English Language Arrogance

[submaniac]

^^

Unfortunately I am at a loss at where such a location may be in Thailand...if you manage to find out....umm...would you mind sending me a PM to let me know where to find them? Much appreciated, thanks.

[toybits]

I met an International School Teacher who chaperoned students on an exposure trip to Chiang Rai. I felt most uncomfortable with his better than thou attitude. They asked to be allowed to teach English to local students. After a rather haphazard and rather tumultuous afternoon had the gall to demand that the school principal thank the International School students for teaching their students. I felt that it was the duty of the International School chaperone to thank the local school for allowing them to interact with the students. But this bloke had no clue about what was right or wrong in that instance. I wanted to knock his head just like that security guard but instead just had to leave that place to cool down. I don't think he got his word of thanks from the school principal unless he demanded it himself.

[toybits]

And in the UK a little bit of Urdu and Hindi?

When there is a business in any country and a sizable customer base speaks English, not having at least one English speaker available is just poor business. Yes I am a stupid American but do speak English, Spanish, French, Tagolog, and a little Waray (wife's philippine dialect) and a smattering of Thai.

So I presume in most shops in the US they understand and speak Spanish

[toybits]

Wake up mate! Chinese is making a very strong comeback.

If it wasn't for the English speaking people of the world half the world would now be speaking only German and the other half would be speaking Japanese..

You would not be allowed to speak against this and all books in any other language would by now have been burnt.

PS The English language has more words than any other language; many of the words have come from other languages

And what poetry and prose can those words produce.

Take for instance Betjeman's simple line.'Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough;it isn't fit for humans now'.

French comes second with only one third of the number of words.

I am not 'arrogant' about the fact I speak only English.I have tried many times to learn other languages and fail miserably.

[wana]

When there is a business in any country and a sizable customer base speaks English, not having at least one English speaker available is just poor business. Yes I am a stupid American but do speak English, Spanish, French, Tagolog, and a little Waray (wife's philippine dialect) and a smattering of Thai.

So I presume in most shops in the US they understand and speak Spanish

Well in areas that have a high Spanish speaking population, yes they do. There are parts of Los Angeles where people (and shops) speak Spanish exclusively.

i was in new york on the subway and i picked up a disgarded newspaper to read it ,then i realised it was all in spanish

also stayed in a hotel in the USA where all the staff seemed to be mexicans and nobody had more than a word of english

except an ancient old man on the front desk

it happens

[Jingthing]

Frankly, most of the places I have lived in the U.S. are populated with more non-English speakers than where I live in Thailand! I am not joking.

[harrry]

In Australia many large businesses have a register of their staff who speak languages other than english. There is also a free telephone interpreter service for many needs though Government departments are reluctant to use it as they can get charged for it.

Edited March 25, 2012 by harrry

[TexasRanger]

The Thai people do suffer a lack of opportunities as a result of the poor teaching of English here, many times I have been asked by friends and family if I have Thai people working with me overseas, of course I don't, it is mainly Malaysian and Filipino because they speak good enough English.

However, should you expect a Thai BTS guy to speak English? I guess my opinion would have to be yes for there are many nationalities that use the BTS and not being able to shout orders in the event of a disaster could cost lives. Should other minimum wage people in Thailand be able to speak English? Not unless they want to, if they work in a tourist area, sure they might be required to by the employer and it would be very helpful, but 7-11 girls, cleaners etc? Of course not, you have trouble being understood? Buy a phrase book. You don't have to be fluent, just try, how hard is it really to pick up the basics if you live here? If you really can't manage you could buy a talking dictionary.

[ratcatcher]

But Semper, if you are looking for very attractive Russian girls, Pattaya definately has 'em.

Well, I'm not. But if you could give directions where to find South American women (in Thailand), I would be thrilled.

Maybe try Peru Don Thani.

[mauGR1]

If it wasn't for the English speaking people of the world half the world would now be speaking only German and the other half would be speaking Japanese..

You would not be allowed to speak against this and all books in any other language would by now have been burnt.

PS The English language has more words than any other language; many of the words have come from other languages

And what poetry and prose can those words produce.

Take for instance Betjeman's simple line.'Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough;it isn't fit for humans now'.

French comes second with only one third of the number of words.

I am not 'arrogant' about the fact I speak only English.I have tried many times to learn other languages and fail miserably.

Prove my point about arrogance and not willing to learn other languages. Its not like it comes easy to others they just have more willpower then you i guess.

