the mother language

[Herb Stahlke]

And Strine isn't even listed in the Ethnologue.

Herb

On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 10:56 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      the mother language
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Heard on the car radio:
>
> An Australian government commission has discovered that there are
> over 100,000 British citizens eligible to vote in Australia under an
> existing law.  (They become eligible after residence for, if I
> remember, eight years.)  A government official commented that this is
> enough to affect election results, and should not be
> permitted.  (Shades of the Irish in the United States in the
> 1840s.)  The proposal is to deny these people the right to vote if
> they do not become Australian citizens within five years.
>
> Is five years enough for these Britishers to learn the language?
>
> Joel
>
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