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Editor for this issue: Ann Dizdar <dizdartam2000.tamu.edu>
let.rug.nl>English only? This is a reaction to the message by Jack Aubert. I can understand what you mean but I am not so sure whether you compare things with each other that actually should/can be compared. > However, this is not what "bi-lingualism" > really means in the U.S. It means making it easier for non-English speakers > to get through life without having to learn to speak English In the U.S., the (mistaken) idea that English is the national language makes its easier for the people to take it for granted that one can very well get through life without having to learn any other language. Since language learning also entails getting to know a different culture, most people miss the opportunity to learn about other ways of living, eating, etc. > National plural mono-lingualism is a curse! For everything you say about this, you did not mention one single argument that it should be English that can be the national language and not Spanish. What would you say about this if the number of citizens speaking Spanish fluently outnumbers the amount of people who speak English fluently? After all, the U.S. just tops off a continent where the great majority speaks Spanish. Why should they speak English at all, in that country to the north of Latin-America? > History has not saddled us with this curse, as it has done to > Belgium, ... most "ethnic" conflicts (there are > counter-examples like the Hutus and Tutsis and the two flavors of Irish) > trace back to language. Basque and Catalan separatism is based on language. > Canada may end up breaking into two states, each with its own disgruntled > linguistic minority. Basque and Catalan separatism is NOT based on language. Why do we never hear anything about Galician separatism on the Iberian Peninsula? Galician is a language very different from Spanish (and not so different from Portuguese). The name of the region is Galicia and is part of Spain. Galician is a language much older than Spanish itself: it was used for poetry and by the kings in ancient times. Still, we do not hear a lot about Galician separatism. Neither do we hear anything about Leonese separatism, Aragonese separatism, Andalusian separatism, simply because it does not exist. Separatism on the peninsula has NOTHING to do with language. It has everything to do with historic rights of old kingdoms. The comparison with Belgium might not be such a good one. The northern part of Belgium used to be Dutch, this is the reason these people speak Dutch. In the U.S., there is no regional division of groups of native-speakers as there is in Belgium (and like there is in Catalunya and Euzkadi too).It is much more probable that separatism between Dutch-speaking Belgians and French-speaking Belgians be encouraged, because it is easy to say: o.k., since the Flemish live in the north and the Walloons in the south, why don't we split up the country (and if they would, what can I hold against it?). In the U.S., this is not a very likely situation since the Spanish-speaking citizens live all over the country. There is also a big historical difference: a Mexican family living in Chicago will never be able to say "Jee, we and all our neighbours and all the people in Chicago, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, etc., we used to belong to another country, a country where Spanishwas the language. This soil where we were born and which we owe with thousands of "compatriots" used to belong to a Spanish-speaking country." And what if Canada breaks up? As long as they do it in peace..... Really, I think you use the wrong arguments here. I mean, do I use arguments like: look what China has done to Tibet: by invading the country they have destroyed a very important cultural and religious heritage, the Tibetans are forced to learn Chinese, the Tibetan culture will be lost soon. SO please allow Spanish in the U.S.? No, I don't use this argument either because you cannot compare a cat with a bird. > Allowing (for example) native Spanish speakers living in the > U.S. to avoid learning English as young as possible and as well as possible > ..............etc. Allowing millions and millions of people in a modern, industrialized country like the U.S. to avoid learning any other language but their own greatly surprises me. Really, from a practical point of view, and trying to agree with Jack Aubert, I would like to conclude with this. Yes, of course plural mono-linguism is a problem. But does it make sense to expect that the half of the population of a country that has worse access to good education is going to make the step of learning two languages well? As has been investigated in minority regions in Europe, it has been proved that people can only learn a language well when they know their own language well. This is the reason the Frisian language got reintroduced in the schools in Frisia again in the seventies. Frisia is a region in the north of Holland where people speak Frisian and Dutch. Most schools in the cities have Dutch as a main language and Frisian as a second language but in the country-side, at least the first three years, mathematics and everything is being taught in Frisian and Dutch is a second language. There is no separatism in Frisia. In fact, the Frisians are among the Dutch to speak Dutch best since a lot of other Dutch only speak their local dialect and