Why not a French speaking freediving section ?

[subaquaticus]

Originally Posted by fpernett

Why don´t post a poll to find out how many like the idea of different language sub-forums?. I don´t like it (I speak Spanish) because the success of this forum is the world wide fashion of the discussion, the subforum will split the contributions...but that´s just my opinion

Once again, I made a proposal to the webmasters of Deeper Blue to open a "linguistic gate" to French freedivers.

Of course the first rule would be to use French in no other part of DB than this section located within the Freediving Sub-Forum...

French would not "pollute" the rest of DB and then I do not see why there should be a poll to the whole set of DB members who would be free either to visit this section if they are French speaking or willing to improve their french or their knowledge of French culture or not to visit this French speaking section (in this case, there would be absolutely no change whatsoever in their use of DB)...

This is up to the DB webmasters to decide whether they are willing to enlarge DB's audience to divers not having a perfect mastering of English language...

By the way, are you a native Spanish speaker or a native English speaker having some knowledge of Spanish language ?

[Stephan Whelan]

subaquaticus,

Thanks for your feedback and suggestion on a French speaking area.

I have to say i'm not convinced that opening a French speaking area is a good idea. As you admit yourself there are a small number of French speaking people on the forums. We also have to have french speaking mentors and team leaders to ensure that the forum rules are applied (we have legal obligations to comply with as well so need French speaking mentors and team leaders in place). In addition, french speaking members who don't speak english (the ones you are targeting) will have trouble navigating the English menus and all notifications and registration is in English.

I'll be honest that it is a lot of work to customise areas of the site to handle French speakers and as someone pointed out, why would French be the only non-english Language used? Why not spanish? Or russian? Or Italian?

My advice would be to look to setup a French Only forum, or look to improve an existing French speaking website. I'm certainly willing to help work with people to setup these website (even perhaps have a DB.fr website forum) but the logistics and legal issues with tagging it onto this forum outweigh any benefits I can see.

[subaquaticus]

Originally Posted by Stephan Whelan

As you admit yourself there are a small number of French speaking people on the forums.

Hi Stephan,

Thanks for your quick reaction... I perfectly understand your prudence ; any new thing has to be assessed, the advantages and the inconveniences as well...

Nevertheless, it would be interesting to assess the statement above more precisely...

I said I noticed 3 active French speaking members on DB who have excellent mastering of English language...

Probably out of the 5000 DB members there might be much more who were able to register in English, to read and understand posts in English, but were assigned to a position of unwilling "lurkers" out of sheer linguistic shyness...

I was struck by following paradox : many French freedivers know DB but do not participate... What I proposed is then no drastic modification of DB, only a little linguistic oil in its machinery...

In my humble opinion a little investment in linguistic oil might have a huge reward in terms of audience's enlargement of DB...

But probably something like that needs some ripening...

[DeepThought]

Originally Posted by subaquaticus

Some linguistic remarks about your native language and your country (far beyond the scope of freediving...)

First Hebrew has a connection with one official language of the European Union : Maltese. Maltese is a Semitic language and as such connected with Arabian and Hebrew.

10x, I didn't know that.
I assume it's so far away from Hebrew that I have better chance understanding French on the account of english resemblance.

Originally Posted by subaquaticus

As far as I know, the main communities constituting Israel are :

1. ASHKENAZIM ; "Ashkenaz" means Germany in Hebrew and the vernacular language of Ashkenazim is Yiddish, which is a Middle High German dialect ; Ashkenazim are then Teutonic locutors since they speak a language belonging to the family of Teutonic languages...

Ashkenaz means middle and northern europe. Yiddish is a mix of German, Biblical hebrew and some Polish depends on where you come from. Basically, ASHKENZIM are white-skinned (by etnicity, not a racial thing) European jews who follow the ashkenaz religous stream as their parents did.

Originally Posted by subaquaticus

2. SEPHARDIM ; "Sepharad" means "Spain" in Hebrew and the vernacular language of Sephardim is "ladino", or "Jewish Spanish" , which is a Spanish dialect once spoken in the whole Mediterranean area...

The main constituency of SPHARADIM in Israel are from North Africa and other middle-eastern countries, only a minority have a real recent (3-5 generations) connection to Spain. SPHARADIM are typically dark-skinned jews that follow the SPHARADIC religeous stream.

