Comment by RugnirViking | Hacker News Reader

Comment by RugnirViking | Hacker News Reader

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> Have you ever actually spoken to young Europeans about this

I can't emphasise enough that I am not only literally a young european, living with a young european partner, with a young european social circle, but I also exist in the real world and not in reddit. I have lived here in denmark for coming up on 10 years.

Yes, I know some extremely online people who have learned better english than danish and talk about noticing a decline in their danish skills. Those few who spend all their time online, on reddit and the like. It's definitely a type, one that by my estimation skews male, autistic, and introverted. Prime hacker news demographic type thing :)

I get it, for you as a linguist its remarkable that this could happen, that people could exist that lose their native tongue or learn another to a higher proficiency of that of the country they live in. We do live in unprecedented times.

However I do not think it is universal, or a majority of young people - I also know many more people who have better knowledge in Danish than in english. It is explicitly on issues of politics, business, science, law, etc that people prefer to speak in danish with me because they do not know the words in english, including at meetup groups dedicated to those things.

I feel like if you are a young European keen on local languages, you should realize other people are choosing differently. I'll just point to three developments I have thought about a lot:

1) For some years now, restaurant wait staff in several large European cities, including my former hometown, often only speak English; you simply can't order in the local language. I am basically the only person who complains about this; my peers who are locals don't bat an eye, they don't see it as offensive at all because English is so normal for them.

2) I have a longtime asssociation with one of those Southeastern European countries known as an emigrant factory. My friends who left to Northern or Central Europe or the Baltics have relatively little interest in using the local language except where (like in Germany) required for interacting with bureaucracy. They feel fine living in English. Back in that country, it has not been unusual for the last decade-plus to hear younger people speaking to each other a mixture of English and the local language, and foreigners moving there now complain they get little opportunity to immerse in the local language as I once did.

3) Themes of anti-globalization and protection of European cultural and linguistic diversity have increasingly become associated with the far-right (a quarter-century ago, this was a passion of the left in some countries!). As is known, the far-right is a vocal force but a minority everywhere.

I have simply not experienced 1) here in denmark. I don't know what to say, I live in a city that's not copenhagen, but if it exists it seems to me it must be rare.

as for 2, yes young people sometimes speak to each other in a mix of english and danish. It's using danish grammar, and critically, not english. You couldn't follow at all if you only spoke english (and with significant difficulty if you only spoke danish for that matter). I consider this similar to the process that creates slang

the other part of 2 regarding people that don't rush to learn the local language. Yes I know people who do this. After living here long enough, especially if they plan to stay, they tend to change their tune. I think there is a lot of motivated reasoning on this topic in particular, including stuff I have said to people myself in the past that friends like to remind me of - Whne I first came here I literally used to talk about how its so hard to practise language because locals won't help while being surrounded by locals who are happy to help. I won't speculate as to why people change after staying somewhere long, its just a tendency I have seen.

regarding 3, it is seemingly often associated with the far right yes, especially when bound with nationalism and themes of invasion/protection, but not unique to those contexts. I have experienced this in leftist political spaces personally, up to the point of votes being held and passing, restricting language in spoken meetings to danish only, explicitly for the comfort of those attending. And of course, I have also experienced this in entirely unpolitical spaces like hobby clubs, discussions at parties, and at work.

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