Why is Spartan not bilingual?

Discussion in 'San Jose Earthquakes' started by billward, Jun 27, 2004.

  1. NorCalFootballer

    NorCalFootballer New Member

    Jun 7, 2004
    Northern California
    Again you've failed to stay relevant and prove in any way how Spanish PA announcements help us bring hispanics to matches. You also have shown nothing more to prove that the majority of humans are bilingual or trilingual. What I see here is someone that is trying to prove me wrong about the semantics of what bilingual means because his original argument that Spanish PA announcements encourage hispanic fans to come to Quakes matches, holds no water. Let me clue you in on something. MARKETING brings fans to matches. Not PA announcements. No one, including you has listed any real good reason why the quakes should use bilingual PA announcements. And as for your comment about Spanish being used alongside English in California. Yeah, in certain parts, but that's just a myth that everyone is walking down the street knowing how to speak a lot of Spanish. And by the way it's "drivel", not "dribble". :rolleyes:
     
  2. NorCalFootballer

    NorCalFootballer New Member

    Jun 7, 2004
    Northern California
    I also find your numbers to be highly erroneous. I'm only going to indict your China numbers at the moment. These figures are from "Human Geography, 7th Edition" by Fellmann, Getis, and Getis (because I actually cite my information). The population of China is about 1.3 billion. As of 2001 Mandarin was spoken by 1,076,000,000 Chinese. Cantonese was spoken by 72,000,000 Chinese. Wu was spoken by 71 million Chinese. Ok so far this leaves us with a total of about 143 million Chinese that could possibly speak two or more languages. POSSIBLY. Min was spoken by 51 million Chinese. This gives us 194 million Chinese that could POSSIBLY speak more than one language. Korean is spoken by about 78 million Koreans, Japanese and Chinese. Let's give China 20 million of that and call it 214 million possible bi or trilingual speakers in China. The list only includes languages spoken by more than 40 million people fluently. There are a little more than 400 million first language English speakers and about 1.5 billion total fluent speakers around the world. You mean to tell me that the other 1.1 billion world wide second language English speakers are made up by more than HALF Chinese natives? Which would then make the "VAST MAJORITY" of Chinese bi or trilingual. I'm sorry but the facts just aren't there to back up your assertion that over half of the six billion plus people on this planet speak more than one language in a fluent manner.
    And as for this comment about people switching between four to six different languages all the time in sub-saharan Africa. Have you BEEN there or did some anthro professor just tell you that? Don't be so pompous. You're not the only one that has taken a college course. Yeah I wasn't paying attention and screwed up on the use of the word dialect and bilingual, but your numbers just don't check out.
     
  3. NorCalFootballer

    NorCalFootballer New Member

    Jun 7, 2004
    Northern California
    In fact let's kick it up a notch and bring in some facts from MIT. From Joost Paul Bonsen's own website. A team of his students, seeking to develop a billingual storytelling toy found that roughly 3 billion people speak more than one language fluently, worldwide. A little under half the world population. At best, half. Hardly evidence of a majority or an overwhelming majority.
     
  4. Goodsport

    Goodsport Moderator
    Staff Member

    May 18, 1999
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Wow! :eek:

    Thankfully, those kids hadn't given up. :)

    GO EARTHQUAKES!!!


    -G
     
  5. uclacarlos

    uclacarlos Member+

    Aug 10, 2003
    east coast
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    I'm sorry that this thread has gotten so side-tracked, but given that we are speaking about _language_ issues, many posters made statements that ignored basic linguistic facts.

    I boils down to definitions: how does one define a speaker of a language: someone who speaks it as A.) a primary or secondary autochthonouslanguage or B) the above plus those that speak it as a third language or who have learned it as a foreign language.

    I was going off memory from a info in the early 90's; I tried to make adjustments to include population growth. I over estimated Cantonese and its dialects. My bad.