You also seem to forget that the Russians did their share to defeat the Germans, arrogance all the way.

Btw, hadn't Sir Francis Drake's fleet defeated the Spanish armada a few centuries ago, we would be all dancing the flamengo by now

Seriously, English is a beautiful language, and recently i was surprised to find out that is also more accurate than Italian in some specific field.

Also i heard than Thai surgeons communicate in English while performing operations, just to avoid create confusion..Can anyone confirm ?

[henryalleman]

If it wasn't for the English speaking people of the world half the world would now be speaking only German and the other half would be speaking Japanese..

You would not be allowed to speak against this and all books in any other language would by now have been burnt.

PS The English language has more words than any other language; many of the words have come from other languages

And what poetry and prose can those words produce.

Take for instance Betjeman's simple line.'Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough;it isn't fit for humans now'.

French comes second with only one third of the number of words.

I am not 'arrogant' about the fact I speak only English.I have tried many times to learn other languages and fail miserably.

Prove my point about arrogance and not willing to learn other languages. Its not like it comes easy to others they just have more willpower then you i guess.

You also seem to forget that the Russians did their share to defeat the Germans, arrogance all the way.

Btw, hadn't Sir Francis Drake's fleet defeated the Spanish armada a few centuries ago, we would be all dancing the flamengo by now

Seriously, English is a beautiful language, and recently i was surprised to find out that is also more accurate than Italian in some specific field.

Also i heard than Thai surgeons communicate in English while performing operations, just to avoid create confusion..Can anyone confirm ?

I Thought that in the medical and jurisdictional world Latin is still the Lingua Franca. Because its the only language that is accurate and can't have any misunderstandings or misinterpretation of what you speak or write.

[mauGR1]

If it wasn't for the English speaking people of the world half the world would now be speaking only German and the other half would be speaking Japanese..

You would not be allowed to speak against this and all books in any other language would by now have been burnt.

PS The English language has more words than any other language; many of the words have come from other languages

And what poetry and prose can those words produce.

Take for instance Betjeman's simple line.'Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough;it isn't fit for humans now'.

French comes second with only one third of the number of words.

I am not 'arrogant' about the fact I speak only English.I have tried many times to learn other languages and fail miserably.

Prove my point about arrogance and not willing to learn other languages. Its not like it comes easy to others they just have more willpower then you i guess.

You also seem to forget that the Russians did their share to defeat the Germans, arrogance all the way.

Btw, hadn't Sir Francis Drake's fleet defeated the Spanish armada a few centuries ago, we would be all dancing the flamengo by now

Seriously, English is a beautiful language, and recently i was surprised to find out that is also more accurate than Italian in some specific field.

Also i heard than Thai surgeons communicate in English while performing operations, just to avoid create confusion..Can anyone confirm ?

I Thought that in the medical and jurisdictional world Latin is still the Lingua Franca. Because its the only language that is accurate and can't have any misunderstandings or misinterpretation of what you speak or write.

I guess most of the gentlemen on this board won't agree, but isn't English a modern, simplified Latin after all ?

[theblether]

A few days ago i was in Khao Sarn and some arrogant American girl was giving instructions on how the guys should fix her sandwich. She did not seem to understand her instructions were too complicated and her accent too thick. She was complaining about the staff and making rude comments . It reinforced my beliefs that many native English speakers are arrogant and dumb expecting everyone to understand them even if their accent is bad I know its a broad sweeping statement but non native speakers seem to understand that some people don't speak English. They also keep their English simpler if they think the person on the receiving end is not skilled in the language.

Anyway that girl was a prime example of how not to act in Thailand. If you want to be understood in Thailand speak Thai don't be an arrogant prick and expect people from low pay grades to understand your English and get angry when they get it wrong.

+1

The arrogance comes from the individual and not from the language, and we have all seen plenty of arrogant individuals on our travels.

There are two primary issues flowing here at the same time, one being should Thais be proficient in English? The other being a type of self flagellation by some that, or recognition by many that English is the dominant language.

English came from England, full stop. The Americas were colonized by the Spanish and French, as well as the English. The English prevailed in Northern America, with a couple of notable exceptions being Louisiana and Quebec. If the French had won the war that preceded the Boston Tea Party fiasco the lingua America would be French.

They didn't, the British army won the war, and the lingua was established as being English forever more. America had nothing to do with the spread of English across the world, when the sun never set on the British Empire the US was still busy nation building, so the spread of English across India and the rest of the continents was a British affair.

