One of the better jobs out there

A new Assassin's Creed has just come out and this one is based in Paris at the time of the revolution, and one person's job working for Ubisoft was to delve through the historical archives to reconstruct Paris as it was at the time.

Et dans la mesure où rien ou presque ne persiste du Paris du 18e siècle, l'historien a dû tout reconstruire de zéro:

«[...] prendre des archives, des peintures, des gravures... C'était mon boulot. Leur montrer tout ce que nous avions en terme de culture visuelle. Pour être capable de le reconstuire.»

It ranks up there with whoever is in charge of making a trip to Slovenia from Slovakia or vice versa every months to exchange the mistakenly delivered mail.

This would make for a nice monthly business trip. pic.twitter.com/KNv8mrqGLK
— Dave MacLeod (@mithridates) 10 oktober 2014

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Montreal now a good place to learn European French as well

Here's something I didn't know was happening - apparently in under ten years the number of French citizens living in Montreal has increased by 45%, to approximately 110,000. That's a pretty huge number.

Then in this thread we see a number of stories such as this one:

En plus c'était à Paris, alors entre les types qui font la tronche dans le métro, les invasions de poussettes dans le RER (pas possible de la plier et de prendre ton mioche dans tes bras?), l'odeur de vomi dans le RER, les types qui te demandent une clope pour te vendre du shit et t'insultant quand tu refuses, les prix prohibitifs sur tout...

Interesting. Next question: what about the population in Quebec City? Wikipedia tells us a bit about the province but not about its second-largest city.

L'immigration au Québec suscite un réel engouement de la part des Français expatriés. 74,4 % des immigrants français venus au Canada choisissent de s'installer dans la province du Québec3. En 2011, 3 235 Français 4 (Français étant défini ici comme né en France) se sont installés au Québec avec un visa de résident permanent (RP). Le croisement des données des recensements de 2001 et 2006 5 et des chiffres du MICC 6 permettent de connaître l'accroissement de la population française au Québec et le taux de rétention de la province. Il en ressort que sur le long terme, 55 % des immigrants français venus avec le statut de RP restent au Québec.

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Ask a French nuclear engineer about his job

/r/France in Reddit is currently having an AMA (ask me anything) with a French nuclear engineer - Je suis ingénieur nucléaire, AMA. All in French of course but if you can read it and are interested in his job then go take a look. One interesting exchange begins thus:

Q: Quand tu te retrouve à un rassemblement ou une fête plutôt ambiance roots/écologie, tu t'inventes quoi comme profession ?

A: j'ai fait quelques rasemblement de ce genre (seminaire permaculture, rencontre CSA, conférences sur l'agriculture bio) je me cache jamais. mais il y un gros stigma dans le nucléaire. et je connais beaucoup de collegues dont les enfants disent juste "papa il travaille dans l'électricité"

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Saarland may become German-French bilingual within a generation

An article here in Zeit is interesting enough to provide a liberal translation of today, and fits well with all the others I have shone a light on showing geographic distance to often be the deciding factor in the languages a country or region chooses to place importance on. The title is of course somewhat exaggerated.

In one generation French in Saarland will be as common as German. The Minister-President Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer hopes this will be a unique selling point for the underdeveloped state. A francophile herself, this emotional closeness to France is part of the reason she was appointed in the summer of 2011 to be the "delegate of the Federal Republic of Germany for German-French cultural cooperation" by Angela Merkel. 51 years old, she was born in Völklingen and speaks a "quite passable" French along with English and her Saarland dialect. She admits however that it is not quite fluent enough to be used in official functions, which is why there is an interpreter present.

One of the letters of intent signed between border states in the two countries (Saarland in Germany, Alsace and Lorraine in France) is one signed in May 2013 for bilingual daycare centres. Right now in Saarland there are 180 facilities, and 200 in France, where children at three years of age can be raised bilingually.

