there are plenty of immigrant interpreters around with excellent command of English and whichever desired foreign language. How often do you come across interpreters who are native English?
Ah! I know a few English translators translating from Russian but not interpreting… Even though I agree with your practical points, the English would still feel completely lost in Russia or even France if they can’t speak the local language!
Ignorance is bliss! (for us, anyway! And their ignorance – that is!). Ok, shall put it like “the ignorance of the Brits is the bliss for the interpreters” Think what happens, if they start learning!!! We’ll be selling veg!
A hypothetical English would of course be totally lost without knowing the local language in the depths of Russia, but it would be a very unlucky hapless hypothetical English who would end up in the depths of Russia in the first place