NEW DELHI: India is four times richer than Europe, in terms of language, with Indians able to express themselves in over 850 languages as compared to Europeans who can speak only about 250 languages, according to findings of the People’s Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI).
“England has not more than four or five languages of its own at the most. Out of those only two – English and Welsh – are doing well. Meanwhile a state like Assam which is more or less the size of England has a good 52 languages,” says Ganesh Devy a noted linguist and chairman of PLSI”
See: Times of India
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The purpose of language is to communicate with other people, so the fewer languages the better.
United Kingdom
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English to Hindi
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The purpose of language is to communicate with other people, so the fewer languages the better.
Such crude quantification of linguistic richness is, of course, meaningless, but surely, linguistic diversity signifies cultural diversity, and that is good.
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German to English
And we have probably got more waste carrier bags than they have, but so what? I really don't see the point of this statement.
Steve K.
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http://www.ask.com/question/how-many-languages-are-spoken-in-england
According to this link, schoolchildren in England speak over 240 languages.
Netherlands
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Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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The survey itself uses the term "richer", which means "to have more of something", which is true in this case -- India has more languages than Europe.
The decision to change "richer" to a word that means something entirely different (wealthier, i.e. to have more wealth), was made by ProZ.com staff. For some reason. Hype, perhaps?
United Kingdom
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Hebrew to English
Clearly this was just a bit of "feel-good" spin for domestic consumption.
I also find myself doubting the scientific method: "Jakhde points out that he did not go by conventional definitions of dialects and languages...Pigmallion [sic] and Educati... See more
Clearly this was just a bit of "feel-good" spin for domestic consumption.
I also find myself doubting the scientific method: "Jakhde points out that he did not go by conventional definitions of dialects and languages...Pigmallion [sic] and Educating Rita...these books amply demonstrate show how unscientific the notion of dialect is"
Hmmm...
[Edited at 2013-09-13 07:56 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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