PPM for December

[IngenieroPerron]

One great example is the whole "Los Angeles, Mexico" that Liberman had going on a while back

Nothing against you oldjohnny but its fuuny the billboard is owned by clear channel, gladly accepts the money, wont accept the negativity

 

[Old Crow]

A little more history for you... beyond the German urban legend... ;D

Most large immigrant groups like the Italians, Germans, Poles, Chinese, even the Gaelic speaking Irish have had little success in the first generation in learning more than rudimentary English. Few became bilingual. It's the second generation thAt becomes bilingual, and the third English dominant. Language learning skills decline after about age 7 or 8, and are pretty much gone for most by post-adolesence so there is not much chance for most, and the pressures of making a living in a new country pretty much preclude spending much time in classes.

It's always been that way.
[/quote]

I have to bear in mind that these posts are all dominated by "opinion" and not fact. Dave, I gotcha on this one. "Few became bilingual"? Really? During the massive immigration of Europeans to this country in the period between the end of World War I and the start of the Great Depression, a vast majority of those fine people learned English quickly due, in part, to the fact that in their home countries, some English was spoken. When that was not the case, these immigrants learned English the same way my father's mother did....she went to the "dime store" and read the labels on the items in the display bins. My father's mother became bilingual as did my father's father, my mother's father, and my mother's mother. In the case of my grandfather on my mother's side, he took a crash course in English, beginning in 1923 immediately after his arrival in the States from Germany, while at work at Archer Daniels in Chicago. He learned on the job. He took what he learned home to my grandmother. My mother was only two years old at the time and she learned both languages...and still speaks fluent German to this day. When there is the DESIRE to learn English, people learn. The desire is far greater when one feels the NEED to learn.

In all fairness, my grandparents continued to receive German publications like, "Der Spiegel", but only to get news from the 'homeland'. I remember my grandfather (my mom's father) being a devoted subscriber to the Chicago Tribune, even after moving out to Nebraska in 1953. Again, when there is a DESIRE to learn English, people learn. In fact, "Gramps" didn't even have a German accent anymore after the early 1950's! Still, he spoke both languages like a native.

As for what language is spoken on a radio station, I couldn't care less. Every ethnic group should be able to have their own media as long as the market will support it. Just don't ask me to support it with my tax money. You ain't gonna get it. Speak whatever language you want, but, if you're applying for a job with me, you'd better speak English, and you'd better speak it well.

As for your comments about the first generation having little success in learning English, that's an "urban legend", too. Case in point: My mother-in-law is Chinese. She came over to the States, with her brother and parents, in 1963. Today, she speaks very little English. Her brother, on the other hand, enrolled in college and received an engineering degree. He has been with M.W. Kellogg for decades, and while he and my mother-in-law are only a couple years apart in age, he speaks English with a Texas twang AND speaks Chinese. He wears boots, too. Again....the desire to learn.

Happy New Year, y'all!!

 

[davideduardo]

Please accept my apology for my earlier post. Don't know what got into me. This issue is not that big of deal to me generally and David, you do make some good points. Again, no offense intended.

No offense was ever taken, and i know I can be a bit "snippity" about this langauge and immigration issue as all my family is Hisapnic... here is one anecdote you may get a laugh out of:

When I moved to LA from Puerto Rico, my daughter had to be registered in shool. In the process, I was asked for her "green card" and I explained she did not have one, and did not need one. I was then advised that "all foreigners have to have a green card..." and I patiently, and with little success, tried to explain that Puerto Rico, USA, was not a foreign nation. I ended up registering her in a private school... if school administrators don't know the parts of the USA, I have doubts about the quality of education.

As I said, I may be over sensitive due to things like this. ;D

 

[davideduardo]

I have to bear in mind that these posts are all dominated by "opinion" and not fact. Dave, I gotcha on this one. "Few became bilingual"? Really? During the massive immigration of Europeans to this country in the period between the end of World War I and the start of the Great Depression, a vast majority of those fine people learned English quickly due, in part, to the fact that in their home countries, some English was spoken.

The largest immigration blocks were the late 1840's Irish, the post-Civil War Germans and the 1880-1915 Italian "floods." While many Irish knew English, many only spoke Gaelic. The Germans, as a rule, were not bilingual, and the Italians even less so.

In the early 20's, the first immigrations laws and controls (save a dreadful piece of anti.Chinese legislation around 1880). The flow in the pre-crash years was minuscule compared to the pre W.W. I period, in fact. If you look at historical data, the peak year with the highest percentage of foreign born was 1902 or 1903.

Very, very few of the non-English speakers of the time learned "good English" which is my point. I said "became bilingual" as a qualifier and bilingual means able to think in either language without translation. Most learned a modicum of rudimentary English, adequate for the job and for interacting with others, but preserved the mother tongue at home.

When that was not the case, these immigrants learned English the same way my father's mother did....she went to the "dime store" and read the labels on the items in the display bins. My father's mother became bilingual as did my father's father, my mother's father, and my mother's mother. In the case of my grandfather on my mother's side, he took a crash course in English, beginning in 1923 immediately after his arrival in the States from Germany, while at work at Archer Daniels in Chicago. He learned on the job. He took what he learned home to my grandmother. My mother was only two years old at the time and she learned both languages...and still speaks fluent German to this day. When there is the DESIRE to learn English, people learn. The desire is far greater when one feels the NEED to learn.

