Adam CR wrote:

connor wrote:France (for example) is not a 'bilingual environment' in any meaningful sense, regardless of the fact that a significant number of French people speak English, German and various other, more exotic languages.

i must just notice that usual french language is more and more mixed by arabic language, specially slangy (argotique) language!!.....maybe that's why france is a big fucking racist country!, no france is a racist country since a long time....but more now!!

Steve -

I don't know if you're missing my argument here, or if you're just trying to spin what I say to sound racist. Maybe neither is the case.


Your earlier comments-

Those who benefit from speaking english, which is the default language of national and international commerce, will surely learn it. Those who are content to live within a local sphere should not be compelled to do so.

Is it a good idea for immigrants to learn english? Probably. Should it be national policy and codified into law? Not unless a similar expectation is placed on the Executive.

I keed.

Are quite similar to what I wrote here:

I'm not suggesting there be some law on the books to hamper immigrants from being able to enjoy their culture in America. I'm just suggesting that english should continue to be encouraged, promoted, and spoken.

So I'm not sure where all the "right-winger" talk is in here.

However, this:

floog wrote:Disappointed at some of the true colours being shown here. Learn a language for the joy of communication, ex-bank teller. Reconsider the growl of ignorance in favour of the smile of recognition. If you take the time to learn, you may even reciprocate the idea of taking on another language, rather than hiding out in a linguistic foxhole.

Was still an assumptive, and a dick thing to say.

unarmeddude, you remain concerned with your fear of being "labeled," as though we weren't giving you credit for having a unique perspective. I think this is unnecessarily defensive on your part. You should be more concerned with the content of what everyone (including you) is saying.

I am allowed to notice when you say things that are consistent with other right-winger rhetoric, and I when I do, you will help yourself if you discuss the topic rather than decrying the "label."

Adam CR wrote:

connor wrote:I don't see why you'd refute this statement: it seems pretty obvious that the majority of the world is bilingual. 2/3 sounds about right to me.

The majority of people on earth grow up in (at least) a bilingual environment.

Growing up in a 'bilingual environment' is clearly distinct from 'being bilingual'.

France (for example) is not a 'bilingual environment' in any meaningful sense, regardless of the fact that a significant number of French people speak English, German and various other, more exotic languages.

The vast majority of Swedish people speak amazing English, and yet it would be disingenuous to describe Sweden as a 'bilingual environment'.

South Africa is a 'bilingual environment', and so is Malta.

A bilingual environment is more than just an environment on a national scale. An Asian teenager in Bradford may grow up surrounded by Urdu speaking parents/elders but I doubt that's how they wholly communicate with their peers at school or on the internet. The generational stretch of parental language described by Steve earlier exists here too.

In relation to the "bank teller" debate: I'd hoped that the earlier contribution implied that both bank teller and customer have an equal role to play in overcoming the language barrier. Entrenched attitudes only shift when one side shows a little humility.

unarmedman, I don't care which or how many languages you speak, I just think it's great that you do, as I assumed that you would - I guess my statements read otherwise.

By the way, thanks to the internet, SKY news and others, monolingual speakers will definitely be at a disadvantage in the following decades...

floog wrote:
A bilingual environment is more than just an environment on a national scale. An Asian teenager in Bradford may grow up surrounded by Urdu speaking parents/elders but I doubt that's how they wholly communicate with their peers at school or on the internet. The generational stretch of parental language described by Steve earlier exists here too.

Absolutely true, but localised bilingualism cannot be of great significance in relation to the national language, unless you're suggesting localised, linguistic syndicates?

Adam CR wrote:

floog wrote:
A bilingual environment is more than just an environment on a national scale. An Asian teenager in Bradford may grow up surrounded by Urdu speaking parents/elders but I doubt that's how they wholly communicate with their peers at school or on the internet. The generational stretch of parental language described by Steve earlier exists here too.

Absolutely true, but localised bilingualism cannot be of great significance in relation to the national language, unless you're suggesting localised, linguistic syndicates?

Why not? It demonstrates potential, no matter how small, and may ultimately come to represent the beginnings of a shift or trend towards a broader bilingual culture.

Regarding the original question, is this interesting?:
http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.asp ... latinmusic

It will be interesting to see if the Spanish speaking US population embrace this National Anthem or not.

unarmedman wrote:However, this:

floog wrote:Disappointed at some of the true colours being shown here. Learn a language for the joy of communication, ex-bank teller. Reconsider the growl of ignorance in favour of the smile of recognition. If you take the time to learn, you may even reciprocate the idea of taking on another language, rather than hiding out in a linguistic foxhole.