This does not preclude the fact that the US has been the dominant cultural force for approx the last century, and obviously the input of the US into the major war efforts precluded the imposition of German and Japanese as being primary languages, in the way that Russian became a primary language in Eastern Europe.

To deal with the earlier post about Japanese for a minute, the Japanese suffer from an excess of nationalism and imperialist memory that will forever scar the history of mankind. It was this superior master race mentality that caused the decision to drop the nukes on Japan, as it was judged that there would be 1 million US casualties if an invasion was attempted. The Master Race was a theory in Germany, however the Japanese lived it in their own minds, they truly thought, ( still think ) that they are a cut above.

The Japanese are not a role model for Thailand, and it doesn't bear comparison, as the Japanese have national ethics which vary very sharply from Thailand's, a devotion to educational achievement and industrial production that is extraordinary, and is certainly alien to the mind set of your average Thai. The one thing that the Thais do share in common though is the brittle notion of superiority to all things foreign, we have seen it time and again that Thais would do anything rather than ask for our ( farang ) advice or help, so Thailand seems set fair to suffer from the worst of all worlds.

Outside of the war effort and the spread of the English language by the British Empire, the greatest tool by far for the cultural spread of English was / is Hollywood. No one could have for-seen the influence that Hollywood would have on the world, and we must remember that Hollywood movies up until the 60's were the regular diet of cultural events throughout the world. This new internet and digital age is now lessening the impact of Hollywood though, but impact it can still make.

The self flagellation aspect comes from many native English speakers who seem to feel guilty that English is the dominant language, what can we do? it is.......and that's it. There is no point feeling guilty about it, but it would be an idea for many of us to learn another language too as it's good for your self worth, and good for the brain. We can't apologize for that which has taken over three centuries to achieve, and many of those who are virtual apologists for the dominance of the language need to remember that. The spread of English has being going on for longer than the US has been an nation, and it is not a negative phenomenon, it has allowed people to communicate more freely than any other medium, and communication is the key to learning.

So back to Thailand, should the BTS guard be English proficient? I say yes, I maintain that he is in a role where he would interact with tourists and foreign nationals every day, he is in a job where health and safety is paramount, and it is up to the BTS management to ensure that there are English speaking people on the front line. If that means paying extra as compared to a normal security guard then so be it.

Should Thais be proficient in English? well if they want to see their economy develop further from being an agrarian one, or a servant state to Japanese manufacturers, then you better believe it. The higher end, high tech jobs rely upon English, just look at the amount of silicon valley type jobs now being hoovered up by India. On top of that English is the common denominator language in the tourist trade in Thailand, surely it is essential to speak the customers language in this important industry?

The reluctance of Thailand to teach English as a second language is self defeating, the Thais don't share the traits that make Japan stand alone, and over the years they will find that they will continue to be servants, rather than masters, if they don't take up this fundamental challenge.

[phomsanuk]

English is the l;anguage of commerce, the Thai like money so...

French, very arrogant , was the language of deplomacy but now there's very little of that.

[henryalleman]

If it wasn't for the English speaking people of the world half the world would now be speaking only German and the other half would be speaking Japanese..

You would not be allowed to speak against this and all books in any other language would by now have been burnt.

PS The English language has more words than any other language; many of the words have come from other languages

And what poetry and prose can those words produce.

Take for instance Betjeman's simple line.'Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough;it isn't fit for humans now'.

French comes second with only one third of the number of words.

I am not 'arrogant' about the fact I speak only English.I have tried many times to learn other languages and fail miserably.

My I remind you that English is only the third native spoken language in the world ranking.

1- Mandarin Chinese

2- Spanish

3- English.

And your presumption that English have the most words is not correct. Simply because a language evolutes, some words are not used any more and disappear and also new words are composed.

Good example is my own native language Dutch, the most extensive dictionary contains about 240 000 Words, but not all words are in the dictionary (only the most common) but there are more than 1 million words used, and in time there were between 2 and 6 millions words used, and its possible to compose(today) about 60 million words in the Dutch language, linguists proclaim. So its rather arrogant to claim that English have the most words.

Did you know that you use Dutch words everyday in American English, Even Yankee and Dollar have an Dutch origin the same as Gin, Landscape, Easel and numerous others.

In total there are some 18 000 Dutch words used in other languages from Japanese to Russian.

And your claim that without the native English speaker there would be only 2 spoken languages left and all other language books will be burnt, is not only of the utmost arrogance but a prove of a total lack of any knowledge of history. And such claim can only be made by somebody who watches too much FOX.

