I mean, French is vulgar Latin at best. And even if it wasn't obviously spoken by all sorts of French people, elites or not, it's also the official language of a bunch of other countries, from Monaco to Niger. "Elites and certain circles" is a very weird read, which I'm guessing is based on US stereotypes on the French? I don't even think the British would commit to associating the French with elitism.

Russian speakers being "mostly autoritarian left" is also... kind of a lot to assume? I'm not even getting into that one further. I don't know if the Esperanto one checks out, either. "Esperanto speaker" is the type of group, and this is true, whose wikipedia page doesn't include statistics but instead just a list of names. Which is hilarious, but maybe not a great Python analogue. It may still be the best pairing there, because to my knowledge English speakers aren't any worse at speaking English than the speakers of any other language. They are more monolingual, though.

It just all sounds extremely anglocentric to me, which is what it is, I suppose, but it really messes with the joke if you're joking about languages specifically. One could do better with this concept, I think.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I think the elitism regards of French isn't about French native speakers but about second language learners. French was the lingua franca in Europe for quite a while and using French loan words makes you sound more fancy and eloquent in many languages (compare "adult" with "grownup" which is a Latin loan word but I can't think of a real example so I hope no one will notice).

The Russian bit I totally agree. Esperanto vs python is quite a leap, I agree. Showing a list (that's probably not conclusive but still) is telling when compared to the go to beginners programming language. Still there are parallels in the design and intention. No comparison is ever perfect.

All in all it's not perfect but as a joke, it works for me. Sure, it's not unbiased but if not taken too seriously, I can laugh about it, and I can over analyze it for fun so win win for me.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It’s kinda funny, I’m Flemish and a lot of French loan words (ambriage, merci, nondedju = nom de dieu to name a few) are mainly used in dialect, and therefore don’t make you sounds sophisticated or worldly at all.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

From what I know it's similar in Swiss German (with words like merci and velo (bike)). I don't know about Fleming but Swiss embraces their dialects so it isn't stigmatized either

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Heh, we use velo as well. And yeah, we don’t really stigmatise dialects that much either, though depending on how much dialect you use people might find it unprofessional.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah, but that's my point. The author clearly isn't thinking about the hundreds of millions of native French speakers around the world, they're an American thinking the word "mutton" sounds fancier than "sheep"... in English.

Which yeah, okay, that's their cultural upbringing causing that, but then maybe don't make a joke entirely predicated on making sharp observations about how languages work and aimed specifically at nerds. I can only ever go "it's funny because it's true" or be extremely judgmental of your incorrect assumptions about how languages work here.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

your incorrect assumptions

Why make it about me? I was more or less playing devil's advocate, saying if not taken seriously it's funny.

I would be more likely to agree with you if you put "OP's assumption". Your phrasing makes me want to double down on my original position.

That's just a general recommendation for discussions in general, online and offline. I learned a thing or two about my biases and perspectives here. Btw I'm German and that part resonated with me from my little experience with JAVA and my experience in learning about my native language and teaching it to others.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Oh, sorry, you misunderstood, I didn't mean you specifically, I mean you as in "why would you ever do this", as in "why would anybody ever do this".

Languages, as we've established, are complicated.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

About Esperanto, since it's not a national language (intentionally so) it's hard to do a census of speakers.

Also, to what level is considered "speaking Esperanto"? Taking the Duolingo course? Having it as a "mother tongue" where both parents speak it in a household in order to communicate? These are both probably countable, and produce wildly different numbers.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'll be honest, I don't think that's the reason. I also think those numbers may be different but they may both be indistinguishable from zero when plotted against natural languages. You're right about it being hard to define what counts as a "Esperanto speaker". I can't decide if that makes the Python comparison better or worse, though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Yeah, I do not think Python is a very good comparison.

I was thinking more like Clojure:

Enthusiastic and friendly geeks trying to push their language on the world trying to make it a better place. They are both definitely not a little cultish!
Language intended to be simple to learn with a limited and regular vocabulary, but can handle complicated work with ease.
They both say that learning their language will make your mind better able to do other languages.
A bridge between languages. Vanilla Clojure runs on the JVM and can invoke Java commands. But it has also been built on other platforms like JavaScript (ClojureScript), .NET (CLR), Python (Basilisp), BASH (Babashka), and others I think.
The parts of both languages can be broken up, mixed, and matched, and used for other parts. In Esperanto, the fundamental elements can be broken down and made into other words. In Clojure, you've got functions and lists - and higher order functions that work on functions and lists, and lists of functions, and functions of lists.
Did I mention: Friendly & welcoming geeks that lo-o-o-ove newbies! Seriously, both Clojure nerds and Esperanto nerds are unnaturally nice and would like to welcome you to the club. They've got tons of free resources for you to learn it.

Honestly, I think both are right. Both are simple languages that expand your way of thinking, and are probably both worth learning, if you're into that sort of thing.