are ununderstandable for someone who comes from another region. Since (children of) Spanish speakers in the U.S. cannot go to a Spanish school to learn their mother tongue thoroughly, they will never be able to learn English really well. It seems more realistic to expect that the ones who already speak their mother-tongue well and who have, generally speaking, better access to better education would learn Spanish. Let THEM become bilingual (and maybe monolingual Spanish in the end??) ******************************* Jelly Julia de Jong * +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ATW, O.K. i.h. Jatstraat 26 * + Dept. of General Linguistics+ 9712 EK Groningen * + University of Groningen + The Netherlands * + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ******************************* ------------------------------------------------------ | E-mail: juliaMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue
linc.cis.upenn.edu>Jack Aubert writes: > In contrast with most of the topics discussed here, [national language > policy] is an > issue where the views of academic linguists have no greater value than the > views of laymen or practicing linguists I beg to differ. Lay(wo)men's misconceptions about language are poisoning the public debate about English Only, and recognizing the greater value of the views of academic linguists might be just what is needed to improve that debate. Is it merely an accident that the vast majority of academic linguists opposes (while a majority of laypeople supports) English Only and related movements, or is it an indication that those academic linguists know something that the laypeople do not know? > [Bilingualism in the US] means making it easier for non-English speakers > to get through life without having to learn to speak English on the grounds > that this is more humane and fairer. I am not an expert on bilingualism, but I have a hunch that this is a very lopsided characterization of bilingualism as currently practiced in (small pockets of) the US. I would be good to hear from subscribers who actually are experts on bilingualism. > most "ethnic" conflicts ... > trace back to language. Basque and Catalan separatism is based on language. Language played absolutely no role in the biggest "ethnic conflict" of our time, i.e. the racist war of the Germans against Jews, Slavs, Gypsies and other "non-aryans". Where language does play a role in "ethnic conflicts", it does so only as (an important) part of a different cultural itentity, whatever THAT is. Most of the time, these conflicts aren't purely "ethnic" but also (and sometimes please don't freeze onexclusively) based on other factors such as class. The "ethnic conflict" between Hutus and Tutsis is an excellent example for this, but the details would lead to far astray. > English -- by accident of history -- is the glue that keeps the U.S. > together as one nation. The glue that keeps the US together as one nation (if indeed there is such a glue and such a unified nation) contains many ingredients, among which brute force and economic interests play a much bigger role than English or some other linguistic phenomenon. The unifying powers of police batons and wageloss (for which one can blame the Japanese, or Mexicans, or anybody except the American ruling class) far exceed those of the poems of Walt Whitman. > By requiring all American children to attend > classes taught in English we are doing our non-native-English speaking > compatriots an enormous favor. Clearly the "non-native-English speaking compatriots" cannot be included in the "we" who are doing "our blablabla" a favor when "we" (and "we" alone) require all American children to attend classes taught in English. This is what English Only truly is about: Maintaining or returning to a status quo where "we" make decisions for "our blablabla" whose benefactors "we" thereby are. Best, Bernhard RohrbacherMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue
A.NL.CS.CMU.EDU>Jack Aubert is absolutely correct. The teaching of Standard English is a thing that I do not hesitate to say should be compulsory nationwide (although this doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be so via a Federal-level mandate.) I have nothing at all against personal or familial or ethnic bilingualism and I spent a great deal of time and effort to render myself bilingual as a teenager, when the odds were against me. If it were up to me, most people would master a second language in childhood. However, English is an essential ingredient of the glue that binds the U.S. together. It is far more cruel to help non-English speakers in the U.S. to get along without it than it is to require that they learn it (and to provide the necessary educational infrastructure.) A substantial majority of formerly-non-English-speaking immigrants to the U.S. hold this position, and if they do not feel denigrated by having to learn English, who are the other "experts" that would claim it is degrading? (I haven't seen anyone express that opinion yet on this list; have I missed any such posts?) >National plural mono-lingualism is a curse! Damn straight it is!! --Marion Kee ---------------------------------- Marion Kee | I don't speak for CMU, Knowledge Engineer, Center for Machine Translation | and CMU returns the favor. Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA, USA | All opinions are my own.Mail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue