And, in fact, sometimes the standard of English of foreign PhD students and postdocs in US universities is appalling. This leads to regrettably xenophobic attitudes by American undergraduates, but one has to understand their frustration at having barely intelligible teaching assistants. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
Otherwise, Martin is quite right that languages are part of the European problem, in research or in other fields. Not insuperable, however. When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
... {muttering} I got your lingwa franca right here ... Utsukushikereba sore de ii
I live in a country that has 4 official languages. Traditions, customs, culture and language in Switzerland
No less than four languages are spoken in Switzerland: German, French, Italian and Rhaeto-Romanic. Swiss people working in tourism usually speak English as well.
The government websites are usually in German, French, Italian, Rumantsch and English.
There is very little discussion about the language situation, it just is.
I school we usually start out with out mother tongue, then the first foreign language is one of the official languages and the second foreign language (often one of choice) is mostly English. The only question that is discussed here is at what age a foreign language should be learned in school. However, this does not mean all Swiss are well versed in those foreign laguages. :-)
So, maybe it is time for the EU contries to integrate foreign (especially other EU languages) into their educational system.
T
However in the meantime we have to live with people who can speak only one foreign language well (and maybe Latin, what usually doesn't help too much). And the way to do this is using English. I don't like that, I think English is a very ugly language. But even here on ET, you probably will exclude a majority by using any other language. Gemach, gemach
We have had battles on ET over language. One idea was to create a multi-lingual site, or a cluster of blogs in different languages, but these schemes come up against major software problems (not feasible with Scoop) and would also create extra workload in terms of admin and translation. Yet using only English probably excludes a majority of Europeans, even though it's the most common second language...
PS: Don't say Latin's no use, or PerClupi will deal with you ;-) When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
(source: Eurobarometer 243: Europeans and Their Languages - last debated here) When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
The real issue is that being a graduate teaching assistant in the US is a form of cheap immigrant labour. Now that the post-9/11 security situation has all but ground the "brain drain" to a halt, and even reversed it, the situation might be different. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
I wonder if this is because in the old days, for those of us 35 years and above, typically the 1st language serious people would take is German, and then maybe English but also quite possibly Latin. So maybe generational.
The sad thing is, one of the first things Sarkozy did, which many researchers I know here who are left of various stripes still seem to say good things about viz their professions, was getting through a law reforming the university system. Even left professors and espeically researchers like the new law as now restrictions on funding sources are lifted, and fundraising, american-style, from private sources, in order to fund research and other university undertakings, is now permitted (and actually pretty much encouraged given other parts of that reform bill). This should over time make it possible to put more meritocracy in who gets research moneys and also salary and funding for equipment, travel and so forth, and these are of course good things.
But I can't help but note that now they get to put the hat out to the private sector for research in basic science, and give credit to a neo-liberal government doing a neo-liberal reform which only was needed because the conservatives in france have underfunded research for decades. Typical bait and switch, and evidence that even the biggest minds still are somewhat clueless at certain levels.
I'd also point out that grant-writing as well as management and administration of the sorts of institutes now being created are quite time consuming and not typically part of the average researcher's skill set. We shall see how things go.
Typical bait and switch
And how. Someone else called it "drowning government in a bathtub". When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
It would be interesting to know how many of the 3% are in a country with another language (i.e., exclude Austrians in Germany, Belgians in France and Holland etc.).
Cea INSTN
Every year, CEA grants thesis allowances for high level students that prepare their research work in its laboratories. In 2007, over 230 thesis contracts (3 years) have been granted that cover the full salary (gross montly wage : € 1990.25 during the first two years, € 2049.75 the third year).
A side issue is the lack of people studying the history of other EU countries. For any given EU country there are far more posts in the US than there are in all the EU put together outside the country in question.
If I'm evil minded, I could suggest, that the lack of willingness to accept foreign historicians is the fear they may express opinions differing from the dominating view... Gemach, gemach
As they say, the plural of anecdote is not data but bullshit. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
