Have you been to the Cajun Louisiana area? They say that Cajun French is dying out because of the past language repression and also because the native speakers are getting old and didn’t pass on the language, which is terrible to me! I don’t get why immigrants don’t pass on the language to their kids–there is nothing wrong with knowing languages and having different cultural viewpoints.
What I don’t understand is: why does he only consider Portuguese from Brazil? If he would have considered Portuguese spoken in other countries (like Portugal, Angola, Mozambique, etc.) it is obvious that Portuguese would have gained at least one or two extra points in the “influential” scale not only for the augmentation of the speakers considered in the statistics, but also because of the worldwide distribution of the language, which is an advantage over languages like Chinese for example, but of course if you just consider “Brazilian” Portuguese you don’t take on account all of this “extra” points.
Personally I don’t agree when they “split” Portuguese language like this. It is true that there are regional differences (like in many other languages) being one of them the pronunciation of some vowels; but, for example, in Australia they also pronounce some vowels in a different way than, lets say, in the USA but when they do these statistics they don’t account only the USA or use the term “USA English”. In the same way, if you consider only French from France and don’t take on account other countries like African countries because there are differences in pronunciation and other things, then the statistics would vary significantly.
Greetings.
P.S. Sorry for changing the subject into “defend Portuguese” 
@casasigiloso
“Have you been to the Cajun Louisiana area?”
No, I have not, but I have a lot of musician friends from New Orleans, none of whom speak French.
I have listened to a bit of Cadien french and its really interesting! I’d say really slowly spoken Quebec french is the best way to describe it. Comparing Metropolitan french to cajun would be like comparing a Standard American English accent to English from… actually… the bayou.
I’d love to go down there and speak with some Cajuns in French. Here is a wikipedia quote a propos your question:
"Some people question whether the Cajun language will survive another generation.[2] Many parents intentionally have not taught their children the Cajun language to encourage English-language fluency, in hopes that the children would have a better life in an English-speaking nation. However, many of these grandparents are discovering that their grandchildren are researching and trying to learn the language.
Many young adults are learning enough Cajun to understand Cajun music lyrics. Also, there is now a trend to use Cajun language websites to learn the dialect. Culinary words and terms of endearment such as “cher” /ʃæ/ (dear) and “nonc” (uncle) are still heard among otherwise English-speaking Cajuns. Currently, Cajun French is considered an endangered language.
The Louisiana state legislature has greatly shifted its stance on the status of French. With the passage of Legislative Act No. 409 in 1968, the Louisiana governor was, and still is granted the authorization “to establish the Council for the Development of Louisiana-French” and that the agency is to consist of no more than fifty members including a chairman. The name was soon changed to CODOFIL and was granted the power to “do anything possible and necessary to encourage the development, usage and preservation of French as it exists in Louisiana.[8]”
To be fair to Weber, apparently even a lot of Brazilians have posted in forums saying that European Portuguese is very different in terms of syntax, pronunciation, and vocabulary.
I don’t know much Portuguese, but the general consensus is that the differences between European and Brazilian Portuguese are somewhat/considerably more great than between British and American English, for instance.
But even so, Portuguese seems like an underrated language. Especially if you look at studies and surveys that show that Brazilians apparently speak relatively poor English compared to a lot of European countries. If they don’t speak as much English, it is more “useful” for Americans to know Portuguese to communicate. Whereas if you are American, knowing German or especially a northern European language is less useful since a lot of them can speak excellent English. It’s still useful, but not as much if they didn’t speak any English.
Yeah…it really doesn’t look good for Cajun French. Without the native speakers, you kind of get a bunch of people with stereotypical High School language level that can say basic things but can’t really hold a complex conversation. But I would hope that it survives to a meaningful extent. I’m against this English Only campaign that some people advocate.
@Cazasigiloso.
I don’t think British and American English are a good point of comparison. There are English variants from other countries that are waaay more different than the “standard” and they are still considered English and count as one in the statistics. The same happens with Spanish, French and other languages.
I agree, the differences between Portuguese from both sides of the Atlantic can be great (yes, greater than the differences between British and American English, which, as I said, in my opinion is not a good point of comparison) but, I insist, I don’t think great enough to be considered as different languages or take all other lusophone countries out of the statistics. If this were the case, other languages would be in the same position.
A great lusophone poet once said: “A minha pátria é a língua portuguesa” (My homeland is the Portuguese language) and I don’t think any lusophone (from Brazil, Portugal; Angola or wherever) would consider himself out of that homeland just for the variations in the language (which are, by the way, part of the beauty and richness of a language)
Greetings.