Of course there are exceptions. But it is a proven fact that langauge abilities decline through adolesence. What that means is that a person can memorize vocabulary, but does not, with rare exceptions, become bilingual. Many "memorizers" can be capable of reasonable conversational skills, but they are thinking in the native language and translating... thus the odd syntax or verb usage often found.

As for your comments about the first generation having little success in learning English, that's an "urban legend", too.

No, it is well documented that the ability to become bilingual is at its peak in the earliest years, and around age 7 or 8 starts declining. By early adolescence it is considerably less, and by adulthood (18 to about 22) has leveled to a point where few are able to become "like a native" bilingual.

Memorizing vocabulary is one thing, but thinking in a language is another.

Case in point: My mother-in-law is Chinese. She came over to the States, with her brother and parents, in 1963. Today, she speaks very little English. Her brother, on the other hand, enrolled in college and received an engineering degree. He has been with M.W. Kellogg for decades, and while he and my mother-in-law are only a couple years apart in age, he speaks English with a Texas twang AND speaks Chinese. He wears boots, too. Again....the desire to learn.

And these are exceptions. It is more than desire to learn... the person has to have enough remaining ability to learn to be successful. And those who learn two or more languages before age 8 seem to be able to learn additonal ones later; one of my daughters learned Spanish and English before first grade (English preschool, Spanish at home) and later learned three other languages and even went to college in cluntries where two of them are spoken.

 

[kendro]

You always think in your mother tounge. It is an unchangeable fact.
For instance, you say three but your mind visualizes tres. My mind visualizes trois.

 

[oldjohnny]

One great example is the whole "Los Angeles, Mexico" that Liberman had going on a while back

Nothing against you oldjohnny but its fuuny the billboard is owned by clear channel, gladly accepts the money, wont accept the negativity

Oh yes, I was aware that it was Clear Channel billboards displaying the ads, but from what I was informed, Liberman kept running the promos on their TV station. But then again you are right, Clear Channel deserves equal blame for accepting to put these billboards up.

 

[davideduardo]

You always think in your mother tounge. It is an unchangeable fact.
For instance, you say three but your mind visualizes tres. My mind visualizes trois.

If you can not think in a second language you are not bilingual.

I think in English or Spanish, depending on the situation of subject matter. In most business things, I think in Spanish, as that is the language I have used most in such situations... I pretty much think and use only Spanish with my daughters, but deal with other things equally well thinkiing in English.

A sociologist friend in Puerto Rico, where the cultures of the English dominant Newyorican and the Island born often clash, gave me his way of defining what culture (and language) was the dominant one in any person.

"The language you swear in if you hit your finger with a hammer and the language you make love in defines your culture." I learned Spanish after English, but hit my finger and I will always say, "puñeta" without hesitation.

The real issue goes beyond the birth langauge. Some few people actually change their birth culture bassed on life experience, and that facilitates a change in language dominance.

 

[oldjohnny]

You always think in your mother tounge. It is an unchangeable fact.
For instance, you say three but your mind visualizes tres. My mind visualizes trois.

"The language you swear in if you hit your finger with a hammer and the language you make love in defines your culture."  I learned Spanish after English, but hit my finger and I will always say, "puñeta" without hesitation.

he he he, never thought of it this way.

 

[van hespen]

You always think in your mother tounge. It is an unchangeable fact.
For instance, you say three but your mind visualizes tres. My mind visualizes trois.

"The language you swear in if you hit your finger with a hammer and the language you make love in defines your culture." I learned Spanish after English, but hit my finger and I will always say, "puñeta" without hesitation.

he he he, never thought of it this way.

But the real question is what language do you DREAM in?

 

[davideduardo]

But the real question is what language do you DREAM in?

True bilinguals tend to dream in both languages; polyglots may have dreams in any of the languages they know.

 

[van hespen]

Wow, a polyglot! I would feel inclined to boast about it if I were one!

You could even list your blood type next to the title! (OK, I'll leave the forum now )

 

[davideduardo]

Wow, a polyglot! I would feel inclined to boast about it if I were one!

European joke...

Q What do you call someone who speaks three or more languages?
A A Polyglot.

Q What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
A A Bilingual.

Q What do you call someone who speaks obly one language?
A An American.

 

[aunti-terrestrial]

Wow, David. Crediting/blaming the Europeans for coming up with it doesn't make it any less...oh, what's the word for an offensive joke which exhibits hostility to a differing race or nationality?

 

[autopilot9]

Wow, David. Crediting/blaming the Europeans for coming up with it doesn't make it any less...oh, what's the word for an offensive joke which exhibits hostility to a differing race or nationality?

I thought it was funny... and true to a large degree.

 

[aunti-terrestrial]

Yeah. I've got one of those uncles who has a whole slew of "funny" jokes in which the punchline is another nationality. Only, we were taught, at a very early age, that to repeat him was in extremely poor taste.