I have to limit myself to communicate in English, because this seems the only language you understand, so its impossible to write some simple lines of poetry in another language to contradict that other languages can't express something in a few simple words. For instance Dutch poetry from the middle-ages is very renown worldwide. And do you realy think that other languages don't have Shakespeare's?

[Jingthing]

There is only one Shakespeare.

As far as population of speaker numbers, being number one isn't point, being understood all over the world IS the point.

[theblether]

I guess most of the gentlemen on this board won't agree, but isn't English a modern, simplified Latin after all ?

No.......the root of the language as we now know it came from the Germanic population explosion which resulted in invasion a vast intake of Germanic speakers into the country during the Dark Ages, the Dark Ages being when the Romans had retreated, taking their middle class clerks and officers with them, and England fell into being a divided uneducated nation again.

The Germans interbred with the Angles, the native English, and brought a lot of their language with them as did the Celts and Gaels of the Western seaboard, and the Vikings on both the Western seaboard and Eastern seaboard.

At this time Latin was the reserve of the Clergy, and they jealously guarded it. The populace would turn up at church on a Sunday and not have a clue what was being said. It was a very clever control mechanism that was undone by the invention of the printing press.

French became the primary language after the Norman ( Viking French ) invasion and was the language of government for about two hundred years, up until the renaissance of the ancient Anglo Saxon language under the supervision of most famously Henry Viii, who used this renaissance to instil a sense of Nation in England during his battle with Rome.

So English is far from simplified Latin, it's greatest strength is that it has the ability to absorb influences from all cultures, obviously including Latin, but it's not simplified Latin. It's the Heinz 57 of languages and all the more beautiful for it.

Edited March 25, 2012 by theblether

[henryalleman]

.

On top of that English is the common denominator language in the tourist trade in Thailand, surely it is essential to speak the customers language in this important industry?

Not for long, in Pats its start to be Russian

Edited March 25, 2012 by henryalleman

[Sing_Sling]

If it wasn't for the English speaking people of the world half the world would now be speaking only German and the other half would be speaking Japanese..

You would not be allowed to speak against this and all books in any other language would by now have been burnt.

PS The English language has more words than any other language; many of the words have come from other languages

And what poetry and prose can those words produce.

Take for instance Betjeman's simple line.'Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough;it isn't fit for humans now'.

French comes second with only one third of the number of words.

I am not 'arrogant' about the fact I speak only English.I have tried many times to learn other languages and fail miserably.

I'm not quite sure if you are being facetious, ignorant or just simply dumb . . . after reading your paragraph again I'll settle for the latter.

If it wasn't for the English speaking people of the world . . . German, Japanese yaddah yaddah yaddah. I guess you can be excused for never having heard of India, the Soviet Union, France etc . . .

Yup. Dumb

[mauGR1]

I guess most of the gentlemen on this board won't agree, but isn't English a modern, simplified Latin after all ?

No.......the root of the language as we now know it came from the Germanic population explosion which resulted in invasion a vast intake of Germanic speakers into the country during the Dark Ages, the Dark Ages being when the Romans had retreated, taking their middle class clerks and officers with them, and England fell into being a divided uneducated nation again.

The Germans interbred with the Angles, the native English, and brought a lot of their language with them as did the Celts and Gaels of the Western seaboard, and the Vikings on both the Western seaboard and Eastern seaboard.

At this time Latin was the reserve of the Clergy, and they jealously guarded it. The populace would turn up at church on a Sunday and not have a clue what was being said. It was a very clever control mechanism that was undone by the invention of the printing press.

French became the primary language after the Norman ( Viking French ) invasion and was the language of government for about two hundred years, up until the renaissance of the ancient Anglo Saxon language under the supervision of most famously Henry Viii, who used this renaissance to instil a sense of Nation in England during his battle with Rome.

So English is far from simplified Latin, it's greatest strength is that it has the ability to absorb influences from all cultures, obviously including Latin, but it's not simplified Latin. It's the Heinz 57 of languages and all the more beautiful for it.

Thanks, theblether, good summary, i stand corrected

[gmac]

If it wasn't for the English speaking people of the world half the world would now be speaking only German and the other half would be speaking Japanese..

You would not be allowed to speak against this and all books in any other language would by now have been burnt.

PS The English language has more words than any other language; many of the words have come from other languages

And what poetry and prose can those words produce.