Jamaican English? What types of English are you talking about? (I don’t count second-language speakers like those in India, just native speakers) The one type of English that gets me is the Irish, I think.
Another thing that I don’t get is the “culture” and “sound” of certain languages that make them supposedly more appealing than others. For instance, French and Italian are apparently “beautiful” whereas other languages “sound bad.”
But do most people really think that French and Italian sound better? It’s all the same to me; I can love any language as long as there are a lot of native speakers, it is relatively easy, and I can use it. (Looking at you Spanish, French, Portuguese, perhaps German and Italian)
Yes, the Caribbean applies for both English and Spanish being quite apart from the “standard”, Northern Ireland, I find English from Australia also quite different to the standard form I have learned and sometimes I have a hard time to understand it, for example, among other things, when they said “day” I used to hear “die” until I learned that’s the way they pronounce the “a”.
The same with French from Canada, till now (depending on who is speaking) I find it quite different from the French from France and the people living in Canada are still considered in the statistics of the French speaking people, not separated from them.
I didn’t want to say specific examples to not be misunderstood or hurt any feelings, but I just wanted to convey the idea that I don’t see the point in putting Portuguese (in Mr. Weber’s article, survey or investigation) as the only language being in that “separated” situation; I think that is a kind of bias against Portuguese.
Greetings
Hmm, I don’t have issues in understanding Australian English; the differences seem pretty minor to me. With Jamaican English, I don’t find it to be that hard to understand also. It just sounds “funny” to me.
Caribbean Spanish is actually based on Andalusian Spanish (Southern Spain), in case you didn’t know. It’s the hardest type of Spanish for me to understand because they drop random vowels and letters in general. 
But I find it to be fairly minor in terms of differences for English and Spanish.
The thing is that I pretty much never hear Spanish speakers complaining about not understanding somebody from another country (same with English speakers) but I DO hear this from Portuguese speakers. It is obviously the same language, but in some ways, Brazilian Portuguese is more similar to Latin American Spanish in terms of sentence structure!
@ cazasigiloso (…) but I DO hear this from Portuguese speakers. It is obviously the same language, but in some ways, Brazilian Portuguese is more similar to Latin American Spanish in terms of sentence structure! (…)
I hear that all the time too and I wonder how much of it is due to some sort of “linguistic nationalism”.
I’ve been studying Portuguese (mostly European Portuguese) for a rather short time and I understand both Brazilian and European Portguese equally well (or if I don’t understand something it does not have anything to do with the differences between these two variants). I do think, however, that the differences are much bigger than for example between the Spanish my Spanish sister-in-law speaks and the Spanish spoken by my Mexican sister-in-law. Nevertheless, I have a feeling people tend to exaggerate when they suggest they actually don’t understand what the other is saying.
Of course, you can always make it hard for others to understand you if that is your intention.
Wait–how do you have sisters in laws that are Mexican and Spanish? I had to think about that for a second!
Spanish is very uniform amongst all the countries that speak it, as you know. Some common vocabulary and slang obviously are different, but that happens in the English variants, too. For a language that is so wide-spread, it is extremely well-preserved. The same is with French, right?
It is just that some Brazilians post on language forums and really do think that the differences between European and Brazilian Portuguese are vast; and they list their well-articulated reasons for saying so. Maybe it is like the difference between German in Germany and German in Switzerland? As an aside, I heard that Swiss-Germans can have great difficulty in understanding Germans. Is this true?
@ cazasigiloso: (…) Wait–how do you have sisters in laws that are Mexican and Spanish? I had to think about that for a second! (…)
I was born at a time when Austrian families still had quite a few kids. I have four brothers and one sister. So enough room for foreign sisters-in-law
(…) The same is with French, right? (…)
Sometimes I have problems with certain accents and intonations (especially with regard to some African speakers of French), but apart from that French appears to be very uniform too. Of course, you have the Québécois which is vastly different from what one might consider standard European French.
(…) It is just that some Brazilians post on language forums and really do think that the differences between European and Brazilian Portuguese are vast; and they list their well-articulated reasons for saying so. (…)
I’m no expert in this and I’m sure there are numerous differences but in my opinion none of them make either variant incomprehensible to a speaker of the other variant. At least so far I have not encountered any major problems when watching Brazilian and Portuguese TV programmes.
(…) As an aside, I heard that Swiss-Germans can have great difficulty in understanding Germans. Is this true? (…)
I’d say the other way round is much more common. As an Austrian I have no problem whatsoever to understand Swiss people speaking standard German with their charming Swiss accent. However, when they speak Schwyzerdütsch my comprehension rate falls to between 30 and a meagre 10 % depending on the topic and the speed at which they speak. I have never met a Swiss who had problems understanding a German or an Austrian but they sometimes find it hard to keep speaking in standard German for an extended period of time (or they just don’t feel comfortable doing so).
The same is true of a province in Austria called “Vorarlberg”. Their dialect is very close to Schwyzerdütsch (their province borders on Switzerland) and completely different from the way we speak in the rest of Austria. They always switch to standard Austrian German when I go there since I hardly understand their dialect and I’d feel strange if I tried to imitate their dialect because it is completely foreign to me.
What about Luxembourgish? I’ve heard some say it’s a language, some say its a dialect of German
What about Luxembourgish? I’ve heard some say it’s a language, some say its a dialect of German
@ Robert - My boss is Swiss and he says that he cannot understand a thing when Viennese speak dialect. I was in Switzerland a few weeks ago for a meeting, and some guy spoke to me in Schwyzerdütsch in a restaurant and I only understood what he was saying because of context. It sounded like nothing I had ever heard before. I also listened to some woman who was adding up our bills in another restaurant and the numbers she was saying to herself sounded very different to what I had learned. Very interesting.
@ Colin: (…) I also listened to some woman who was adding up our bills in another restaurant and the numbers she was saying to herself sounded very different to what I had learned. Very interesting. (…)
I know what you mean. Sometimes I understand more of what somebody says in Dutch than when somebody speaks to me in Schwyzerdütsch.
(…) My boss is Swiss and he says that he cannot understand a thing when Viennese speak dialect. (…)
That comes as a little surprise to me, but I guess it is hard for me to really understand the difficulties people have when we speak in our dialects. Personally, I don’t find them to be so different from standard German but I guess this is just because I am used to them. Vienna has such a large population of people coming from other countries or provinces within Austria that you would have to go to special places like a Heurigen or talk to some older people in a “Gemeindebau” to really hear the local dialect. My experience has been that most people in Vienna speak standard Austrian with the typical Viennese drawl. We call that “ziagn” (ziehen) since for us, Viennese people draw out certain sounds and their intonation is quite peculiar too.
But normally Vienna is one of the few places in Austria where you are most likely to find a spoken version which is reasonably close to standard German 
Unless, of course, Viennese talk amongst themselves. I have no trouble at all understanding them. The only dialect I find hard to understand is the previously mentioned Vorarlbergerisch.
@ Robert
How much of this do you understand?
@ djvlbass (…) What about Luxembourgish? I’ve heard some say it’s a language, some say its a dialect of German (…)
The verdict is still out on this one. Some linguists consider it a dialect, others a language by itself. Some argue it is closer to standard German than for example Bavarian and since Bavarian is not considered a language on its own, Luxembourgish shouldn’t be considered one either.
Even the EU is kind of contradictory in its approach. On the one hand it has awarded Luxembourgish the status of a minority language, on the other hand it does not count it as one of the 23 official languages of the EU. Every EU citizen is allowed to address any EU institution in one of the official languages. Luxembourg, however, counts Luxembourgish as one of its three official languages. Like so many things in Europe, this whole issue is quite complicated. I love Europe but sometimes things are incredibly complex Still, I think it is remarkable what has been achieved with regard to the “unification of Europe” considering our history.
Not everything works fine (yet) and there are many things I’d change within the EU, but there are many good things going on within the EU as well and I hope we won’t lose the kind of freedom we have managed to build to some lunatic nationalistic forces which have been stepping up their activities all over the continent. Not that the EU commission was perfect, far from it (the latest draft of their seed market directive is an excellent example of how wrong things can go within the EU if large corporations have it their way. Since the EU Parliament has been strengthened, the EU commission has been forced to listen more closely to the union’s citizens though and I think that is one of the good changes that were introduced over the past few years).
@Robert:
Hi, you are the first Austrian guy I have been meeting here in this forum. Nice to meet you, I am Elisabeth - It feels a bit more familiar in this international forum and I like your interesting comments. They are really good to read and especially the story about the Boy who studies soooo many languages at once,… it’s amazing. It motivates me even more to stay on the ball.
And about the not understandable rather weird accents in Austria, what about Kärntnen and Lungau in Salzburg. You suppose to be in a foreign country, and as long as we didn’t have the euro, you at least could notice at the money that you are in Autstria, but now… it’s rather difficult:-).
@ Elisabeth1: Nice to meet you Where in Austria are you from?
I have no trouble understanding Carinthian dialects and I love the Lungau one. Actually, Upper Austrian and Salzburg dialects are my favourite ones in Austria.