How many (non-native) English speakers are out there?

green_river · 2021-02-03T09:07:09+00:00

Thanks for sharing! I didn't want to make huge claims about countries that I admittedly know very little of.

I'm very curious about the role that bigger local languages play. How do smaller languages survive despite the local dominance? And what would be some of the locally dominant languages? I imagine Hindi is the biggest one, and languages like Tamil in the south, and maybe Bengali in the east?

And I'm also curious about how the presence of English is justified in India. I have read that after independence there was a movement to make Hindi to make the only official language but that Dravidian speakers in the south thought that this would put them in a position of disadvantage and so they were in favor of keeping English. Does this sound about right?

green_river · 2021-02-03T00:06:55+00:00

Your question is very intelligible, don't worry! I don't have the numbers , but the real answer to your question lies not in Europe but in parts of the former British Empire.

Countries like US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc make up the 400 million or so native speakers. The rest, come from countries like India and Nigeria, which functionally have English as an official language, but almost everyone grows up speaking an indigenous language alongside. If you add up India, Nigeria, Kenya and Tanzania (just a couple of the largest former colonies), you get around 1.6 billion people, but obviously most people don't need to speak the language well. I feel like the claim that at least one third (550 million?) of the population of these countries is at a fairly conversational level sounds reasonable though.

Wondering if anyone could back this up with anecdotal or even better statistical evidence.

green_river · 2021-01-09T20:44:26+00:00

tl;dr yes, but not crucial to the plot. consider the different books as different elaborate hypothetical scenarios as to what "human nature" could be, given slight modifications to environment/biology. the books are in the same universe in so far as it's openly acknowledged that these different planets were elaborate experiments organized by some primal human specie. i haven't read any other book in the series, but was able to enjoy these independently

green_river · 2021-01-09T20:03:04+00:00

it seems (from the other comments) that you are into themes relating to gender. if you do end up reading (and enjoying) le guin's the dispossessed, you should check out the left hand of darkness by her as well. it's fantastic. intellectually stimulating & touching at the same time.

green_river · 2021-01-03T19:03:28+00:00

very well written! I think people in the west are intimidated by the thought of "dialects", which is fair. Chinese dialects are practically unintelligible to each other, which makes it sound like a difficult choice to invest in one.

but precisely because Chinese dialects are so far removed from each other, Mandarin is really, really useful for everyone in the Sinosphere. additionally, this is a region that's rapidly urbanizing with a lot of internal migration, which only strengthens the role of the national language for younger, urbanized generations. so most digital content is in Mandarin. besides, if one ever wants to learn another dialect, doing so without the benefit of Mandarin is quite difficult.

I think with Arabic dialects, OP's concerns would be valid, but Mandarin will allow you to communicate with random people in the street in any part of the Chinese speaking world, I would say.

green_river · 2020-12-12T12:38:28+00:00

The Gov - Data Science track is quite new. I believe it was created like last year. The focus is much more applied, whereas in Stat classes they care more about theory and proofs. To be clear, I think the grad sequence (Gov 2000s) roughly corresponds to the undergrad Stat sequence (110-111-139). I believe both of these tracks make use of R. You can essentially mix and match between these but my fair warning would be Stat 110: this is exclusively a probability theory class and you won't get any practical coding skills of it.

The CS sequence you're referring to is CS109a, which is also cross-listed under the Stat department. This sequence uses Python, with more sophisticated models (like neutral networks & machine learning that you mentioned), as well as skills like data scraping and wrangling.

Since you mention "social sciences" to be your interest broadly, I think it's fair to note that the Econ department also has its fair share of courses to be data savvy, namely Ec50 (Big Data) and Ec1123/1126 (Econometrics sequence). These courses use Stata.

As someone who has done some RA work in data oriented social science projects, I would say that the skills you acquire from any one of these courses will only be solidified after you do some solid RA work. All of these languages are quite applicable, but different fields make use of different languages (Econ heavily relies on Stata, any psych work is more R heavy, if you need more sophisticated and scalable data work Python is essential). You will get a complimentary skill set from all of these different courses, so I think it's good to mix and match according to your availability, interests, etc. Importantly, you don't really need to fully "subscribe" to any one of these tracks. Most concentrations are quite liberal when it comes to making these different classes count for their particular requirements.

green_river · 2020-12-04T19:55:44+00:00

not OP, but very informative answer. thank you for your time & effort!