In France you might find both types, the ASHKENAZIM that immigrated from central and eastern europe and the SPHARADIM that immigrated from north-africa.

Originally Posted by subaquaticus

I can guess from your mastering of the English language that you must be an Ashkenaz, aren't you ? Then as such you belong to the family of Teutonic locutors...

A Sepharad would have pleaded for the use of a Latin language like French or Spanish...

I am Ashkenzi, but I don't think a Spharadi would have pleaded the use of any other european language here other than English. It might have been true if this conversation had taken place a few decades ago. My knowledge of english comes from TV, books, cumputer games and general computer stuff. If I was a normal Israeli then my english knowledge would've come from our schools where english is being tought as a second language all over Israel (unless I'm arab I guess). My parents were born in Israel and therefore speak hebrew, I wasn't raised listening to yiddish and german. All of my friends regardless of their grandparent's origin (askenazi or spharadim) know english better than french or spanish.

We have a society that is more prone to English. Same for Germany and Sweden I guess (if returning to the original point), which is the reason they find it easier with English more than French rather than it being more similar or have an imprint on them.

You show some impressive knoweldge in our culture for some one who is not a jew. Why is that?

[subaquaticus]

Originally Posted by DeepThought

Ashkenaz means middle and northern europe. Yiddish is a mix of German, Biblical hebrew and some Polish depends on where you come from.

The Ashkenaz community formed between the 9th and 13th century in present Eastern France and Southern Germany ; their dialect is then a typical Middle High German dialect ; they were expelled approximately in the 13th century. The King of Poland decided to welcome them because Poland only had two social classes : the aristocrats and the peasants ; Poland then lacked a third class establishing a "link" between aristocracy and peasantry... The Jews could fit into the niche. Their speaking German whereas the Polish people spoke a slavonic language explains why they remained being perceived as aliens by the Polish population... In Slavonic, the word for "German" is "niemietz", which means "mute" or "who cannot speak"...

Originally Posted by DeepThought

The main constituency of SPHARADIM in Israel are from North Africa and other middle-eastern countries, only a minority have a real recent (3-5 generations) connection to Spain.

The connection of SEPHARDIM to Spain is much more ancient : it dates back to 1492 ! At that date the Queen of Spain Isabel the Catholic expelled the Jews from Spain (and the Arabs as well... no jealous...)

By the way, the present King of Spain begged his pardon for the forfeit of his ancester some years ago...

From that ancient date the expelled Jews spreaded all over Northern Africa, Turkey, Greece, France, Italy,... and they brought with themselves a Spanish dialect : the "ladino", equivalent to the "yiddish" of Ashkenazim. As far as I know, ladino is still spoken in Istanbul.

I saw an East German movie relating the deportation of Greek Jews during World War II and I was extremely surprised to hear them speak Spanish : their Spanish dialect had remained for more than 5 centuries...

Originally Posted by DeepThought

I don't think a Spharadi would have pleaded the use of any other european language here other than English.

Quite many French Jews emigrated recently to Israël (last July your Prime Minister officially advised all of them to do so... which created a little "diplomatic drawback"...)...

In the movie mentioned above, the couple adopting the young Falasha from Ethiopia is French speaking, therefore is supposed to have emigrated recently from France. The actress is Yael Abecassis ; she speaks French at home (with a slight accent) and fluent Hebrew outside ; the male actor is a French Arab named Roschdy Zem ; he speaks French perfectly at home but I did not hear him speak outside (I suppose he can't speak Hebrew...)...

Originally Posted by DeepThought

We have a society that is more prone to English.

This is due to the special relationship with the US ; there are more Jews in New York City than in the whole state of Israël...

Originally Posted by DeepThought

You show some impressive knoweldge in our culture for some one who is not a jew. Why is that?

My first hobby, far before freediving, is ethnology and linguistics, as you might have guessed ; I am therefore interested in knowing all the peoples on Earth (including the Jews...)

[Poida]

French used to be the international language. English is now. Get over it!!

[DeepThought]

Originally Posted by subaquaticus

The Ashkenaz community formed between the 9th and 13th century in present Eastern France and Southern Germany [...]

I was talking about where ashkenazi jews came from to Israel, it was more relevant to the convesation. Though I didn't know about the polish-middle class thingy.

