Alex Salmond to let 16-year-olds vote in bid to secure independence

[garbon]

I'm sure there are some purely monogamous gay folk around, but I've never met one; the ones that have serious committed relationships are still pretty open about getting strange.  I assume they operate on some sort of honor system.  I think one of the great advantages is that there need be no tit-for-tat bedpost notching, or feeling of exploitation, since the whole family can enjoy, unlike heteros with open relationships who will need a finer tuned arrangement.

Oh, also, you don't have to deal with women.  That's the other great advantage.

I think Dan Savage is all about instructing people that it is okay to be monogamish, these days.

[viper37]

There weren't any natives when the french came over, silly.

There weren't any conflict over lands with indians in what is today's Quebec, no.
Outside of the actual boundaries, yes.  Also, trade wars with the Iroquois (Beaver Wars).  Well, technically, between Iroquois and Hurons, allied to French.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Peace_of_Montreal

[viper37]

Actually, even in a world state that let anyone in, English speakers would still form a plurality.  Over 400 million native speakers, some 2 billion total.  The language of world administration would not be Belgianese.

Mandarin and Spanish come first in a world state, speaking of the natives.  Arabic must be close too.

[Ideologue]

Actually, even in a world state that let anyone in, English speakers would still form a plurality.  Over 400 million native speakers, some 2 billion total.  The language of world administration would not be Belgianese.

Mandarin and Spanish come first in a world state, speaking of the natives.  Arabic must be close too.

Which is why I added second-language speakers.

[jimmy olsen]

Actually, even in a world state that let anyone in, English speakers would still form a plurality.  Over 400 million native speakers, some 2 billion total.  The language of world administration would not be Belgianese.

Mandarin and Spanish come first in a world state, speaking of the natives.  Arabic must be close too.

Arabic "dialects" are as distinct from each other as the Romance languages are.

[Razgovory]

There weren't any natives when the french came over, silly.

There weren't any conflict over lands with indians in what is today's Quebec, no.
Outside of the actual boundaries, yes.  Also, trade wars with the Iroquois (Beaver Wars).  Well, technically, between Iroquois and Hurons, allied to French.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Peace_of_Montreal

So say the winner   I imagine the Mohawk and Iroquois had a different opinion.

[Razgovory]

Actually, even in a world state that let anyone in, English speakers would still form a plurality.  Over 400 million native speakers, some 2 billion total.  The language of world administration would not be Belgianese.

Mandarin and Spanish come first in a world state, speaking of the natives.  Arabic must be close too.

Arabic "dialects" are as distinct from each other as the Romance languages are.

I'm not sure how unified the Chinese dialects are.

[Neil]

Actually, even in a world state that let anyone in, English speakers would still form a plurality.  Over 400 million native speakers, some 2 billion total.  The language of world administration would not be Belgianese.

Mandarin and Spanish come first in a world state, speaking of the natives.  Arabic must be close too.

None of those are the language of civilization, culture and commerce.

[Warspite]

Actually, even in a world state that let anyone in, English speakers would still form a plurality.  Over 400 million native speakers, some 2 billion total.  The language of world administration would not be Belgianese.

Mandarin and Spanish come first in a world state, speaking of the natives.  Arabic must be close too.

But Mandarin and to a lesser extent Spanish are far more geographically concentrated than the spread of effective English speakers. Go to most places in the world and you'll find someone with at least basic English.

[Valmy]

Mandarin and Spanish come first in a world state, speaking of the natives.  Arabic must be close too.

The Chinese all learn English and do not want us to learn Mandarin.

But Spanish is fine by me.  Easy to learn for any Indo-European language speaker.

But English is more widely spoken than either just not as a first language...but in a word state most people would be speaking a second language anyway so number of native speakers seems odd to preference over number of speakers.

Anyway without some sort of big founding myth complete with heroes and basic political principles and values no world state is possible.  That would be a pretty profound political shift.  It would take an enormous crisis to bring that about.

[viper37]

So say the winner   I imagine the Mohawk and Iroquois had a different opinion.

It ain't a question of winner.
Regarding the Mohawks and Iroquois, again, those who converted to catholicism relocated near Montreal (present day Oka) and this is where there was some problems a few years ago.  Not that they were entirely wrong, but the method used to protest was not the good one.

Regarding the Iroquois, well, look at the Beaver Wars.  It's not a question of sacred grounds, really.

[viper37]

But Mandarin and to a lesser extent Spanish are far more geographically concentrated than the spread of effective English speakers. Go to most places in the world and you'll find someone with at least basic English.

true, there are far more non native english speakers than native.
But given a choice, most people would prefer to use their first language.

[Valmy]

true, there are far more non native english speakers than native.
But given a choice, most people would prefer to use their first language.

I think given a choice most people would prefer to use a language they know versus one they do not know

[viper37]

Arabic "dialects" are as distinct from each other as the Romance languages are.

it ain't what I was told.  There are differences, like Quebec-French and France-French, but not to the extent where it would be like Italian and French.

[Barrister]

Arabic "dialects" are as distinct from each other as the Romance languages are.

it ain't what I was told.  There are differences, like Quebec-French and France-French, but not to the extent where it would be like Italian and French.

Ank told me that a Saudi Arabic speaker is pretty much unintelligible to a, say, Moroccan Arabic speaker.  That makes it more akin to Italian and French.