dong20
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madame_zora said:We come to a continent, disrupt their entire social structure, kill them with our diseases, murder the rest, import slaves, all in the name of "freedom", but only for white landowners THEN insist that OUR language THAT WE BROUGHT WITH US FROM FUCKING ENGLAND is the "native language" that everyone ELSE coming here must speak.
And it wasnt even ours...we had it foisted on us. If it wasn't for some chance alliances and a few rich folk in the SE of England we could have ended up with French so it's not all bad.:tongue:
madame_zora said:We refuse to learn other languages, and we're really far too stupid. When I was in Spain, most people there could speak at least two languages, often three or more, not just the geniuses! You know what else? Speaking my idiot level Spanish got me around because people were NICE to me and helped me out. We don't do that here, we have this selfish egotistical attitude that everyone should have to complete five years of English to enter the country. Well, I HAVE taken five years of Spanish, but I never use it so I don't remember it. It comes back when I'm immersed in the language, at least to a degree, but people helping me is what made the difference. If you could speak Spanish, French, German or English, you could get around. Im Morocco, street signs were in sometimes as many as seven languages! But America- land of the stupid- we can't be bothered to accomodate anyone who isn't Merkin. We are buffoons. The rest of the world knows it, we're the ones who haven't gotten the letter in the mail.
Give yourselves a break, I'd have to say the UK is as rabidly Xenophobic about other languages as the US. In fact I have found most countries with English as a national or de facto language have similar attitudes and I've been to many of them. My Spanish was great after spending a year in South and Central America but these days?....Travelling in Europe these days I feel the same as you a linguistic anachranism and after leaving school I spoke close to fluent German and French as well. I tried to learn Arabic but it kind of exploded my head. Same with Mandarin. I try to learn at least a passable amount of the local tongue wherever I am but soon forget most of it. The global trend toward learning English encourages us to sit back and wait for them to come to us..linguistically speaking.
I find languages fascinating I just wish my capacity to learn them was what it used to be. I said it before I do think anyone living in a country should learn the predominant language(s) if only for practical reasons. Beyond that if someone wants to sing our national Anthem in whatever language they want (even Klingon..thanks Shad24) if I feel anything I should be flattered not insulted that they took the trouble to both learn and translate it let alone sing it.
Star Spangled Banner in spanish?
In the 15 mins it took me to write this post nearly 500 people (mostly Children) starved to death, 15 children died of HIV/AIDS and another 15 became infected.
Those getting hot under the collar on this issue and the linguistic legacy of America's brutal past should step back and gain a little perspective. Oh and lest we trivialise, 150000 McDonalds hamburgers were sold in the same period!