Linguist: Increasing immigration sparks debate over language (fwd)

[Matthew Ward]

Good article, and I certainly agree that English-only is not only very
wrong but also pointless as well.

I was, however, somewhat amused to hear the claim that English is spoken
by the "majority of people around the world."  The world has a
population of more than 6 billion, and even very liberal estimates of
those who are reasonably proficient in English usually put the figure at
around 1.5 billion, with many other more conservative estimates putting
the figure more around 800 million to one billion.  Even the most
liberal estimates would put the number of first, second, and foreign
language speakers of English at only around 25% of the world's
population.  I would not be surprised if nearly half of the world's
population has studied English at one time or another, but obviously
studying often does not lead to ability to speak a language.

phil cash cash wrote:

>Linguist: Increasing immigration sparks debate over language
>http://www.bgdailynews.com/articles/stories/public/200403/31/0daJ_news.html
>
>By Jason Dooley, jdooley at bgdailynews.com
>Wednesday, March 31, 2004
>
>With the American population becoming increasingly multilingual, debates
>over whether the nation should adopt English as an official language
>have intensified over the past several years.
>
>But the United States is far from alone in struggling with the issue,
>linguist Christina Bratt Paulston said during a lecture at Western
>Kentucky University on Tuesday night.
>
>Â~SA couple of weeks ago, 5,000 high-school students rioted in the streets
>of Riga, the capital of Latvia,Â~T Paulston said. Â~SThey did it because
>the Latvian Parliament had passed a law that said all Latvian students
>had to have at least 65 percent of their curriculum in the Latvian
>language.Â~T
>Most of the students were of Russian descent, the children of those who
>occupied Latvia for half a century until the early 1990s.
>
>Â~SNearly all of the Russian speakers in Latvia are monolingual, while
>nearly all of the Latvian speakers are multilingual,Â~T Paulston said.
>Â~SThis is a classic situation for language shift, and the Latvian
>Parliament was trying to prevent the death of their language.Â~T
>
>A similar situation exists now in France, where universal public
>education was one of the outcomes of the French Revolution in the late
>18th century.
>The spread of public education in the French language lead to the death
>of several other dialects, such as Occitan, Paulston said.
>
>Now, the Academie Francaise closely guards its language Â~V to the point
>that the French Supreme Court had to decide whether the word
>Â~ShamburgerÂ~T should be accepted into the French language.
>
>Language rights are becoming a growing issue worldwide as mass
>communication and globalization of trade have made the world a much
>smaller place, Paulston said.
>
>Â~SWe had a church excommunicated by the Vatican not too long ago because
>they still wanted to use Latin in the mass,Â~T she said. Â~SSo these issues
>have been coming up a lot in different contexts.Â~T
>
>The idea of language rights is a fairly new one, but so is the idea of
>human rights in general, Paulston said.
>
>Â~SHuman rights is a fairly generally accepted notion, but you may be
>surprised to hear that it really didnÂ~Rt exist until after World War II
>and the reaction to the Nazi atrocities,Â~T she said.
>
>The United Nations, European Union and other international organizations
>are being forced to look at the issue as more and more places like
>Latvia face it, Paulston said.
>
>Â~SItÂ~Rs coming up for the UN, and at present, the EU is blackmailing
>countries like Romania, Latvia and Bulgaria for recognition of minority
>languages,Â~T she said. Â~SThe EU has a charter for minority languages and
>they just last week had a conference in Caledonia, Spain, about how
>poor the EU is about language policies.Â~T
>
>Meanwhile, in the United States, 28 states have adopted English as their
>official language Â~V Kentucky did so in 1984.
>
>Two others recognize two official languages Â~V English and Cajun French
>for Louisiana, and English and the Hawaiian language for Hawaii.
>
>Â~SItÂ~Rs interesting that the Hawaiian language, which is dead as far as
>usage, is still recognized as an official language,Â~T Paulston said.
>Moves to classify the United States as English-only are probably
>ill-conceived, since the vast majority of Americans already speak the
>language, as do a majority of people around the world, she said.
>Despite an unprecedented spike in immigration to America during the
>1990s, only 3 percent of U.S. citizens said they spoke little or no
>English in the 2000 census.
>
>However, 47 million Americans, about 20 percent of the countryÂ~Rs
>population, said they speak a different language in their homes.
>Â~SMost (immigrants) are bilingual,Â~T Paulston said. Â~SThatÂ~Rs what makes
>this issue sad Â~V the loss of the heritage language. Ninety-four percent
>of second-generation Latin Americans speak English, but only 60 percent
>speak their native tongue.Â~T
>
>English-only, then, is a movement with little purpose, she concluded.
>Â~SThe argument for English-only is based on the idea that the most
>dominant world language in the history of the world is under siege,Â~T
>she said. Â~SIt is not; it has never been stronger.Â~T
>
>Jeanne Logsdon, a Western senior from Louisville, said she hopes America
>doesnÂ~Rt go English-only.
>
>Â~SIÂ~Rm going to be a teacher, and I donÂ~Rt want to be in the situation
>where I canÂ~Rt communicate with my students,Â~T Logsdon said. Â~SSo if I
>need to speak in another language, then thatÂ~Rs fine.Â~T
>
>Logsdon, who speaks some French in addition to English, said she wishes
>she had taken Spanish classes during her education to better enable her
>to work with students.
>
>Â~SI spent two months in California last summer, working with inner-city
>kids,Â~T she said. Â~SSometimes, it was just awful because they spoke
>Spanish and we couldnÂ~Rt speak to each other.Â~T
>
>
>