[Foundation-l] Klassical Chinese

[Nikola Smolenski]

On Monday 08 September 2008 22:23:09 geni wrote:
> 2008/9/8 Nikola Smolenski <smolensk at eunet.yu>:
> >> Oh I don't know the level of English spoken in say Poland is quite
> >> impressive.
> >
> > So?
>
> It means that when there isn't an nationalist region to oppose a
> language which provides access to greater information and
> opportunities it's use can become widespread.

Well that just doesn't make any sense, given that Poland is quite nationalist.

Fact is, learning languages is difficult. In Serbia, English is taught through 
entire primary school, but not everyone has an A, and even those who do may 
not have good enough grip of language to be able to fully understand a 
lengthy text in it, or even if they do, to read at the same speed as their 
native language.

> >> > (Most) human languages arose spontaneously, without conscious effort,
> >> > and so barriers among them are natural and not artificial.
> >>
> >> Serbian though is a dialect of Serbo-Croatian where the barrier is
> >> highly artificial (and people now want to divide it further with
> >> Montenegrin).
> >
> > No, actually, Serbo-Croatian is a dialect of Serbian.
>
> Sigh. Trying to claim that the Central South Slavic diasystem  is a
> dialect of Serbian is unhelpful.

But Serbo-Croatian is not a the Central South Slavic diasystem. Serbo-Croatian 
is a standard language, based on the Eastern Herzegovina dialect, which is 
generally considered to be Serbian.