Take for instance Betjeman's simple line.'Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough;it isn't fit for humans now'.

French comes second with only one third of the number of words.

I am not 'arrogant' about the fact I speak only English.I have tried many times to learn other languages and fail miserably.

Prove my point about arrogance and not willing to learn other languages. Its not like it comes easy to others they just have more willpower then you i guess.

You also seem to forget that the Russians did their share to defeat the Germans, arrogance all the way.

Btw, hadn't Sir Francis Drake's fleet defeated the Spanish armada a few centuries ago, we would be all dancing the flamengo by now

Seriously, English is a beautiful language, and recently i was surprised to find out that is also more accurate than Italian in some specific field.

Also i heard than Thai surgeons communicate in English while performing operations, just to avoid create confusion..Can anyone confirm ?

Not sure, I was under anaesthetic at the time!

[harrry]

If it wasn't for the English speaking people of the world half the world would now be speaking only German and the other half would be speaking Japanese..

You would not be allowed to speak against this and all books in any other language would by now have been burnt.

PS The English language has more words than any other language; many of the words have come from other languages

And what poetry and prose can those words produce.

Take for instance Betjeman's simple line.'Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough;it isn't fit for humans now'.

French comes second with only one third of the number of words.

I am not 'arrogant' about the fact I speak only English.I have tried many times to learn other languages and fail miserably.

Prove my point about arrogance and not willing to learn other languages. Its not like it comes easy to others they just have more willpower then you i guess.

You also seem to forget that the Russians did their share to defeat the Germans, arrogance all the way.

Btw, hadn't Sir Francis Drake's fleet defeated the Spanish armada a few centuries ago, we would be all dancing the flamengo by now

Seriously, English is a beautiful language, and recently i was surprised to find out that is also more accurate than Italian in some specific field.

Also i heard than Thai surgeons communicate in English while performing operations, just to avoid create confusion..Can anyone confirm ?

Not sure, I was under anaesthetic at the time!

THe one that did my fingers when i broke them spoke only in thai to te students and nurses.

[Beetlejuice]

That's kind of a pablum-like cliche. My view is its an entirely personal choice based on your own set of circumstances which include a plethora of specific factors. To morally judge people based on this if you haven't walked in their shoes seems a folly.

...

Foreigners who live in whatever non-English speaking countries should make some effort and learn the lingo. In the long term this is beneficial to both the natives and foreigners and makes life a lot easier for all concerned.

I`m not morally judging anyone, you are putting words into my post that are not there.

My point is that by speaking some Thai in Thailand, makes life easier.

Am I wrong?

[gmac]

I can only answer, to show you the nr. 1 on the top 10 list of most irritant tourist worldwide.

.

1- Americans

Don't they speak some kind of English.

IMHO the only place were it should be mandatory to speak English are hotels.

Besides that is demanding that an Thai national speak English is pure arrogance . And am I in favour that people should be able to communicate in more than 1 language? Of course , no doubt about it.

So demanding that the security guard should speak or understand English is foolish. His only duty is to control that people follow the rules.

Some people should start to realise that Imperialism and Colonial attitudes are outdated.

BTW, how many natives English speakers can communicate in other languages.

I think many native English speakers, myself included, find other languages daunting because we have never actually needed to learn them.

Some basic French or German learned at school but never needed or used, so no real incentive or perhaps even natural ability to absorb another language.

The failure to learn a 2nd language is perhaps not an arrogance more laziness from a lack of need.

Edited March 25, 2012 by gmac

[MAJIC]

I suppose that one answer to the question I actually asked out of a total of 13 answers isn't too bad. It doesn't say much for English comprehension though

Excused as I am from this debate, I must interject to say that Engiish is now the World language. There are 250 million Chinese learning it, on top of 1 billion Indians that speak it, and that is before you start tacking the traditional English speaking nations.

English language skills are highly desirable, if not essential for international business. People have to be able to communicate.

The question at hand is should a BTS guard be able to speak English?

It might be the question at hand but it wasn't the question I asked.

I don't believe the English are arrogant,about their language,it's just the way it is,any country you go in the world,will have a reasonable amount of English speakers. The Countries that teach English in their schools,must think it is worthwhile as a second language,otherwise they wouldn't teach it. This has created expectations of Brits to arrive in a foreign Country and start talking to locals.

The downside is: the expectations have made us lazy,and we think it's not important to learn another language. But not from being arrogant though, it's just a fact,most of the world speak English.