 

[oldjohnny]

It was just a joke!

I swear, People these days are just........

 

[aunti-terrestrial]

Actually, I was really enjoying mulling over the points made in this exchange until that joke put the brakes on it for me. I'll save the soapbox about how what's politically incorrect for anglos equals perfectly acceptable racially-charged speech for other groups. Imus found that out the hard way, ya'know? Dave says he's sensitive about certain issues and I'm perfectly willing to respect that, but I'm disappointed that it didn't go both ways.

I do find the discussion about languages to be an interesting thing. I saw an interview with the lady whose husband fell a horrific height from a scaffold in NYC, and she described how he spoke to her in English after he woke up, which struck her as really odd. A major brain injury pushes all kinds of bits of knowledge to the surface all at once, so who's to say we dream in any one language at all? My guess is that we all know and think in a lot of different snippets of languages, even if we're unaware of it. Being this close to both Mexico and Louisiana, you can't live in a culture like ours and not pick up a smattering of one or another language. I don't think of a thing as a small boat, it's a pirot. Tamales. I mean, come on, we all do it probably dozens of times per day, if not more.

My mom's a translator for French and Spanish with an American corporation, so she was always practicing up at home on the kids. She also reads novels in her other languages. My dad was in the military and took a crash course in the language of every country he was stationed in, including Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Japan, to name at least three (there were seven or eight, I think). I've found that when I've worked with Hispanic people every day, I start thinking in inverted adjectives or looking at an object and thinking of it in the Spanish noun word. So, it's not a question of our minds not being able to absorb or reaching a point where we stop learning. I agree with Old Crow, those who are motivated do just that.

 

[davideduardo]

oh, what's the word for an offensive joke which exhibits hostility to a differing race or nationality?

In this case, the humor is based on truth. Among the more common things I see in airports and hotels when I travel is the American tourist who can't make themself understood and who thinks that speaking ever louder makes it easy for someone who is not an anglophone to understand them.

 

[davideduardo]

Actually, I was really enjoying mulling over the points made in this exchange until that joke put the brakes on it for me. I'll save the soapbox about how what's politically incorrect for anglos equals perfectly acceptable racially-charged speech for other groups. Dave says he's sensitive about certain issues and I'm perfectly willing to respect that, but I'm disappointed that it didn't go both ways.

"American" is a nationality, not a race or ethnicity. I did not say "Anglo" anywhere. And the fact is, Americans are probably the largest group of monolinguals of any developed nation in the world

My mom's a translator for French and Spanish with an American corporation, so she was always practicing up at home on the kids. She also reads novels in her other languages. My dad was in the military and took a crash course in the language of every country he was stationed in, including Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Japan, to name at least three (there were seven or eight, I think).

That is marvelous and relatively uncommon. I hope you encourage it in your family in the future.

 

[aunti-terrestrial]

oh, what's the word for an offensive joke which exhibits hostility to a differing race or nationality?

In this case, the humor is based on truth. Among the more common things I see in airports and hotels when I travel is the American tourist who can't make themself understood and who thinks that speaking ever louder makes it easy for someone who is not an anglophone to understand them.

Lots of offensive humor is based upon the truth as perceived by the teller. Anecdotal "truths" rarely stand up to greater scrutiny when making such sweeping generalizations. For instance, as an avid user of the public parks in Houston, I witness large family barbeques where people leave, not only litter and food, but dirty diapers scattered on the ground on the disc golf course. I do not presume that every member of that particular nationality thinks this is acceptable behavior or practices this on a daily basis.

Actually, I was really enjoying mulling over the points made in this exchange until that joke put the brakes on it for me. I'll save the soapbox about how what's politically incorrect for anglos equals perfectly acceptable racially-charged speech for other groups. Dave says he's sensitive about certain issues and I'm perfectly willing to respect that, but I'm disappointed that it didn't go both ways.

"American" is a nationality, not a race or ethnicity. I did not say "Anglo" anywhere. And the fact is, Americans are probably the largest group of monolinguals of any developed nation in the world.

My mom's a translator for French and Spanish with an American corporation, so she was always practicing up at home on the kids. She also reads novels in her other languages. My dad was in the military and took a crash course in the language of every country he was stationed in, including Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Japan, to name at least three (there were seven or eight, I think).

That is marvelous and relatively uncommon. I hope you encourage it in your family in the future.

I believe my first and second forays into this topic clearly state "nationality." And the fact is, your joke was intended to paint all Americans as inferior. That's offensive. I used the word "anglo" as an observation that, increasingly in our own culture, we have to sit back and take it on the chin whenever anybody wants to take a jab at us. Offensive stereotypes are offensive, no matter who utters them or how they justify them.

As for the languages, I think it's less uncommon than you obviously have yourself convinced.

Coming from someone who has already stated that he only speaks one language with his daughters, I take your, uh, hope for my family in the spirit I'm sure you intended. That said, I'm out of this discussion. Carry on with your jokes.

Oh, one more thing, back to the topic: currently 34 states have designated English as their official languages. If I'm not mistaken, Texas currently has a bill pending in committee for the 82nd legislative session.