Archive for January 25th, 2009
links for 2009-01-25
Globish
There has been a debate in recent weeks over the increasing use of English at Danish universities and at some point, when I have the time, I might make a comment about that issue. But in the meantime, the BBC adds a fascinating perspective to the apparent victory of English over national languages:
In a meeting with colleagues from around the world, including an Englishman, a Korean and a Brazilian, he noticed that he and the other non-native English speakers were communicating in a form of English that was completely comprehensible to them, but which left the Englishman nonplussed.
He, Jean-Paul Nerriere, could talk to the Korean and the Brazilian in this neo-language, and they could understand each other perfectly.
But the Englishman was left out because his language was too subtle, too full of meaning that could not be grasped by the others.
1917+1932=2009
I noted that the Social Democratic labour market spokesman has proposed to open unemployment funds for people who do not have unemployment insurance (Denmark is one of the few countries where this is still voluntary and due to the boom of later years the share of insured has been falling). I’ll just that that in general there are very few ideas out there and you will occasionally find some interesting cases of policy recycling.
Oh, and in both 1917 and 1932 the Danish state had to pay much of the extra cost.
Update: And the Social Democratic leadership moved in fast to kill that idea.