Originally Posted by subaquaticus

The connection of SEPHARDIM to Spain is much more ancient : it dates back to 1492 ! [...]

I know, I have a friend who's one side of her family is in Israel since that year (14 generations if I remember correct). I was again talking about where they came from to Israel.

Originally Posted by subaquaticus

Quite many French Jews emigrated recently to Israël (last July your Prime Minister officially advised all of them to do so... which created a little "diplomatic drawback"...)...

Not as many, a few thousands as most, I can't say I've seen ANY cultural change here.

I remember that "fiasco". It was very undiplomatic. Though as the newspapers present it and as an ex-french guy I talked with a couple of days before does it's not unreasonable.

Originally Posted by subaquaticus

This is due to the special relationship with the US ; there are more Jews in New York City than in the whole state of Israël...

I heard that before and that's probably not true but there are definitly more in the US than in Israel.

Originally Posted by subaquaticus

My first hobby, far before freediving, is ethnology and linguistics, as you might have guessed ; I am therefore interested in knowing all the peoples on Earth (including the Jews...)

A curious person, good.

[subaquaticus]

Originally Posted by DeepThought

Not as many, a few thousands as most, I can't say I've seen ANY cultural change here.

I remember that "fiasco". It was very undiplomatic. Though as the newspapers present it and as an ex-french guy I talked with a couple of days before does it's not unreasonable.

A very interesting movie with Yvan Attal (Israeli born) ; title : "Les Patriotes" (1994) ; the story : a young French Jew emigrates to Israël and comes back to France 4 years later as a Mossad agent to steal nuclear secrets from the French ; which permits to destroy the nuclear plant of Osirak !

http://www.allocine.fr/film/critique...19&note=3.html

http://www.cinemotions.com/modules/F.../affiches.html

http://movies.msn.com/movies/movie.aspx?m=57180

http://www.humanite.presse.fr/journa...4-05-21-526286

[subaquaticus]

First conclusions after 5 days ; this thread got 37 answers and 438 viewings...

not bad... seems to stir some interest...

[Stephan Whelan]

subaquaticus,

I wouldn't read much into the number of viewings. They are not "unique persons" only number of times the thread has been read. There have been 9 people posting to this thread and if they revisited the thread on every post they alone would consist of 342 views which is the majority.

I still have yet to be pursuaded that it is a good idea to open a french (or any foreign language) section.

[subaquaticus]

Originally Posted by Stephan Whelan

subaquaticus,

I wouldn't read much into the number of viewings. They are not "unique persons" only number of times the thread has been read. There have been 9 people posting to this thread and if they revisited the thread on every post they alone would consist of 342 views which is the majority.

I still have yet to be pursuaded that it is a good idea to open a french (or any foreign language) section.

It would be interesting first to assess the number of French speaking DB registered members... The two French speaking DB "effective" participants have an outstanding level in English (one of them living in Britain)...

I suspect quite many of my compatriots had a sufficient level in English to register and read with an imperfect comprehension some posts, but were unable to "take off", out of sheer linguistic shyness...

On the other hand I got in touch with "greendiver" who is a Dutch speaking freediver living in Spain ; I intend to organize a freediving trip on the "Costa Brava" which is an amazing freediving region...

It would be interesting for me to get in touch with Catalan freedivers, but the proportion of Catalans speaking English is even lower than for the French (and Catalan language is closer to the French language than to Spanish...)...

[Rémi]

Originally Posted by subaquaticus

The two French speaking DB "effective" participants have an outstanding level in English (one of them living in Britain)...

are you talking about me ?
Not sure it is true, but you deserve some reputation for this

[subaquaticus]

Originally Posted by Rémi

are you talking about me ?
Not sure it is true, but you deserve some reputation for this

Flowers are not that expensive !...

Let us congratulate each other !

Vive la France !

[island_sands]

Originally Posted by subaquaticus

Flowers are not that expensive !...

Let us congratulate each other !

Vive la France !

i'll drink to that.. bring on the Rothschild

[subaquaticus]

Originally Posted by island_sands

i'll drink to that.. bring on the Rothschild

Hi Sara

by the way... are you a native English speaker or a native Spanish speaker ?

How is your stray cat ?

I am envisaging to go to the delicious Costa Brava next summer...

Viva Espana !

Viva Catalunya !