    The most important thing is you fail to make a few important distinctions as to how the editors reached those numbers. How do they define "fluency": is it a language autochthonous to the region? To what degree do these speakers hold dominion over the language? For instance, to say that 1.1 billion ppl speak English fluently (outside of the 400 mill that speak it as a primary language), I would assert that for the majority it is a foreign language subject to extreme contagion of their mother tongue. Once again, there's a difference btw fluency in a "foreign language" and being bilingual in languages "indigenous" to the region.

    One other factor that you fail to mention is the fact that when speaking of population, the numbers are truly to be taken as (fallible) estimates. There's no way of knowing exactly how many ppl live in a wide area. Throw in the factor of language speakers, and you can get an idea of just difficult the task is.

    I quoted #s that took into account primary and secondary languages native to a region as well as firmly entrenched colonial languages (English, for instance, in the Indian sub-continent, or French and English in Africa).
    Check it out, as I may be wrong, but I believe that 200 mill disparity in speakers of Mandarin may include those that speak as a terciary language. There are 7 separate languages spoken by a minimum of 10 mill ppl, hence the limits of your list that, as you admit, only lists languages spoken by 40 mill+. But there are DOZENS of minor languages (spoken by less than 10 million, hardly a minor number), plus THOUSANDS of dialects. So in the numbers I cited, Mandarin would not have counted somebody who speaks Cantonese and Taiwanese as their first and second languages. Sorry, but that's just the standard that I'm used to in determining the # of speakers of a language.

    The main problem is that you are still operating on the assumption that the statement "most of the world (whoops, ok, 48%) is bilingual" is pure hog-wash. Just b/c about a billion Chinese speak Mandarin does NOT preclude them from speaking a second or third language.
    Only if you think that bilingualism on a mass scale is hog-wash, which you apparently have determined to be false, b/c by your own admission, 48% of the planet is ... bilingual. IIRC, Mandarin is spoken by about 500-600 million Chinese as their PRIMARY language. The rest of the speakers speak OTHER languages in addition to Chinese. What is so hard to figure out about this?

    Can we just agree on the following? The majority of the world's bilingual ppl live in China, South East Asia, Central Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and to a much lesser degree, Europe's linguistic periphery and bilingual nations (Switzerland, Belgium, etc.)? Wouldn't these regions bring that number to around 3 billion?
     
  6. uclacarlos

    uclacarlos Member+

    Aug 10, 2003
    east coast
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    correction: 600-700 million speakers Mandarin as primary language.
     
  7. IBleedTeal

    IBleedTeal Member+

    Jun 2, 2001
    Yves Fiat
    Club:
    Juventus FC
  8. Alexi

    Alexi Member

    Feb 26, 1999
    San Francisco
    It's a good idea. Front Office can count donkeys as attendance, too. :)
     
  9. Alexi

    Alexi Member

    Feb 26, 1999
    San Francisco
    I can tell you that most of the Russians who actually had to live under a communist government are much more right-wing than most of the Bay Area population...
    Hmmmm ... how about lynching an A.N.S.W.E.R activist at the half-time? :)
     
  10. uclacarlos

    uclacarlos Member+

    Aug 10, 2003
    east coast
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    What, you're not enjoying BigLanguage.com? ;)

    further edit on Mandarin: I just found one source that says 600 mill (a college Portuguese language primer) plus another encyclopedia (Grover) that says 815 mill. Whom do you believe?
     
  11. NorCalFootballer

    NorCalFootballer New Member

    Jun 7, 2004
    Northern California

    Word! :D Now 'uclacarlos' is saying the thread has become very sidetracked. Well yeah because no one seems to be able to convey WHY we should have bilingual PA announcements at Spartan. They want to discuss how many people are bilingual in the world as if this really has any bearing on why we should be using one kind of PA announcement or not. Carlos, I don't care if you overestimated how many people speak Cantonese etc etc. I want to discuss Spanish PA announcements and if we should or should not use them at Quakes games. I say we shouldn't because A) It's not an effective marketing tool B) It makes no sense considering that English is the defacto official language and that the rest of the world really pays no attention to bilingual signage and announcements. So why should we make an extra effort to be PC?
    I don't really CARE if more than half the world is bilingual or not carlos. The only reason I challenged you is because you seriously annoy me A) Because you're cocky B) Because you're a galaxy fan on the San Jose board causing trouble. If you ask me we've pretty much argued to a draw. So either someone can offer some good reasons WHY we should use Spanish PA announcements or just cut it out. Myself and "IbleedTeal" have offered good reasons WHY NOT. Now I'd like to hear a good reason why besides they think Spanish should be used in announcements.
     
