Question (almost) without answer

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let's get in the subject...now! ( Take note: My english can be bad , escuse me for that please, if your are willing of course, note them so I can get better... )

In a lonnnnggggg time ago, the french was the diplomatic language, and the " language of the king " and at first the Olympic Game, the offical language was French, so why now the English is the most speaked language?

Why in the movies that tell a story anout the war betwen England and the Scothis that always the England the baddies?

The name New York come from York an england town, so is their a "old" Brunswick? ( New Brunswick: a Canadian Province)

Why the UK has two name, United Kindom and England?

Why we shouldn't take two battery not if the same mark on a machine?

I can't think of other question for now...

 

Brunswick comes from a Dutch place called Brunswijk, in IIRC Limburg.

United Kingdom are England, Scotland, Wales and North Ireland combined, each nation falling under the english throne

 

This might be considerd a bit off topic, but a lot of American cities actually have Dutch names. The whole New York region was first known as New Netherlands, before the Dutch king traded his parts of America, for Suriname, which in that time was English property. Harlem comes from the Dutch city Haarlem, Brooklyn comes from the Dutch city Breukelen and many other place names are from the time when the region was a Dutch colony.

If William II, king of the netherlands, didn't trade his parts of America in the 17th century, then most Americans would be speaking Dutch right now.

 

It has to do something with population growth and the change of population numbers. France was the "biggest", wealthiest and mightiest country of Europe, because it was the country with the biggest population. There's actually a famous quote from the 18th century :"Every 4th European is French." (Europe including Russia). Therefore France had a huge cultural impact. This changed dramatically with the huge european population explosion in the 19th century. The dominance of France was definitvely ended in the Franco-Prussio War of 1870/71. Leaving Germany as the dominant European power (with the biggest population).
The cultural and social impact of France can still be seen in the fact,that a lot of European countries today have a "tricolore" as national flag.

a. Mel Gibson is an idiot.
b. The English are also the baddies in Movies US versus UK.
c. Since the end of the British Empire, the Union between Scotland and England looks to a lot of Scotsman economically not so sexy anymore, because the Scots are richer (oil) and the English elected morons like Maggie Thatcher as Prime Minister. So, there's a huge growth of a "hey, we're a Scottish nation of are own and the English treated us always so bad" literature.

Pah, go tell the Irish.

City names: New York was New Amsterdam.

It would also be possible, that it comes from the German city "Brunschweig".

[ April 21, 2003, 12:10: Message edited by: Yago ]

 

The English are viewed as evil, because it was King Edward II that installed a puppet ruler, and imposed harsh taxes, steal land, and stole the stone of destiny. I know this because I did a report on Robert the Bruce.

 

Yes, but that was a few hundred years ago.

And the (lowland) Scots didn't care, as the ruled the world together with the English

And it was actually a scottish King (James IV of Scotland) who became James I of England who made the Union Jack the natoinal flag. A mix between the Flag of Scottland and England (first).

Pah, go tell the Irish.

 

Yes, but they are the lowland Scottish, they're not the boistrus, fun loving, kilt wearing ones we all know and love.

 

Even old New York
Was once New Amsterdam
Why'd they change it?
I can't say,
Maybe they just liked it better that way.

[Oops, I just saw that someone had said that. Now my witty song quote looks like a stupid repeat. Sorry.]

 

The English changed the name to be dedicated to the Duke of York, when they annexed it from Holland.

 

In the instance of all films based around the wars between Scotland and England choosing to depict the English as "evil", the reason is rather simple:
Most, if not all, of these films are made in America. The Americans colonies fought a war themselves with the English, for independence, and naturally presume their enemy to have been the side which was wrong, and, therefore, "evil". From this basis they view any nation to have, also, been dominated by the English to have been in a similar position, and, therefore, for the English to have also taken the role of "evil" therein.

 

Sidenote Movies: Choices for the nationality of a villain in a movie:

a. German
b. German
c. German
d. English
e. English
f. French
g. Japanese (There aren't enough Japanese and French actors around in Hollywood).

If it's a pure ficitonal Action move: Arab, Arab, Arab, Russian-mob, Asian-minions of a dictator.

[ April 21, 2003, 13:52: Message edited by: Yago ]

 

Hah, at the beginning of the previous century, British Empire ruled over one quarter of this globe. Then US abandonned Monroe's doctrine of splendid isolation and started messing up things all over the world. Seen as the oasis of peace, welfare and whatever the third world lacked, it was growingly attractive - emanating it's culture including the language: that's why most people speak American in fact even though manuals for foreigners are mostly English still.

Because that's actually truth.

Brunswick is a former Dutchy in Germany, given in 1180 to descendants of Henry the Lion of the Gwelph family, branch of the House of Este. Later on the House of Brunswick, known better as the House of Hannover took over English throne in 1715. However, I have no idea what are the roots of the name New Brunswick.

United Kingdom includes England (with Wales), Scotland and North Ireland

 

1) Because English speaking countries, and those who speak variants, are more powerful and more visited than French speaking countries. Plus it's lost it's fashion.

2) You'll most likely find that English are the bad guys in most things but believe me, Scotland can be worse than England.

3) There is town called Brunswick in England, I've seen it on a map, but it probably comes from the Dutch one.

4) United Kingdom and Great Britain. UK because it's countries united under a monarch, Great Britain most likely from Britannia (sp) the British Icon

5) ???

 

English is the easiest language to learn. Because it's a bastard between German and French.

Proof that English is easier to learn: The pronouns.

German: Der, Die, Das
French: Le, La
English: The

French is twice as hard to learn as English.
German is thrice as hard to learn as English.

Slavian Languages would be 4 times harder.

Other Proof: It's the only language except my own in which I am able to spam.

 

er, the english may be easier to learn, still I prefer to talk french...

I only wish to know about the UK since I don't know much of europe's history

For the scothland/england question, it's just that my great-great-great-grand father was Scothis

French DIDN'T lost his fashion. it's a truly wonderfull tongues.

 

English is actually harder to learn than any other language. It has a ridiculous amount of irregularities and less grammatical structure than the Romantic (Latin-descended) languages.

 

Even Chinese?

Sorry, but I just find that far-fetched.

 

I think that we all should learn Drow. It would be much better. Ussta Iblith!!

 

I'd say Spanish is the easiest of the Romantic languages to learn. It's entirely predictable, you can tell by the ending whether a word is female/male, and the grammatical structure is pretty much the same throughout. Everything is spelled how it sounds, and the swear words are much more interesting.

 

Just a little correction. English only comes third as the most spoken language in the world. Chinese is first, and Spanish is second, this is simply because of population count. However, English is probably the most effectively spoken language in the world. Unlike Chinese and Spanish, whose speakers are usually concentrated in certain regions, namely East Asia, Spain and South America, English speakers are widely spread in all continents. Such as if you are a tourist, you'd probably do good if you can speak some English, but knowing Chinese or Spanish might proved otherwise.

Why are English protrayed as the bad guys in Irish/Scotish-English movies? I think it depends on the movie. But from where you get your impression, most of the movies you've seen are probably based on history, and history did showed that the English were once oppressors of the Irish/Scots. Also, people like to watch movies where the heroes are underdogs, and it's only typical that these scripts have the Irish/Scots as heroes due to the fact that the English were indeed superior in those times. But modern movies that have this combo may actually have the English as heroes. There are some movies that portrayed the IRA as the bad guys (though I'm not saying that they are).


On the side-topics.
Aside from Filipino, I speak English, a few Chinese (Mandarin & Foukien), and had knowledge of Spanish because of a Filipino dialect that is based on this language. I find English the easiest. Chinese could have been easy but the vocabulary is too vast. Spanish, I had a big problem because of the conjugations, partly because the Filipino dialect that I speak is actually Spanish without conjugations or simply say broken Spanish.