It takes more than a language to unify a nation

[Laurence Horn]

At 2:07 PM -0500 2/24/07, Bethany K. Dumas wrote:
>I should probably stay out of this discussion, since I have not read all
>the posts on the topic, but I cannot. I write to respond to this comment:
>
>|When I voted in November in Berkeley, California, I first had to choose
>|which language I wished to use. The choice was between Chinese, Korean,
>|Spanish, English or Tagalog [sic]. It seems to me not unreasonable that
>|since only U.S. citizens vote, and that one has to pass an English
>language test to become a citizen, the ballet should be in English.
>
>I'm confused. The ballot was available in English, according to your list.
>That is, it was available in your preferred language. As we all know,
>second language speakers are often more comfortable and more competent in
>their native languages, even if they can pass tests in other languages. So
>why exactly do you object to the ballot's being offered in the preferred
>languages of others? Is it expense you are concerned with?
>
No, if you read carefully, Bethany, the objection had nothing to do
with the multilingual availability of the *ballot* (although I'm not
sure why Tagalog earns a [sic]; is there some reason why Filipinos
are inherently less worthy of accommodation?).  It was to *ballet*,
and presumably other art-forms, being performed in languages other
English.  I'm sympathetic to the apprehension; some operas I've seen
were hard enough to understand in English.

LH

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org