Multilingual Society
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There were two interesting stories about multilingualism today. First, there was a story here about high school officials in New Orleans moving to enact an English-only rule for valedictory speeches after two Vietnamese co-valedictorians said a few words in Vietnamese (seen on Angry Asian Man). Second, there was a story in the NY Times about Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his Spanish tutor.
The notion of a multi-lingual America, in my opinion, is a complex one. Being the most diverse nation on earth, most immigrants to this country come from a background in which English is not the dominant language, and as a country that seeks to welcome immigrants (”Give me your tired, your poor”), it’s only right that we honor the diversity of the people who make up our nation. At the same time, there needs to be some sort of legal structure that enables us to work together with a common language. I remember reading a couple years ago about an alleged rapist who was an immigrant and who spoke a unique dialect of an African language which only had something like 5,000 speakers, almost all of whom lived in one tiny village in Africa. The law required the courts to provide a translator, and since they couldn’t find one, they had to set the guy free. My view is that pure English-only legislation hinders our growth as people, while downgrading the importance of a common language hurts our ability to remain a country of cooperation and common sense. We need to have a structure and culture that honors and learns from our people and our heritages while preventing us from becoming a bunch of people who can’t build the tower of Babel because we can’t communicate.
My thoughts on the two stories are this: I think it’s ridiculous what the New Orleans school district is doing. The students said a few words in Vietnamese, and they translated their own words into English so that everyone could understand. I would hope that the audience would want to hear about the students, their heritage, and their history, and I would hope they would prefer the full version, including the language in which they were raised, rather than some whitewashed version to please the xenophobes. It would be different, perhaps, if the entire speech was in Vietnamese, but since everything was translated into English, the standard common language, I don’t see why there should be a problem.
I also think it’s great that Mayor Bloomberg is studying Spanish. So many of his constituents come from a Spanish-speaking background, and it’s good to know that the mayor of New York cares. There is a bit of unfairness in this. Bloomberg has a big advantage over poor politicians since he can afford to work for a dollar a year and to hire whatever tutors he needs. A less wealthy politician would not have access to the same resources. That being said, it’s still great that he’s making an effort to educate himself in a language that many New Yorkers use on a daily basis.
Multilingualism in America is a controversial subject that people will continue to debate in the near and far future. Feel free to debate the topic here or in the forum.
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THX1138
4:02 am | Aug 05, 2008In some parts of the USA, Spanish–not English–should eventually become the dominant language.
That scares the hell out of many these Anglo-Americans. The recent controversy about the Star Spangled Banner being sung in Spanish is just a symptom of this barely concealed Anglo xenophobia.
But America would be well advised to get over its Anglophone nativism, as they will not be able to surpress the growth of La Raza–no matter how many anti-immigrant policies and 1000-mile border fences the USA tries to put up.
Heyyu
11:33 am | Aug 05, 2008Well there’s the old joke that people that know 3 languages are trilingual, 2 languages bilingual, and 1 language an America. Most Europeans can speak at least more than 1 language (except for those Brits). So the USA is somewhat of an anomaly in that it’s primarily a monolingual country (not counting foreigners and their children). The Latino population will only increase, so I’d say it’s good for more people to know Spanish.
jaehwan
12:19 pm | Aug 05, 2008Most Europeans–other than the monolingual Brits you mentioned–live in close proximity to other countries that speak different languages. Other than the people of some states in the South, most Americans don’t. Most Japanese and Australians are monolingual too. So it makes sense–if you live far away from other countries which use different languages, most likely you’ll just speak one language.
Aside from the obvious exception of colonialism, one modern exception to this rule is if there is a huge influx. I know some Korean people from a very Korean part of New Jersey who don’t speak English because they don’t need to. Some Korean Americans actually learn Korean by just hanging out with them. The same goes for Spanish in some Southern California locations. I know one anglo white dude who was totally fluent because his parents relocated there when he was young.
I have a feeling that knowledge of Spanish is going to increase a lot in the next ten or fifteen years. I don’t know about fluency, but knowledge and acceptance will increase. Dora the Explorer is hugely popular with young kids, and PBS has tons of Spanish language programming.
I think more lingualism (is that a word?) is a good thing, but I think that the law needs to take steps to somehow unite us with language. It would be terrible if someone running for President (or becoming President) was unable to talk to Americans in one part of the country just because there were so many languages being spoken. If this were the case, there would be massive inequalities that would be far worse than any race problems we’ve had.
awong
12:49 pm | Aug 05, 2008yeah i have family members that can get away with not having to speak english since they can fall back to spanish in areas of new york that or they can get away in chinatown speaking chinese.
Just dont play reggaeton and I am ok…I hate hearing it…
minbo
1:05 pm | Aug 05, 2008While I am all for forging a US “national identity” for current residents and future immigrants, I’m not convinced that a common language is the ticket. Yeah, English speakers have a commonality and camaraderie when confronted with other language speakers. When in times of stress, common experiences are a stronger bond than fluency in a common language.
I’d be more open to a few years of compulsory national service (not compulsory armed forces service, though that should fulfill the requirement as an alternative path) after highschool or college. Service could cover some national guard type duties such as providing assistance during natural disasters, or army corps engineers, surveying and assisting coordinating things like levee and bridge inspections (not professional labour, but unskilled or semi-skilled labour), working in wilderness areas doing restoration work, working in cities mentoring/tutoring kids, running athletic leagues, etc.
The then novel idea of civil service as a duty of a good citizen in France after the revolution did great things for France. Sure Napoleon ended up using the civil duty to serve brilliantly to create compulsory levies of men for his army, which in the end did not turn out so great for him, but even so…
jaehwan
1:02 am | Aug 06, 2008Minbo,
Good point about the common experiences thing. You’re absolutely right–that would definitely bond people more, and it could possibly even help in combating racism since people would be forced to work together.
Regarding language, I was thinking of Machiavelli who specifically mentioned difficulties that a leader has when leading people who don’t speak the same language. I don’t know if there has been a strong multi-lingual country of this size. Even China has standardized language. I’m not saying it can’t be done without a common language, but I think it would be much more difficult.