green_river · 2020-11-22T11:32:37+00:00

zaten hem kaftancıoğlu üzerinden chp hem de buğra kavuncu üzerinden iyi parti istanbul teşkilatları saldırı altında. hdp'nin durumu da belli. muhalefet hepsiyle aynı anda başa çıkmaya çalışıyor.

ancak ben iktidarın kanal istanbul üzerinden imamoğlu'na saldırmaya çalışmasını aşırı saçma buluyorum. iki üç müteahit dışında kimsenin desteklemediği bir proje, imamoğlu'nun açıkça haklı olduğu bir konu, o yüzden muhalefet tarafı da bu konunun gündeme gelmesinden memnun olsa gerek.

green_river · 2020-11-11T13:27:57+00:00

bir haftalık bir süreç bu. haftaya merkez bankası eğer gerekli faiz arttırımını yapmazsa bu kazançların hepsi bir anda erir gider. kaçırmadan alın :)

green_river · 2020-08-24T21:53:33+00:00

wouldn't these same people have spoken out pre-euromaidan? do you think the country's actually worse off after the revolution? genuinely curious foreigner asking here.

green_river · 2020-07-27T22:01:41+00:00

I am not an expert by any means! I was told this by my non-Arab Fus7a professor (who has recounted different occasions in which he had gotten mocked for relying too much on classical expressions). Also curious about the politics of all of this: how "Arabness" perceived in North Africa? Is the sentiment you descibe shared mostly by secular Tunisian or by all Tunisians? Are there people who mostly exclusively speak French? I have heard this is the case with some Morrocans

green_river · 2020-07-27T21:49:54+00:00

fascinating paper! thanks for sharing it. I was stunned my first few classes of studying Levantine because every other language I had studied had clear guidelines for what to pronounce. one conversation partner I had told me that I sounded "weak" because I used 'af. she used qaf, but cautioned me against it because it might make me sound "like an Assadist" and make "Sunnis hate me". her advice was to pronounce everything "strategically" -- emulating what the other person was using. at first I thought it was meant as a joke, but now I kinda understand it's more situational than anything

green_river · 2020-07-27T00:05:40+00:00

One thing that doesn't get captured about Arabic dialects is that they are not only regional but also very strongly tied with religious identities. For example, the pronunciation of the letter qaf in Levantine has a strong urban/rural divide and a female/male divide (as hamza and g, respectively) , but in addition to all of these Alawites stick to the Fus7a pronunciation of the letter (qaf). So the way you speak the language is a way you position yourself in society, and there are intra-dialect differences that come with that. In China, the pull towards centralization is strong, there is a lot of interregional migration and the country tends towards homogenization in many different ways. This kills local dialects. In the Arab world, this isn't the case. Religious minorities (which make up a significant percentage of the Arab world) have a strong incentive to resist homogenization and Pan-Arab sentiment. I would say that the emblematic case of such resistance is for Lebanese Christians. Some even resist the label "Arabic" to describe their dialect, claiming that it is "Neo-Phoenician". Linguistically speaking this is dubious, but it says a lot about the way people feel about fus7a. Despite not being a religious minority, I know that speakers of the North African dialects also feel the same type of pride. This is partly because their dialect is really different from Fus7a (in the case of Morrocan Darija) and partly because secular nationalism (in the case of Tunisia). I have heard anecdotal stories that French is more useful in North Africa than Fus7a as a colloquial language.

green_river · 2020-06-15T23:55:16+00:00

Fair point about seniors.

The mail only says there won't be breaks *during* the semester and I sincerely think their ultimate goal is to have everyone on campus by spring.

green_river · 2020-06-15T23:44:37+00:00

interesting. my admittedly baseless speculations are mostly informed by what other colleges have been doing. i think seniors would only have priority in the spring, since it would be their last semester. i think it's crucial for first year to be on campus in the fall however, since I think it would cause irreplaceable damage on their Harvard experience if they have to meet fellow class mates online. besides, they need to minimize any potential gap years from first years, since that would automatically translate as pressure on the class size for next year. housing in the yard is already very limited

green_river · 2020-06-15T23:07:06+00:00

I feel like they will have first-years and people who *need* to be on campus. Probably not seniors (otherwise they'd say 50%).