Was still an assumptive, and a dick thing to say.

Just because you took offense at it, doesn't make it a "dick thing to say". It was a "you" general (as in "one should...") not a "you" personal. But I can see why it was misunderstood.

floog wrote:
Why not? It demonstrates potential, no matter how small, and may ultimately come to represent the beginnings of a shift or trend towards a broader bilingual culture.

Why not?

Because it's not indicative of a significant, cohesive 'culture'. I suppose that Andrew L maybe correct in terms of his 'bilingual environment' if we accept that a family is a significant 'environment', but I would suggest that this is not sufficiently significant in isolation.

connor wrote:I would say that our schools' resistance to intensive bilingualism is rooted in nothing more than racism. Why not teach kids two languages? Or three?

i would strongly support this at as early an age as possible. and not just spanish and french either. we need more electives for russian, mandarin, arabic, hindi, and japanese. i think unarmedman's wamu story proves my point.

dabrasha wrote:in general terms; Mexico's economy is doing quite well compared to overall Latin/Central America.

that's great. guatemala's border patrol agents can go home early tonight. compare mexico to the usa and you see where the "tidal wave" comes from. we may not feel the crunch in oakland and chicago, but our border towns know something needs to be done. that's how groups like the minutemen are born. they don't feel anyone is looking out for their communities.

ivan wrote:If I want to sing the national anthem off key in bad german, that would be my constitutional right.

was that supposed to be funny in context? i laughed....

This is a pretty good thread, revealing in a lot of ways. I'll just put down a couple of my opinions that this chat has brought to mind. My point of view is from the UK, but I reckon the arguments might carry across.

I dislike nationalism and I do find it inseparable from racism. It's an artifical construct to me, individuals gaining some pride from where they live rather than who they are, and by implication fostering a disdain to those who live elsewhere. And, again by implication, a disdain for those who try to move into your geographical location. For example, I see at work a close correspondence to those who espouse the greatness of the UK and the use of the phrase "fucking immigrants." When I hear a politician spout about "protecting our communities" I automatically translate this to "keep them out (except to clean the toilets) and the money in."

I have no problem whatsoever with people coming from poorer countries to richer ones to make money, and I do not blame them at all if they do this by illegal means. I don't believe that we deserve the relative comfort we have here (whether Western Europe or the US for the majority of us) any more than those coming over, and considering the bias of global trading agreements towards maintaining the status quo, I think it's fair for immigrants to want to grab what we already have.

In fact, I think the hostility to economic immigrants is incredibly churlish. Jaimaicans, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Indians, Chinese, and countless other nationalities contributed to rebuilding the UK and the economy after the war, taking the shittiest jobs, the lowest pay, and constant physical and verbal abuse. And they've worked fucking hard. It's a crappy nod towards the redistribution of wealth. Yet they still have to put up with people grumbling about their stealing our jobs and mugging people. (I'll add the necessary caveat that no-one here has said that, at least not from the UK contingent).

With regards to whether people should speak English or not, that's purely their choice. Decent opportunity to learn should be made available by the state (which tacitly encourages this migration to take these low paying jobs), but I hate the idea of forcing people. It's their choice. They'll probably find life easier, but that's up to them.

Statistics can be useful in these debates. The Home Office have available a number of reports on this which a friend has pointed me in the direction of (after I got disgusted reading about this). If you feel bothered, check out "Occasional Paper 77 - The Migrant population in the UK: fiscal effects" on the link. It's 44 pages long, but the executive summary is short. Key points therein:

This paper concludes that, overall, the current population of first-generation migrants in the UK perform well economically and make a net fiscal contribution. However, migrants are heterogeneous. Though migrants are found to make a positive net fiscal contribution overall, some do less well economically than others, and are likely to have a negative fiscal impact. Domestic policies aimed at improving access to the labour market and tackling social exclusion can help to address this.

...most studies find that migration has little or no impact on the wages and employment of UK-born residents.

I'm willing to bet that these conclusions apply across all of Western Europe and the US. They're just easy targets for the angry disenfrachised and cheap-talk politicians to aim a boot at.

The elephant in the corner in this argument is the reason why economic immigration is so popular, which is the absurd distribution of wealth and resources across the world.

I don't like National Anthems either.