  12. NorCalFootballer

    NorCalFootballer New Member

    Jun 7, 2004
    Northern California

    Alexi you have to be one of the coolest mofos I know. :)
     
  13. Alexi

    Alexi Member

    Feb 26, 1999
    San Francisco
    Спасибо! (Thanks!)
     
  14. uclacarlos

    uclacarlos Member+

    Aug 10, 2003
    east coast
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    Spanish PA's

    It's not about being PC. As several ppl have repeatedly pointed out, it's about advertising your product in a language understood by the target audience. PA announcements are English at Quakes games b/c the target audience is primarily Anglophone. Now stay w/ me, cuz I guess this is where it's getting complicated: If, say 10% (?) of current fans are Spanish speakers w/ limited English skills, and the FO and MLSFO have stated the need to triple (?) that number, then it makes sense to highlight coming games and/or the products of the sponsors in a ... Spanish.

    Sorry for the "cockiness", but we've said it over and over.

    :D
    So tell me, do I cause the Smurfs trouble by taking friends to the Concacaf Champs League games? How many Quakes fans showed up for that? :mad: Do I cause trouble by organizing a group from my soccer league to go to Smurfs games? Do I cause trouble by bringing limited-English friends to numerous games?

    Maybe as a Bay Area resident who attends games and brings family and friends that fit KEY DEMOGRAPHICS for SJ/MLS (Latinos, Eurosnobs and the East Bay), I don't know, but maybe I'm entitled to opine. In this thread, I wasn't trying to cause trouble.
     
  15. bluejaded

    bluejaded New Member

    Jan 26, 2004
    Sign language!
     
  16. bluejaded

    bluejaded New Member

    Jan 26, 2004
    Okay, I've given up trying to slog through number theories, so sorry if someone else mentioned this and I missed it: Does this remind anyone else of the DVD that came out, and had the LA-SJ game, in Spanish ONLY? And all the English-only speakers who said, It's no big deal, you can still watch the game.

    Seems to me that at an actual game, the need to know the language is even less than in watching the televised version (ie There's really no commentary at Spartan [Thanks Spartacus!]). You can watch the ball go in the goal, you can watch the yellow card. Although I wouldn't mind hearing the reason for the yellow card at times, I don't think I'd miss out if I didn't know English. At all.
     
  17. billward

    billward Member

    Oct 22, 2002
    El Cerrito, CA
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Let's say someone who has an imperfect grasp of English goes to a game. To make it interesting, let's say he went to Magnet Schedule Night and every other game since then. And he's got this thing on his fridge that says there's a home game on July 31. But he doesn't check the Web site, and the announcement that due to the all star snafu, there's a home game on the 24th instead, is only given in English. And he doesn't catch it because he doesn't understand English.

    Announcing goals, substitutions, and cards in English only is no big deal - it's one or two words of soccer jargon and someone's name, which is easy for anyone to pick out no matter what their language. But announcements of upcoming events are a different matter entirely.

    As for those numbers - nationality is not the issue, language is. If you were to poll every person at Spartan Stadium during a Quakes home game and ask them what languages they speak, among those who speak little or no English I'm certain you'll get Spanish as the #1 by a landslide, with a few Portuguese or Asian languages too. And I bet nobody will say they only speak Hawaiian, even on July 7.

    It's all about reaching the biggest group with the smallest effort. Adding Spanish announcements would reach a huge portion of the crowd. And even if they are able to understand the English announcements, there's a psychological factor. Hearing them in Spanish makes them feel welcome, and therefore likelier to return and to bring their friends and family.

    Every home game, I see hispanic people at Spartan. Maybe not enough of a proportion to match the community at large, but they are there. Making a welcoming gesture can't hurt, and will probably help make sure they come back, and bring with them their friends and neighbors who currently feel excluded by the Quakes.
     