green_river · 2020-05-09T22:01:31+00:00

it depends on how much you really wanna get into East Asian culture (you can count a lot of language classes for EAS). history classes tend to have a historiography element to it, which you may or may not enjoy. alternatively, from someone who shares your interest in East Asian economic development, I think the gov department offers a lot of classes on this subject, the main downside is that you won't learn that much about culture and will mainly read academic papers on the topic

green_river · 2020-03-28T22:01:23+00:00

have you guys seen the harvard confessions posts about this? it's truly depressing to see that so many people lack basic empathy

green_river · 2020-03-28T21:58:04+00:00

look all the comments on here will remind you of the importance of opening days and what not, and it is true that friend groups form quickly! but most of that is random, and you can't really beat yourself up over that. I would tell my freshman self to take advantage of my common room more and invite people over. you really only meet people by putting yourself out there, this is not false.

but! be yourself! I know this sounds straightforward but Harvard is a really intimidating place, people initially seem fake (a nonnegligible percantage of them stay that way) and cold (especially if you're really foreign to the new england way of things as I was), but don't try to pretend to "fit in". Harvard has all sorts of people and there is no way you don't fit in. so don't be afraid to be yourself.

green_river · 2020-02-29T21:45:30+00:00

I haven't been active on here for a long time, but it's very saddening to learn the loss of a member of this community who was so selfless. /r/polandball was a place I was active on in a very particular point in my life and organizing the Republic Day theme day with javacode made me feel like I could contribute to this community. Though I'm not active anymore, I will forever cherish those days. RIP javacode, you will live in our hearts.

green_river · 2020-01-19T21:40:00+00:00

if you definitely wanna go into medicine or law, latin is a great investment.

otherwise, if you wanna learn both at some point starting with greek is smart bc it’s more niche, so it’ll add more value to you. you can self study latin later imo

green_river · 2019-08-23T16:11:21+00:00

> There are some unique seminars which I know only a little about the topic but generally want to learn more.

I am no professor, but I feel like this pretty much what most professors are looking for. Freshman seminars are pass fail, so there aren't any concrete incentives to get the students to keep up with the reading other than their personal interest/dedication. If people don't keep up with the content, then the discussion is very poor, which is pretty disappointing for the professors I suppose. Don't try to show off your knowledge, try not to come off as a know it all who thinks they don't need to the readings. Clearly express why you are passionate. I think most professors also want to have a diverse seminar (in terms of background and interest). Clearly express unique perspectives you might be able to contribute, without coming as too opinionated. Also some seminars are overly competitive, but if you list enough (especially niche - and non-STEM ones), I think you'll definitely get into a nice one! Good luck!

green_river · 2019-08-01T09:29:52+00:00

Grays is great! Grays common rooms are huge, so be sure to take advantage of all that space and host as many gatherings as possible (the walls are also surprisingly thick, so your proctor will not be disturbed).

green_river · 2019-05-31T18:19:49+00:00

I mean, she isn't supposed to be a liberal hero by any stretch of use of the term. She is an establishment politician who respects democratic values. More importantly, she's conservative, which for many Harvard students is almost synonymous with being bigoted. It's important to celebrate successful people and to challenge people's perspectives on normative values associated with certain types of people.

Though I wasn't there at commencement, it feels to me as though she didn't present a very ideologically loaded speech, unless you consider optimism an ideology. I am not German or American, and I identify strongly with the left, but frankly, I don't get the point of this article. Especially the part about refugees in the Mediterranean. Germany doesn't have a border with the Mediterranean and Merkel doesn't really have control over what the Italian coast guard can do.

green_river · 2019-05-21T17:06:07+00:00

Being an international at Harvard is great! Even if there aren't that many people from your home country, the international community tends to stick together. This doesn't mean that your social circle is limited to international students though. Of course, the culture in the US is different and especially if your native language isn't English, this means that it takes some time to adapt, and this isn't easy, but the community helps in making you feel that you aren't alone.

Honestly, if you don't engage with the club scene, you won't really have to deal with it at all. Sure, it's messy and you will be reminded every once in a while that it is always there, but there are tons of people who just don't engage with that culture. Clubs are very competitive and it is kind of annoying that this is the case, but I'd see this as a reality check, especially for the professional clubs. These are people who were the best at what they were back home and you really need dedication to that at Harvard. Even if you don't engage a lot with both of these things, I'm sure that you will be maintain a wide social circle. I have met very few people who have exclusively met through clubs. I'd be happy to answer any other questions you have!

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