[52773] in Cypherpunks
Re: Why Americans feel no compulsion to learn foreign languages
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael Helm)
Wed Mar 27 16:31:42 1996
From: mike@fionn.lbl.gov (Michael Helm)
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 12:17:03 PST
In-Reply-To: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
"Why Americans feel no compulsion to learn foreign languages" (Mar 27, 3:13am)
Reply-To: mike@fionn.lbl.gov
To: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
Cc: cypherpunks@toad.com
On Mar 27, 3:13am, 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.
I don't really disagree with the conclusions drawn by this poster, or
with the quasi-economics argument he makes. However, I must say that
the above is completely wrong. MOST Americans live in large urban
areas, & as such are within seconds/footsteps of people whose native
languages are not English (or who don't have a single "native language",
but several!). There are probably _hundreds_ of languages spoken in the
San Francisco Bay Area. The school districts here routinely report double
digit languages in the school age population.
There are 3 Spanish language channels (& another 2 ... "multiple
choice") on my tv cable system. That anglophones choose to tune them
out, or to not even notice the Noah's ark around them, says something
about this culture.
