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From: rickw@eskimo.com (Richard Wojcik)
Subject: Re: Importance of German, etc. (Was: English: USA supreme court...)
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References: <4j9tmn$uva@news.ccit.arizona.edu> <KANZE.96Apr18211654@gabi.gabi-soft.fr> <Dq6tIL.90t@eskimo.com> <1996Apr21.144305.1@ahecas>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 04:07:19 GMT
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In article <1996Apr21.144305.1@ahecas>,
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting <williamsg@ahecas.ahec.edu> wrote:
>In article <Dq6tIL.90t@eskimo.com>, rickw@eskimo.com (Richard Wojcik) writes:
>> In article <KANZE.96Apr18211654@gabi.gabi-soft.fr>,
>> J. Kanze <kanze@gabi-soft.fr> wrote:
>> 
>>>In Eastern Europe, it [German] is definitly the lingua franca.  And I've
>>>generally found it more understood that English in Holland, too.
>
>From what I've read, and from my spouse's limited travels, I think the
>statement is true with regard to Eastern Europe.  As to the Netherlands, I
>would expect German to be more widely _understood_ than English because (am I
>correct?) the vocabulary and to some extent the sound system of Dutch is more
>like German than like English.
>
>> In those countries with Latin alphabets, this may be true.  They have
>> always been more dominated by German-speaking nations.  It is not true in
>> places where cyrillic dominates.  English is still the most popular
>> second language in most areas.
>
>My guess is it's a matter, first of economics, then of history, and finally of
>ideology.  BTW, where do you class cyrillic as dominant, aside from Russia and
>Ukraine?
>
>Gary Williams
>WILLIAMSG@AHECAS.AHEC.EDU


-- 
Rick Wojcik  rickw@eskimo.com     Seattle (for locals: Bellevue), WA
             http://www.eskimo.com/~rickw/
