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Why not a French speaking freediving section ?

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.
DeepThought said:
I speak Hebrew (that has no relation to other european languages) and English
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As far as I know, your country fosters linguistic diversity...

As far as I know, there are vast amounts of people in your country who don't speak English

I saw last week a movie about the Falashas (the black Jews from Ethiopia supposed to descent from King Solomon and the Queen of Shebah...) ; it described the operation "Moses" organized by the CIA and the Mossad in 1984 to transfer these Falashas from Ethiopia to Israel...

The three languages I could hear in this movie were :

1. Amharic (Ethiopian language) ;
2. Hebrew ;
3. French !

The Israeli family who adopted the young Falasha hero of the movie was French speaking...

I did not hear one word in English...
 
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Interesting.
But what are you trying to say?

EDIT: Weren't they supposed to be the descendants of King Solomon?
 
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DeepThought said:
Interesting.
But what are you trying to say?
Click to expand...

I am just saying that it is naive to pretend that English is THE universal language in the world...

English is widespread among all Germanic countries (Anglo Saxon countries, Germany, Netherlands, Scandinavian countries, Austria, Switzerland,..) which is quite delimited... but English if of little use in Eastern countries for instance where German and Russian prevail...

English is also widespread among certain professions (computers, aeronautics,...) but not in all like chemistry (German) or nuclear and spatial science (Russian)...

Coming back to Deeper Blue, limiting exclusively the languages used to English restricts the audience to certain geographic areas and professional backgrounds...

In particular I am not convinced that the professional freediving community worldwide masters English...
 
in the Netherlands in school we are taught in 4 languages for at least 1 year, 3 languages for 2 years and 2 languages for 4 years (moslty even during complete education, minimum of 10 years).....the choice is on the student.

In general I think a lot of people have a fear of writing/talking in foreign language.....I know my English/German/French is bad but I won't limit myself in not communication with others, but I can understand if they won't.

This has nothing to do with thinking English is the WORLD-language.....just looking at majority of World population, Chinese is the language number 1.....if looking at countries speaking the same language; we all should speak Spanish on this forum.

The foundation of this website is English, other are foundated in Spanish, French, Japanese, Greek, Portugese, German, Dutch, and loads more of languages.................

The gost in my machine is gone and for this night will be my last post, or maybe not......... rofl

Ciao Pim
ps, that is my best Italian......scuzza
 
There's one thing i would say Subaqua... that YOUR english is better than mine!! rofl rofl

 
DeepThought said:
I speak Hebrew (that has no relation to other european languages) and English
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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.

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...

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...

3. RUSSIAN Jews recently coming in masses from the former Soviet Union, who made Russian the 3rd or 4th language spoken in Israël...

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...
 
whats the deal with the "pure" shit? If you get a french section and see a post obviously related to spearing dont open it.

Do you hold your breath differently because you are a "pure" diver?
 
Reactions: Rémi
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
 
rigdvr said:
whats the deal with the "pure" shit? If you get a french section and see a post obviously related to spearing dont open it.

Do you hold your breath differently because you are a "pure" diver?
Click to expand...

My proposal to create a French speaking section within the Freediving sub-forum is good and credible because it is FOCUSED.

I could appreciate Deeper Blue because I have a sufficient mastering of English which allowed me to read posts and to write some...

In particular I was so glad to receive in some hours answers to technical questions I asked about freediving coming from Australia, California, Finland,...

On the other hand I was surprised to see the extremely low number of my fellow citizens taking part in Deeper Blue and there is no comparable web site in french related to freediving...

Out of 5000 members I was able to identify no more than 3 other freediving compatriots on DB... There might be more French DB members "lurking" or "half lurking" (that is trying to read posts without clearly understanding them...)... Some of French freediving "lurkers" might have a reasonable understanding of English and would be able to post in English also, but refrain from doing so out of sheer linguistic shyness..

This linguistic barrier is something of a problem in particular on the occasion of
international freediving competitions taking place in France (for example last competition in Paris, where I played a role of linguistic interface)

What I propose to the webmasters of Deeper Blue is to "open a gate" to French speaking freedivers. Opening a French speaking section within the Freediving Sub-Forum would permit to some of my freediving fellow citizens to ask questions in French, which would be impossible in "normal" sections...

If I made this proposal this is because I feel that I can play an effective role of "linguistic" bridge between French speaking freedivers and the rest of the English speaking DB community.

I am no scuba diver and no spearhunter... I have not proposed what I cannot handle... But I do not forbid to a French speaking spearo to make an equivalent proposal regarding spear hunting...

Of course, there is a large common area between the "pure" freedivers and the spearhunters...
 
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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 ?
 
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.
 
Stephan Whelan said:
As you admit yourself there are a small number of French speaking people on the forums.
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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...
 
NOT freediving related.

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. 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.
subaquaticus said:
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...
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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. 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?
 
Re: NOT freediving related.

DeepThought said:
Ashkenaz means middle and northern europe. Yiddish is a mix of German, Biblical hebrew and some Polish depends on where you come from.
Click to expand...
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"...
DeepThought said:
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.
Click to expand...
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 :waterwork 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...

DeepThought said:
I don't think a Spharadi would have pleaded the use of any other european language here other than English.
Click to expand...

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...)...

DeepThought said:
We have a society that is more prone to English.
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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...

DeepThought said:
You show some impressive knoweldge in our culture for some one who is not a jew. Why is that?
Click to expand...
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...)
 
Reactions: DeepThought and Adrian
French used to be the international language. English is now. Get over it!!
 
Re: NOT freediving related.

subaquaticus said:
The Ashkenaz community formed between the 9th and 13th century in present Eastern France and Southern Germany [...]
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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.
subaquaticus said:
The connection of SEPHARDIM to Spain is much more ancient : it dates back to 1492 ! [...]
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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.
subaquaticus said:
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"...)...
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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.
subaquaticus said:
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...
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I heard that before and that's probably not true but there are definitly more in the US than in Israel.
subaquaticus said:
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...)
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A curious person, good.
 
Re: NOT freediving related.


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/critiquepublic_gen_cfilm=10119&note=3.html

http://www.cinemotions.com/modules/Films/fiche/1234/Les-Patriotes/affiches.html

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

http://www.humanite.presse.fr/journal/1994-05-21/1994-05-21-526286
 
First conclusions after 5 days ; this thread got 37 answers and 438 viewings...

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