[BookMan]

English is pretty much the de facto world language. I studied German in school. It was a dumb decision. As I subsequently learned by going to the German speaking countries in Europe, there's about a 90% chance that anyone who speaks German also speaks English. The 10% who don't are high school drop outs, and over there they start learning it very young. (I think it is gradeschool.) I tried to practice German. The German speakers wanted to practice their English...so I'd start speaking in German...and they started switching over to English to respond; My German was very seldom used unless dealing with the less educated German speakers. Hell, even coming back from the airport in Vienna the taxi driver (who was actually a gypsy) and I had a nice long conversation in English about racism against gypsies in Austria.

In Thailand I remember my cousin started learning English since grade school. She was 9 or 10 years old and I remember practicing with her (this was a while ago, she just graduated from Chula last year). Pretty much anyone in Thailand who has even a moderate education has a degree of English speaking ability. English speaking ability in Thailand is a sign of class. It means that the parents of children who can speak English could afford to send their children to good schools so they could speak English. And like the German example, people in Thailand who know how to speak English relish the opportunity to speak it with a native English speaker because the opportunity does not present itself very often..so don't feel bad about using English in Thailand. Like anyone else, Thais also want to practice what they learned in school with a native English speaker.

Could have been a wasted opportunity SubM. A lot of very attractive German women about

[BookMan]

I guess most of the gentlemen on this board won't agree, but isn't English a modern, simplified Latin after all ?

No.......the root of the language as we now know it came from the Germanic population explosion which resulted in invasion a vast intake of Germanic speakers into the country during the Dark Ages, the Dark Ages being when the Romans had retreated, taking their middle class clerks and officers with them, and England fell into being a divided uneducated nation again.

The Germans interbred with the Angles, the native English, and brought a lot of their language with them as did the Celts and Gaels of the Western seaboard, and the Vikings on both the Western seaboard and Eastern seaboard.

At this time Latin was the reserve of the Clergy, and they jealously guarded it. The populace would turn up at church on a Sunday and not have a clue what was being said. It was a very clever control mechanism that was undone by the invention of the printing press.

French became the primary language after the Norman ( Viking French ) invasion and was the language of government for about two hundred years, up until the renaissance of the ancient Anglo Saxon language under the supervision of most famously Henry Viii, who used this renaissance to instil a sense of Nation in England during his battle with Rome.

So English is far from simplified Latin, it's greatest strength is that it has the ability to absorb influences from all cultures, obviously including Latin, but it's not simplified Latin. It's the Heinz 57 of languages and all the more beautiful for it.

You are a Well of information Blether.

[GuestHouse]

English is the world language. Lucky Brits and Yankees.

....

The Germans lost the war

.....

The first vote in the house after the American Declaration of Independence was to choose what language was to be the official language of the new American state.

English won by one vote over German.

In the context of the last century probably one of the most historically significant political decisions of the last few hundred years.

[theblether]

I guess most of the gentlemen on this board won't agree, but isn't English a modern, simplified Latin after all ?

No.......the root of the language as we now know it came from the Germanic population explosion which resulted in invasion a vast intake of Germanic speakers into the country during the Dark Ages, the Dark Ages being when the Romans had retreated, taking their middle class clerks and officers with them, and England fell into being a divided uneducated nation again.

The Germans interbred with the Angles, the native English, and brought a lot of their language with them as did the Celts and Gaels of the Western seaboard, and the Vikings on both the Western seaboard and Eastern seaboard.

At this time Latin was the reserve of the Clergy, and they jealously guarded it. The populace would turn up at church on a Sunday and not have a clue what was being said. It was a very clever control mechanism that was undone by the invention of the printing press.

French became the primary language after the Norman ( Viking French ) invasion and was the language of government for about two hundred years, up until the renaissance of the ancient Anglo Saxon language under the supervision of most famously Henry Viii, who used this renaissance to instil a sense of Nation in England during his battle with Rome.

So English is far from simplified Latin, it's greatest strength is that it has the ability to absorb influences from all cultures, obviously including Latin, but it's not simplified Latin. It's the Heinz 57 of languages and all the more beautiful for it.

You are a Well of information Blether.

I keep getting told I've got too much time on my hands

[thaibeachlovers]

No interest in learning the local language?

Why bother?

In government offices in the UK they now have Urdu, Hindi, Polish and Serbo Croat services....

I think Thailand should follow suit.

In 10 years of living in London, I don't think I saw many "English" natives working in government offices. Best one was the Visa department in Croydon, where I saw narry an English face!