This approach is part of the strategy developed by Kramp-Karrenbauer and her SPD coalition partners for the state. The Francophile and highly indebted state intends to have a unique selling point within a generation of being bilingual, with comprehensive French lessons right from the first year of primary school. Two aspects will remain untouched, however: German as the sole official language, and importance given to English as the indispensable world language for business.

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Municipal employees in Menen (Belgium) not permitted to speak French as of 2014

Paraphrased from here:

The mayor of Menen in WestFlanders, located right at the geopolitical and linguistic border, will prohibit its municipal employees from speaking French beginning in January.

Nordistes (inhabitants of northern France close to Belgium) from generation to generation have done their shopping in Menen without having the impression of having crossed the border: the main road, Rijselstraat, goes right across the border to Halluin. Some 6% of the inhabitants of Menen are French speakers.

On the city website on the 3th of September, in a bill in Dutch (not translated), the mayor refers to a 1996 law that communities in Flanders are to be administered in French (while those in Wallonia are to be in Dutch). Her statement regarding it: "Speaking another language besides Dutch is not permitted except in exceptional circumstances. The exception must remain the exception, and not become the rule." Objectives: "Sending out a strong signal" and "encouraging the learning of Dutch".

The page on the city website referencing this is here.

So on that note, let's travel from Halluin to Menen. Menen's right across the river.


Agrandir le plan

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Link roundup: 10 June 2013

• 
  A "translation" of the Bible into Texan. The translation is actually just replacing the word you with y'all when the original is the plural you, which actually makes it more precise. Without the loss of thou English wouldn't have needed all the substitutes we have: y'all, your guyses, etc.
• Some more research on habitability around white and brown dwarf stars seems to show less possibility for life around them than previously believed, but the conclusion is far from definite.
• Chris Hadfield has announced his retirement from the Canadian Space Agency.
• France24 to launch a Spanish-language channel, after the current French, English, and Arabic versions.
• Will Smith talking in Spanish a bit, a language he clearly loves to use:

• A poem in Interlingua recently uploaded to YouTube:

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How France views German

This article in French from Le Figaro is a good read. It touches not just on the numbers of students learning German in France but also the jobs that are going unfilled between the two countries: English is the first language students learn in both countries and those that choose a second will usually go for Spanish, in spite of its greater distance and smaller economy. Mandarin also gets a mention here. There is a definite silliness found in the vague idea among students that languages such as Spanish or Mandarin promise a future full of well-paid employment when the language of the economic power next door remains ignored. Personal preference should be the primary (if not only) reason to learn a language, and if personal preference is irrelevant then proximity is another important factor.

Language usefulness almost seems to work like gravity with the usefulness dropping by the square of the distance, except that it eventually reaches a certain baseline instead of fading into nothingness.

For the average French student, most likely located in the north of the country, Spain and its centre of population is actually quite distant:

And for a student in Germany, even more so. Spanish should be learned by students who truly want to learn it, not those with a vague notion that it is somehow the language of the future when there are well-paying jobs to be had now through knowing the language of the country next door.

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Bemoaning the lack of German in French schools

A post here in French does just that. Not just the fact that German is only studied by 22% of French students, but that it is often not studied in favour of other languages that are popular at the moment (Chinese, Japanese, Arabic) but that are rarely ever mastered in the few years a student has to study them.

Lots of comments below the article to read as well.

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UK students suckiest at foreign languages, French students second suckiest

From here in French, referencing a new survey of foreign language aptitude in 14 countries that I'll try to take a closer look at tomorrow when I have time. No surprises here though:

UK (says anglais but probably means the whole of the UK) students report only 9% being proficient in their first foreign language (French) and 6% the second (German). In France this is 14% (English) and 11% (Spanish). The European average is 42% in the first, 20% in the second. The best and worst are also no surprise. Best countries: Sweden, Ireland, Malta, Netherlands etc....worst countries are France, Belgium, Poland, Spain.

Sweden shows a lopsided ability though: 82% report being proficient in English, but they are last in the list in their second language, Spanish. Basically all English and nothing else.

Well, there actually is one surprise there: Ireland. We'll need to check how many have reported Irish to be their first language and English their second.