  18. Hawkeye17

    Hawkeye17 DynaChick v QuakeBabe v WildKate v Chewie23

    Aug 25, 1999
    Miami Vice 82
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Right now, with all the off field office distractions maybe it's not on the minds of the brass from my point of view. If the team wants to cater to the Spanish speaking crowd it might be a thought to (1) heavily promote Alvarez and Corralles to that market and (2) at least try to make the important announcements and promotions en Espanol.

    Bingo! Right there. I remember they came in droves when Espinoza was with the team, and Cerritos was popular with at least that sector of the market. There's only Alvarez and Corrales to follow but besides a good game of soccer, if they can hear Spanish being announced at least they can understand what's going on.

    I can't remember if the Spartan PAs (spartacus know anything here?) ever made any announcements <i>en espanol</i> during the 1996 season or around that time, but again it might be a start to make those announcements for the remainder of the season. Cheers!
     
  19. NorCalFootballer

    NorCalFootballer New Member

    Jun 7, 2004
    Northern California
    Re: Spanish PA's


    How is tripling the percentage of hispanic fans going to increase attendance? :confused: We need an increase in attendance, not a change in demographics. I mean you're absolutely impossible anyway! How in the world is a Spanish PA announcement going to bring in more hispanic fans? I'm with you if you want to adverstise on Univision or put a billboard up somewhere, but it just makes no sense to use a Spanish PA. Even if you're doing it to 'comfort' the new fans once they get to the match (Which is what I think you might be trying to articulate) it really makes no sense. You'd be better off selling tamales and jarritos then using Spanish PA announcements. When I'm at a Championnat match the last thing on my mind is ANY French announcements or signage. I'd feel much more at home if I could get a real hotdog. But then again, I don't really care, because I'm there to watch the football afterall. Not listen to English announcements. We need to advertise in Spanish and English and concern ourselves with garnering new supporters. We don't need to be worrying about a Spanish PA. If they're at the match they're obviously there to watch football. Seems the simplest of concepts to me.

    And yeah I think you're a troublemaker. Spare me the tales of how many people you bring to matches. I don't really care.
     
  20. NorCalFootballer

    NorCalFootballer New Member

    Jun 7, 2004
    Northern California

    Well hispanics aren't the largest minority in the bay area. Asians are. But I get your point Bill. You want to make them feel welcome. Well I suppose we just have a difference of opinion. I don't think it would change much. You think it would. Oh well. :)
     
  21. ThreeApples

    ThreeApples Member+

    Jul 28, 1999
    Smurf Village
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    That's mostly irrelevant in an argument about language, not ethnicity. A decision to make announcements in another language would be done to appeal to non-English speakers. I'd be willing to bet that Spanish is by far the most-spoken language among non-English speakers in the Bay Area. Asian non-English speakers are divided amongst a large variety of languages.

    Though I don't really care much about this and have skipped most of the posts.
     
  22. uclacarlos

    uclacarlos Member+

    Aug 10, 2003
    east coast
    Club:
    FC Barcelona
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    Re: Spanish PA's

    Did you fail math as well as linguistics? :eek:

    Let me draw it out for all ye short yellow bus ppl:

    10,000
    x.10 (don't let the decimal confuse you!)
    -----
    1,000
    x3
    -----
    3000
    -1000 (don't want to count them twice, now would we)
    ------
    12,000

    Now, stay w/ us folks: 12,000>10,000. This means that 12,000 is greater than 10,000, for the mathematically impaired.

    Tripling the amount of Latinos would in essence... give the franchise more butts in the seats. Trust me, you need it.
    We all agree, most notably AEG and MLS, whose opinion matters.
    Oooh, MLS, SJE and AEG do not agree. In fact, I think most ppl on these boards would agree that, you know, you maybe might need a little bit of help in this area.

    Hey BleedingTeel: why don't you correct your brethren w/ census figures as to the larger group: Latinos vs. Asians. He can't do math, so you've gotta figure that his reading skills are below par as well and he can't go back and check your previous post about this topic.
     

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