Why Americans feel no compulsion to learn foreign languages
At 4:27 AM 3/27/96, Herb Sutter wrote:
If you'll excuse a European joke: "Q: What does a European call someone who speaks four languages? A: Gifted. Q: Three languages? A: Bright. Q: Two languages? A: Normal. Q: One language? A: American." :-) (No, this isn't a snub, it's just meant in good humour; it applies to a lot of us Canucks too even though we do have two official languages. Heck, I apply it to myself; my French is rusty, I haven't used it in over 12 years.)
A girlfriend of mine was born in Denmark and spoke four languages (Danish, English, German, and French) before immigrating here at the age of 19. Danish was of course her native language, English is taught in all countries of Europe as a _lingua franca_ (ironically), German because the Danes have the Germans as neighbors, and French as her "elective." For Europeans, knowing the language of one's immediate neighbors (probably only a hundred kilometers away), and knowing English, accounts for much of their language facility. Americans are typically thousands of miles away from those speaking Japanese, Mandarin, Tagalog, Polish, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Hindi, Talegu, and the hundreds of other languages. It is not at all clear what language Americans should pick as a "second language" to study. (Myself, I studied some German in high school, largely because in the 60s this is what science folks were expected to take. Artsy craftsy folks took French, and the slackers took Spanish. The real wonks took Latin, mainly to help them on their verbal SATs. Russian was offered as a trendy addition, later replaced by Mandarin and Japanese, the supposedly "essential business languages of the future," which have turned out not to be essential at all.) Europeans who look down on Americans for not studying the language of their neigbors simply aren't familiar with a map. The one language that a neighbor of ours differs on is Spanish, and this language is, for various reasons, useful mainly in infrequent vacations in Mexico, for speaking to gardeners and maids, and for giving instructions to day laborers and factory workers. Inasmuch as all Mexican hotels and restaurants understand English, and inasmuch as not many Americans travel to Mexico for other than vacations by the sea, etc., things become clearer. There is not a single foreign language I can think of it that would help me in my goals or help anyone I know. This is the reality of a world dominated by English-speaking persons and in which all technical people learn English. --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."
In article <ad7e4b691902100484d7@[205.199.118.202]>, tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May) wrote:
Americans are typically thousands of miles away from those speaking Japanese, Mandarin, Tagalog, Polish, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Hindi, Talegu, and the hundreds of other languages. It is not at all clear what language Americans should pick as a "second language" to study.
What continent do you live on? As I write this my next-door neighbor's stereo is blaring out music in Yoruba. When I took my mother to the hospital in San Francisco last month, all the signs were bilingual in English and Russian. And many, many Californians whose first language is Spanish are from families that have lived here for generations. Ya ne znayu o *vas*, no ya panimayu po russki khorosho, et je comprend Francais suffisamment, aussi. I wish I had had the sense to study a *useful* language like Spanish in school; one of these years I'm going to make up that deficiency. -- Alan Bostick | I'm laughing with, not laughing at. mailto:abostick@netcom.com | The question is, laughing with WHAT? news:alt.grelb | James "Kibo" Parry <kibo@world.std.com> http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~abostick
Certainly, one can _get along_ as a tourist using only English. If you like to travel among large crowds of American tourists along well-worn tourist migration routes, go ahead and do it, I say. "Where the rabble also drink, all wells are poisoned" - Nietsche
On Wed, 27 Mar 1996, os wrote: TCMay wrote
There is not a single foreign language I can think of it that would help me in my goals or help anyone I know.
Oyvind wrote
I have never known anyone being disadvantaged by knowing another language than their mother tongue.
I'd say Oyvind is right. If you can't speak Spanish the only jobs available in Southern Florida are with the federal government. If you can't speak French, you can't get a job in northern New Hampshire, or northern Vermont. One other advantage to knowing a language other than English. Legal encryption. << Unless a federal law bans the use of any language other than English for any purpose, which would be a violation of NAFTA, not that the US hasn't allready violated NAFTA. >> So if the use of encryption is banned, just switch to writing everything in something like Xhosa, or Chinese, using the Wade Giles transliteration, or Dervish. << Heck, do all your important stuff in languages like that, and then encrypt it with PGP. Would the cryptanalysts recognise the plain text, even if they had it? >> xan jonathon grafolog@netcom.com
<< "You can't get a non-Federal job in South Florida if you don't speak Spanish" >> Wrong.
os <os@cs.strath.ac.uk> writes:
There is not a single foreign language I can think of it that would help me in my goals or help anyone I know.
I have never known anyone being disadvantaged by knowing another language tha tongue.
Tim (and others) miss out the pleasure of using an exotic language in the presense of people who won't understand it. --- Dr. Dimitri Vulis Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps
On Wed, 27 Mar 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:
There is not a single foreign language I can think of it that would help me in my goals or help anyone I know. This is the reality of a world dominated by English-speaking persons and in which all technical people learn English.
I guess you don't know anyone who expects to do extensive business in China during the 21st Century. Right now everyone in China who can do so is frantically trying to learn English, the international language. But as China lumbers massively back to its historic place among the world's greatest powers, its deference to foreign tongues may be expected to decline. Charles Bell
participants (7)
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abostick＠netcom.com -
Alan Horowitz -
Charles Bell -
dlv＠bwalk.dm.com -
Jonathon Blake -
os -
tcmay＠got.net