More tomorrow, or if you've read the survey then feel free to leave a comment below.

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More at the Forum mondial de la langue francaise: "France needs its own Bill 101"

From here in French:

A charter of the French languages inspired by Quebec which would limit English signage in shops has become "almost indispensable" in France due to the proliferation of "Americanism" in the country, said renowned linguist Claude Hagège on Wednesday.

If French has lost its attraction it is due partly to the decline of French industrial power which has resulted in an "imitation of the language of power", from which comes the proliferation of English in the streets of France.

Claude Hagège believes that France would do well to emulate Quebec, where in the late 1970s Quebec separatists (then in power) adopted loi 101 (Charter of the French language) which imposed unilingual French signage. Following legal challenges the law was watered down to make French "predominant" in signage which allowing other languages.

Should France adopt such a law to preserve its language? "20 years ago I would have said no, but now I regret to say yes. It is in France's interest to take up this marvelous Bill 101...in France until recently this was inconceivable, compared to Quebec which saw itself as an island of seven million in an Anglophone ocean." But today "a law comparable to Bill 101 has now become, I say openly, almost indispensable in France."

The first problem with this idea: France has a great many regional languages that are not interested in seeing French become even more predominant over them in a country that has been even less permissive to regional tongues than most others in Europe. It looks like France will actually ratify the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (Hollande said he would do this if elected and now he has a majority in parliament) so a law putting French at the forefront would likely not be possible. On the other hand, a Charter of French Languages (plural) could be possible, since this law is directed entirely at English anyway and stating something to the effect that French languages must be given priority in signage (i.e. French or Breton in Brittany but not any language besides these two) would easily solve this...if France decides to take up such a bill in the first place, that is.

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Small link roundup: Vesta, Chinese in Brazil, François Hollande, Russian in the EU, Korean language students doubled in four years

--- Let's begin with a virtual flight over Vesta taken by Dawn and made recently (a week ago) using that footage:



Quite amazing when you think that just a year and a bit ago our best image of the protoplanet was this:

--- Next is another "Chinese is super useful and more and more people are learning it" article here in Portuguese. Two numbers worth noting: a Chinese continuing ed class in Unesp de Rio Preto with 30 classes in 2010 grew to 40 the next year, and the cost is 200 real ($100) per semester at 3 hours per week (two 1.5-hour classes).

--- This article states that François Hollande says he speaks better English than Sarkozy, but that the President of France should use French.

--- This article from Voice of Russia says that a group in France called France-Ural wants to make Russian an official language of the EU, a popular refrain on Voice of Russia. Just checked out their homepage and it's very hard on the eyes. Haven't seen a spinning graphic and frames in a website for quite some time.

--- This article in English says that about double the number of people were in Korea on student visas to learn the language in 2010 compared to 2006, now reaching 17 880.

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French minister of national education: Chinese is being learned throughout the territory

This article begins with an introduction to a school called Hauts-Grillets in Saint-Germain-en-Laye (west of Paris), an international school with English/German/Polish/etc. sections and where a Chinese section has just opened. Nothing notable there so moving on...

Indeed, in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, one can begin learning Chinese in elementary school. As indicated by French education ministers, the teaching of Chinese in France has grown rapidly in recent years. It has become a "national phenomenon", rather than being restricted to a few schools in some cities. To promote the development of Chinese teaching, the minister has also appointed an inspector general of Chinese.

(note: that actually began in 2006)

According to him (Joël Bellassen), in this year in France the number of students learning Chinese in high school reached 29 605...in the 1990s there were only about a hundred students taking the HSK in France. In 2010 the number surpassed 1000, and in 2011 it reached 2200.

And something here reminiscent of articles on Latin:

In addition, French Chinese education experts emphasized that "the study of Chinese is not just beneficial to the economy. Chinese uses figurative/pictoral writing. Learning this language helps in training one's memory and deductive capacity."

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Infographic on the number of French citizens in Quebec

Radio-Canada has an interesting infographic here on the number of French citizens in Quebec, their rate of increase, and what they do in the province. Some of the information:

-----

Nos Français - This refers to all people that were born in France, who live in or have permanent residence in Quebec.

At the moment in Quebec there is a total of 59,210 French immigrants.

40% of them arrived before 1981,
11% arrived between 1981 and 1990,
24% arrived between 1991 and 2000,
and 25% arrived between 2001 and 2006.

An average of 3,000 people immigrate from France to Quebec each year, representing one immigrant per 13. They are the third-largest group after Algerians and Morrocans.

69.6% of them live in the region of Montreal,
8.5% in the region of Quebec (City),
21.9% in other parts of Quebec.

65.4% of them are employed; the provincial average is 60.4%.

The four largest sectors of employment for them are:
-- sales and services: 20%
-- finance / administration: 16.5%
-- social services / teaching: 14%
-- management: 13.5%

Salary compared to the average Quebec worker:

French men: $42000
Quebec men: $39000
French women: $30000
Quebec women: $26000

5787 French students were registered at universities in autumn, representing 1 student in 4. This makes them the largest group; following them are Americans and Chinese.

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Link roundup for 5 May 2012

--- First a reminder: elections today (6 May in Europe) in France, Serbia, and Greece.

--- Good news from a few days ago: the ESA has chosen to go with the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JUICE) over the two other proposals. Launch will be in 2022, arrival 2030:

The spacecraft would use the gravity of Jupiter to initiate a series of close fly-bys around Callisto and Europa, and then finally to put itself in a settled orbit around Ganymede.

I feel bad for the missions that did not get selected (because ideally they would all be funded), but when it comes down to it I will almost always prefer a mission that has more immediate and close appeal. An unmanned dedicated mission to 24 Themis (possibly a good location for human colonization) over Neptune, for example.

--- Dawn is now beginning to spiral upward in its orbit around Vesta after being given an extra 40 days in its current (and lowest) orbit. Departure for Ceres will be in August I believe, and in the meantime it continues to approach Ceres by virtue of being in orbit around Vesta (which is closing in on Ceres at the moment). Current distance: 96 million km.

--- Google's blog in Latin America mentions some challenges for tech companies in Spanish. Two are interesting: 1) Generating content: there is a lack of local content in Portuguese and Spanish. For example, there are 2.5 times more websites in German than Spanish, in spite of the fact that the Spanish-speaking population is much larger than the German-speaking one. 2) Develop e-commerce: in Latin America, electronic commerce represents between 0.3% and 0.6% of GDP, compared to 1% in developed countries.

 --- The Susquehanna town school district has decided to increase Spanish education and do away with French. Nothing wrong with increasing Spanish and decreasing other languages if the budget does not allow it, but the reasons given are quite specious:

Intensive, longer-term studies would help halt the slide, he said, adding that eliminating French would help students concentrate on a globally useful language. French is “a beautiful language, [but] not as relevant as it was years ago,” Sakol said. Revised language offerings could include Mandarin, Assistant Superintendent Kim Donahue said. “If you look at the top 10 languages, basically, it’s Mandarin Chinese, English and Spanish,” she said.

French has grown from 200 million to 220 million over the past three years and will reach around 650-700 million by 2050. French is not the language of diplomacy it once was, but its current strength is by no means ebbing.

--- Google Alerts sent me a job ad in Montreal for a Papiamentu speaker. Not that good a job (call centre) but interesting to see.

--- Costa Rica snagged a group of 28 immersion students that had originally intended to go to Mexico. The change marks an end to a 15-year exchange, and took place due to safety reasons. Probably not an isolated incident.

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François Hollande to ratify the European charter of regional languages

Possible / probable (currently at 54% to Sarkozy's 46%) next French president François Hollande has made it easy to decide on a subject for a post today: he held an event in Bretagne (Brittany) where he promised to ratify the European charter for minority languages. That would turn France from light green (signed) on this map to dark green (signed and ratified). From here:

18h10. "We will ratify the charter of regional languages" François Hollande promised to ratify the charter of regional languages: "We will do it together, without threatening the French language".

and here:

Holland moves on to the role of the localities. "We need them in order to work. After May 6, I will initiate a new act of decentralization...French will not be threatened. But Breton should be taught and disseminated as all regional minority languages!"

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Bilingual (German - French) education continues to increase in Alsace

An article here in French begins with an interview with a person who is 20 years old and a chef de rang at a restaurant in Strasbourg and who was enrolled in bilingual schools since he was in kindergarten. He talks about how useful German is for him to know, and then the article gives some numbers:

Bilingualism continues to develop in Alsace. According to figures there are 24,627 students from kindergarten to high school that are taking a bilingual curriculum, three times more than in 2000 (7,119). In primary school the number of bilingual students increased from 6,731 to 19,812, middle school from 344 to 3,656 today, high school from 44 to 1,160. For Claude Froehlicher, president of the association of bilingual students, putting one's child in bilingual education is "common sense". "It's an opportunity for the future of one's child. German, he says, is the most spoken language in Europe. For employment it counts. The parents also say that it can't be bad to immerse oneself in a linguistic culture."

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French ministry of foreign affairs now has Twitter account in Arabic

As according to this article in French, which mentions that the French version of its Twitter account has 134,000 followers. As is often the case with articles like this, there isn't even a link to the Twitter account it is discussing. Fine then, I will find it...here it is in French, English, and Arabic.

Number of followers:

French: 134,973
English: 475
Arabic: 119

When I first saw the article Arabic was around eighty-something.

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Nantes says yes to Ya d'ar Brezhoneg

That's according to this:

The Nantes city council voted last Friday for the membership of the village to Ya d'ar Brezhoneg (Yes to the Breton language)...the five selected actions are: the development of bilingual education; the purchase of Breton books in media centres; the implantation of bilingual signs at the entrances to the city (these already exist); bilingual cultural programming; the authorization of wedding ceremonies in French, or in Breton, or in both. Naturally, contracts will remain written only in French.

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More French students learning Chinese

We already knew that, but here are some more numbers from an article here:

Today it is possible to learn Chinese in 30 primary schools and 535 middle and high schools. At the beginning of the school year in 2011, 29,505 students learned Chinese in high school, compared to 9,328 in 2004.

Mandarin today holds the 5th place among languages studied in secondary schools. At the same time, some 6,000 French students left this year for Chinese schools, a large share of the 22,000 European students in this situation.

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Demonstration in France against cuts in Portuguese-language teaching

From two articles on this:

Article 1:

The Panel for the Defense of Teaching Portuguese Abroad (O Colectivo para a Defesa do Ensino do Português no Estrangeiro), created to challenge cuts in the network of Portuguese teachers, gathered on Saturday about 100 people at the Embassy of Portugal in France.

Parents, teachers, students and representatives arrives with flags of Portugal and protests signs: "Nós queremos aprender português" (we want to learn Portuguese), "A nossa língua é a nossa pátria!" (our language is our homeland!), and "Queremos guardar os nossos professores de português" (we want to keep our Portuguese teachers).

The demonstrators will deliver more than 2500 signatures to Ambassador Francisco Seixas da Costa against the decision by the government, which they say will represent "the beginning of the end of teaching Portuguese in France and Europe".

The Instituto Camões announced in late 2011 that it would reduce by January 49 teaching posts abroad, particularly in France (20), Switzerland (20) and Spain (9).

According to this group, in France more than two million children were left without Portuguese classes. The ambassador in Paris, Francisco Seixas da Costa, estimates that this number is between 1700 and 1800.

Article 2:

The ambassador of Portugal in Paris affirmed today, where another protest took place against the reduction in the number of teachers of Portuguese in France, that the ministries of education of the two countries will discuss the issue at the end of the month.

Asked whether the reduction on the part of the Portuguese government, which gives lessons in primary school, would mean future cuts by the French government government, which provides Portuguese classes in secondary school, the ambassador answered no.

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