Nik wrote:
> Raymond Brown wrote:
> > Easier if it's read rather than spoken, also, methinks. The two parted
> > company a few centuries and are distinctive enough to consitute
different
> > languages.
>
> Certainly true that it's much easier read, but I've heard that most
> Portuguese-speakers can understand Spanish if it's spoken slowly and
> clearly.
So do Italian-speakers.
> > Indeed, why should it? It is IMHO a very beautiful language;
>
> Indeed, Spanish and Italian are among the prettiest languages I've
> heard, IMO.
Nice to hear it!
> > My experience of French people over very, very many years convinces me
that
> > as long as there is a place called France and people who call themselves
> > français or françaises the French language will remain. One thing I
find
> > most French people are proud of is their language.
>
> Indeed, I find it hard to imagine French dying out short of a plague
> wiping out most of France. If it ever does die out, I'm sure it would
> be sometime in the very distant (say, 1000+ yrs) future.
Yeah, methinks the same. There are too many speakers here around to let the
language vanish even in 500 yrs.
> > Languages die very hard. Welsh not merely survives, but has now gained
> > official recognition for the first time in centuries and there is no
> > shortage of people who want to learn it.
>
> But, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny languages (by tiny, I
> mean communities of no more than a few hundred or thousand speakers)
> dying out, hundreds wherein no children are learning them.
>
Yes, right. A few hundred or thousand speakers. French has at least 100
millions speakers around the world. It's another planet!
Luca