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."

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

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

>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 than their mother
tongue.

Oyvind
--

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

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