>>On the other hand of the spectrum you got the French and the Serbs, who usually openly ridicule those who learn the language - or so I heard. I did have a German friend who learned, and while he did get a lot of laughs, he also got a lot of help from everybody.
>
>I once heard that the French are attempt to rid all non-french based words from their current language. Namely English. (I wish I kept links to these articles).

I think it began with Pompidou's minister of culture, Jacques (or was it Jack) Lang, IIRC. The Academy has a body which issues regular recommendations on how to translate new terms that appear. I know of ordinateur - computer, logiciel - software, octet - byte, but there's probably more. I wish some of francophones here would chime in.

The other two countries where I know the language is preserved with concentrated effort aided by the state are Slovenia and Hungary. I sometimes load my TotalCommander with menus in their languages, just for kicks, and they surely got many things nicely translated. However, not much of these translations gets into real life - the online people I meet speak a regular mix of English terms weaved into the language. But some of that does get spread.